International development

The Girls Initiative for Resilient Learning and Support (GIRLS) Project aims to help women and girls to finish secondary school and to transition to Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) or tertiary education in Malawi (2 districts), Rwanda (10 districts), and Zambia (4 districts).

This programme is being delivered by Oxfam GB between July 2024 and March 2029, GIRLS started implementation in October 2024 and will run for five years, supported by Scottish Government funding of up to £1m per year. 

It is implemented through partnerships with:

• the Young Women’s Christian Association in Zambia and Rwanda
• the Concerned Youth Organisation in Malawi 
• government ministries, departments and agencies responsible for education and gender.

GIRLS achieves its aims through providing scholarships to girls, including those with disabilities, as well as critical wrap-around activities. These include mentorship, counselling, career guidance, and teacher capacity strengthening.

Visit Oxfam’s project page for GIRLS

Progress

In Year 1 (financial year 2024/25), GIRLS reported the following results:

Zambia

Scholarships were awarded to 1,390 girls in Central Province (which is the geographical focus of the project) across four districts (Chitambo, Kabwe, Kapiri-Mposhi, and Serenje), comprising of 40 individuals enrolled in Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institutions, and 1350 at secondary schools. YWCA in Zambia have worked with the Campaign for Female Education (CAMFED) and Forum for African Women Educationalists Zambia (FAWEZA) to share data on the scholarships to avoid duplication of efforts and to ensure resources do not go to the same recipients.

Malawi

During a period in which extreme weather events and food inflation have been a significant challenge, scholarships were awarded to 500 students, split between Machinga and Balaka districts, with 300 bicycles distributed to scholarship recipients.

Rwanda

Scholarships were awarded to 104 girls, including 10 vulnerable girls with disability and 38 single mothers were successfully enrolled in three Higher Learning Institutions.

The World Bank Inclusive Education Policy Academy and Learning Exchange (IEPALE) is a three-year programme, which we have supported since March 2024. The programme supports policy-makers from our partner countries in Africa to strengthen the delivery of inclusive education policy in their countries. Read the news release about this project.

We support the development of inclusive education practices globally and to supporting our partner countries to achieve equitable access to quality education. This initiative is our first-ever contribution to a World Bank programme, made through its Foundational Learning Compact Trust Fund, multi-donor trust fund supporting early childhood, primary, and secondary education.

IEPALE is in its third year. During that time, our contribution (£356,000 in Year 1, £431,000 in Year 2, and £177,000 in year 3) has supported the policy-makers of Malawi, Rwanda and Zambia to build more inclusive education systems.

IEPALE’s main objectives are to:

• strengthen education systems to be more inclusive for all learners, through knowledge-sharing and peer support
• strengthening the technical capacity of policymakers and practitioners to build quality education systems for all, and specifically for learners with disabilities.

In delivering EPALE, the World Bank has used the latest research in inclusive education to design a series of online and hybrid learning modules. It has also used virtual and in-person workshops on a range of themes (including teacher education and education technology, community leadership on inclusion and education management information), and site visits to classrooms and disability-inclusive education services.

Progress

Malawi

IEPALE has helped Malawi to ensure that Continuous Professional Development activities, including school leadership, are inclusive from the design stage. IEPALE has shaped the development of Malawi’s Inclusive Education Policy and its strategy, with Malawian government policy makers now taking forward a proposal to turn one of the existing teacher education colleges into an inclusive education college.

Rwanda

In Rwanda, IEPALE has supported the development of a teacher guide on identification, assessment, and referral tools for  children with disabilities  and a training teachers for use in 2025, as well as plans for a teacher training centre for inclusive education, expected to be operational in 2026. 

Zambia

In Zambia, IEPALE supported the incorporation of modules on inclusive education in the Continuous Professional Development framework for Early Childhood Education (ECE). IEPALE has also supported the planning of Centres of Excellence in inclusive education, to be implemented in three primary and two secondary schools in Lusaka.

Regional

In February 2025, a regional workshop in Rwanda helped policy-makers from Malawi and Zambia to share experiences and lessons as well as to share insights from Rwanda's implementation of their competence-based curriculum and inclusive education practices.

Find out more about the progress of IEPALE (World Bank website)

The Scotland-Pakistan Scholarships scheme for Young Women and Girls is the Scottish Government’s longest-running international development programme. Its aim is to remove barriers for women and girls to pursue and complete secondary education and transition to higher education. This includes both bachelor’s and master’s degrees, with a focus on supporting women to study STEM subjects.

The scheme is implemented by the British Council Pakistan, who works with regional organisations to identify and award scholarships to young women and girls across Pakistan, targeting those from marginalised minority groups and students with disabilities. Forty percent of the funding is targeted towards girls from minority religious groups (20%)  and disabled students (20%).

We are providing the British Council Pakistan with up to £500,000 to operate the scheme in 2025 to 2026.

More information about the Scholarship scheme (British Council website)

Progress

• since 2013, the scheme has successfully enabled more than 20,000 female students from low-income backgrounds and communities to pursue education at both school (18000) and university levels (2000) in Pakistan 
• in 2022, with additional SG support, the program further targeted students from communities affected by floods in Pakistan
• the scheme was nominated by the UK’s Ambassador to UNESCO for the UNESCO Prize for Women and Girls Education in 2024
• in 2025, an independent evaluation by Ipsos showed that the scholarship programme had made a significant contribution to the employment and empowerment of women in Pakistan. It found that 73% of beneficiaries affirmed that they would not have been able to pursue their education without the scholarship, with 49% indicated they would have had to work part-time to fund their education without the scholarship.

In 2024/25 we supported, through £150,000 of Scottish government funding, a small number of scholars in Zambia to pursue online MBAs through Heriot-Watt University’s online campus. This programme is closed  More about the MBA Scholarships in Zambia project.

We will also continue supporting the Development Education Centres, which aim to inspire learning communities and young people in Scotland to realise their roles as good global citizens. This initiative is supported in 2025/26 with £330,000 of Scottish Government funding (comprising £230,000 from education portfolio budgets and £100,000 from the International Development Fund).