Research and Evidence Building in support of the USAID Education Strategy Christine Beggs, Senior Education Advisor Office of Education, USAID/Washington

USAID Education Strategy (2011-2015) Goal 1: Improved reading skills for 100 million children in primary grades by 2015. Goal 2: Improved ability of tertiary and workforce development programs to produce a workforce with relevant skills to support country development goals by 2015. Goal 3: Increased equitable access to education in crisis and conflict environments for 15 million learners by 2015.

Research Agenda is framed by Education Strategy Illustrative examples: Improved early-grade reading: Assessment and Open Data Impact of parental and community engagement? Youth workforce development: Skills: technical and non-cognitive, relative importance? Which transition-to-work interventions increase employment? Equitable access in conflict and crisis settings: Accelerated Learning Programs: best models, limitations? Relationship between school safety and access/learning?

Cross-cutting Research and Evaluation Themes Cost-effectiveness Collecting cost data Building cost analyses into evaluations Looking at costs (and impact) at scale Scale and Sustainability Studies on scale and sustainability (retrospective) Experimenting with new models for sustainability Transparency of Implementation Fidelity

Operationalizing our Research Agenda USAID Evaluation Policy and Agency’s increased commitment to research and evidence building. Linking our global agenda to country-level projects. Central funding and contract in place to support rigorous evaluations. Supporting Communities of Practice to further refine and operationalize research agenda. Co-founded and co-chair of the Building Evidence in Education (BE2) Donor Working Group

Additional information about USAID funding opportunities: - www. fbo Additional information about USAID funding opportunities: - www.fbo.gov - www.grants.gov - http://www.usaid.gov/work-usaid/get-grant-or-contract/grant-and-contract-process