Accelerator Program 2.0

Background

The Accelerator Program 2.0 is a World Bank initiative supporting governments in low- and middle-income countries in strengthening foundational learning and reducing learning poverty. It focuses on enhancing interactions between teachers, students, and learning content, often referred to as the instructional core, by providing technical assistance for early-grade teaching and learning improvements.

The program was first launched in 2020 in partnership with the Gates Foundation, the U.K.'s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, UNICEF, and USAID. Its primary objective is to demonstrate that significant improvements in foundational skills can be achieved at scale and within a few years with strong political and financial commitment, evidence-based policies, and a focus on learning outcomes.

During its first phase (2020-2023), the program supported participating countries in advancing foundational learning by strengthening institutional commitment, embedding learning goals in education sector plans, and mobilizing domestic and external financing. Governments introduced or expanded early-grade reading and numeracy programs, developed teacher coaching systems, and improved the quality and frequency of learning assessments. For example, Sierra Leone launched a national literacy initiative aligned with its sector plan; Pakistan enhanced its national assessment framework; Mozambique integrated foundational skills into the curriculum and teacher training; and Edo State in Nigeria strengthened teacher support and digital learning under its existing EdoBEST program. Across the cohort, political leadership and greater partner alignment increased visibility and momentum for reform.

Accelerator 2.0 Approach

Accelerator 2.0 expands the original program's scope and ambition by offering flexible, targeted, and evidence-based technical and financial support to participating countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, with additional engagement in South Asia, and the Middle East and North Africa. Its overarching goal is to help governments accelerate improvements in foundational learning outcomes by improving the quality of teaching and learning at the classroom level, strengthening delivery systems, and embedding foundational learning more deeply into the education policy landscape. It strategically focuses on improving interactions among the teacher, student, and learning content, often referred to as the instructional core (see Figure 1). Such interventions include structured pedagogy programs, evidence-aligned literacy and numeracy curricula, quality textbooks with aligned teacher guides, practical and skills-based teacher training and support, and learning assessments.

Figure 1: Core Areas for Foundational Learning Supported Under the Accelerator Program

How the Program Works

Accelerator 2.0 is supported by the Foundational Learning Compact (FLC), a Multi-Donor Trust Fund housed in the World Bank's Education Global Department. The program provides flexible and demand-driven country grants, managed and executed by the World Bank, to provide focused technical support for designing and implementing education operations in foundational learning. Financed activities are closely integrated into and supportive of ongoing World Bank engagements rather than separate stand-alone tasks. They enhance the focus and quality of the programs' work on the instructional core, leveraging a World Bank-financed education portfolio in foundational learning to multiply impact. The program operates through three mutually reinforcing components:

Country Grants

Grants advance government-led efforts to strengthen foundational learning through interventions such as structured pedagogy programs, quality textbooks and teacher guides, teacher training and coaching, assessments to guide instruction, and system mechanisms that maintain instructional coherence. These grants are directly linked to ongoing or pipeline World Bank-financed education projects.

In 2024, the Accelerator welcomed a new cohort of countries, including the Central African Republic, Côte d'Ivoire, Eswatini, Ghana, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, the Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, and Sierra Leone. Across these countries, Accelerator 2.0 tailors its support to the unique contexts of participating governments, with strategies varying based on national priorities and system needs.

In Ghana, technical assistance focuses on aligning instructional time and curriculum for early grades, as well as strengthening teacher professional development and classroom observation tools. In Côte d'Ivoire, the program supports the documentation of foundational learning reform scale-up and the enhancement of teacher coaching through classroom observations. In Senegal, activities include updating the Grade 3 language arts scope and sequence across multiple languages, supporting the procurement of high-quality teacher guides and student books, and launching a track-and-trace mechanism for materials. Meanwhile, in Tanzania, support centers are reviewing and digitizing early- grade teacher guides in reading and arithmetic, informed by user-centered studies on how teachers use these materials. These examples demonstrate how Accelerator 2.0 offers differentiated, context-responsive support to strengthen the instructional core and enhance foundational learning outcomes.

Regional Expertise and High-Level Stakeholder Engagement

Recognizing the need for local capacity and technical leadership, Accelerator 2.0 supports the recruitment of experienced experts within regions and countries to work directly with country teams. The program also supports regional convenings and high-level stakeholder engagements, such as the Africa Foundational Learning Exchange (FLEX) held in Kigali in November 2024.

Knowledge Creation and Exchange

The program drives demand-driven knowledge generation. This includes producing global public goods, such as toolkits, technical notes, and guidance documents, that distill lessons from implementation and address pressing technical questions related to foundational learning. The global team also connects countries to complementary initiatives, such as Read@Home, the What Works Hub, and the Engeza, a Gates Foundation-supported technical assistance (TA) Hub.