The COVID-19 pandemic has caused major disruptions to education. Across the world, schools have been partially or wholly closed, teachers and students have been forced to quarantine at home for short or extended periods of time, social learning opportunities have been cancelled and community interactions have been curtailed. Countries have been forced to find ways to adapt to these educational disruptions, by providing remote learning for students, adapting curriculum and assessments, and supporting the health and wellbeing of students, teachers and families. The COVID-19 MILO (Monitoring Impacts on Learning Outcomes) study was designed to provide information on the impact of the pandemic on learning outcomes in six countries in Africa – Burkina Faso, Burundi, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Senegal and Zambia. As these countries work towards the goal of meeting Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4.1.1b,1 it is essential that progress towards this goal continues to be monitored. The MILO project was implemented to provide a way for countries to measure learning progress against SDG 4.1.1b prior to, during and after the pandemic.