Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 was a challenging, unpredictable year for all of us. At Aflatoun International, we had to innovate, adapt, and find new ways of supporting our partners and delivering social and financial education to children and youth worldwide. We have been inspired by the resilience and creativity of our partner network. We are proud to present our Annual Report 2020, highlighting the key achievements and progress of our partner network and secretariat from the year.
Navigating through COVID-19
As schools and community centres closed across the world, Aflatoun network partners were heavily impacted, with the majority forced to halt their usual operations. However, recognising that the demand for life skills education remained more crucial than ever, our partners kept reaching out to the most vulnerable children and youth, and adapted their social and financial education programmes in three main ways: preventing COVID-19 cases in vulnerable communities, distance learning- both offline and online, and mitigating the impact of the pandemic. This included innovative solutions such as utilising WhatsApp, YouTube, radio, and television shows to disseminate at-home learning activities, educational challenges, and accurate information on COVID-19. Partners also encouraged students to apply their social and financial skills to address pandemic challenges, supporting community environmental projects, youth entrepreneurship, and mental wellbeing initiatives. To support this inspirational work, the Aflatoun secretariat developed an online partner platform to connect our partners to us and each other, disseminate online training and digital resources, as well as provide a space for community knowledge-sharing.
Regional and national impact
Due to COVID-related travel and gathering restrictions, we delivered our regional meetings online through 24 online sessions across the latter half of 2020. Through these, partners and stakeholders were able to exchange knowledge and best practices. Across the regions, we welcomed new partners, delivered both virtual and in-person Trainings for Trainers, conducted online events to chat live with children, youth, teachers and Aflatoun partners about creative responses to pandemic challenges, developed localised content, and piloted our Aflateen+ digital learning curriculum. We were also delighted to make progress on implementing social and financial education into national curricula, signing agreements or supporting projects in Eswatini, Haiti, Mali, Togo, Madagascar, Kyrgyzstan, and The Democratic Republic of the Congo. We also continued our support for regional Financial Inclusion strategies, working with a range of organisations like the Central Bank of West African Countries (BCEAO), and the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO).
Our 2020 at a glance
- We worked in 102 countries
- We worked with 300+ partners
- We reached 5.6 million children and young people through our partners- 3.1 million through civil society organisations, and 2.5 million through governments
- Of these, 53% were girls
- We were ranked 23rd in the NGO Top 500 World Best Social Good Organisations 2020
- We were selected for HundrED 2021 Global Collection of education innovations
- We were recognised and featured in the African Union policy brief for promoting youth entrepreneurship on the continent
- Employed 30 people from over 20 countries in our secretariat in Amsterdam.
Due to the unprecedented nature of the last year, we will be taking 2021 as a bridging year, whilst we develop a new strategy for 2025. Meanwhile, we remain committed to supporting our growing partner network in delivering innovative, locally-appropriate, quality programmes, and will continue to advocate for the necessity to empower every child and young person with social and financial skills.
