Experiences with capacity building for international leaders of systems-change for girls’ education

• In Event: Roundtable Session (Tuesday VII)
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: Engaging governments to ensure sustainability; three case studies of civil society efforts to promote gender and girls’ education

Proposal

The Echidna Global Scholars Program is a visiting fellowship hosted by the Center for Universal Education (CUE) at the Brookings Institution. The program aims to support the generation of new evidence in girls’ education as well as to strengthen the policy impact of NGO leaders and academics who have substantial experience and ties to developing countries. Echidna Scholars spend four to six months at Brookings pursuing research on issues relevant to improving learning opportunities and outcomes for girls in the developing world, as well as participate in a leadership development program aimed at strengthening Scholars’ emotional intelligence and socioemotional skills. Upon completion of their fellowship, CUE supports the scholars in implementing an action plan that applies their new skills and recommendations in an effort to inform country-level policy and practice of girls’ education.

To date, Brookings has hosted 28 scholars from 17 countries around the world. Alumni of the program have gone on to have varying degrees of impact on girls’ education policy, practice, and knowledge generation. Some alumni have seen their recommendations taken up directly by policymakers, while others have seen their organizations expand in scope or scale in their communities, and others have seen their own influence grow as a result of the program. The presentation will cover lessons learned from 6 years of implementing this program, specifically around how the program contributes to developing education diplomacy in girls’ education leadership. Lessons learned will be organized at the level of the individual, the network of girls’ education leaders that has developed as a result of the program, and the field of girls’ education.

Author

• Christina Kwauk, Brookings Institution