Partners
Right from the start ESSA has been working alongside partners in and outside of Africa who share our vision and belief that by working together, we will each be more successful in achieving our goals.
Partners
Ashesi is increasingly recognised as one of the finest universities in Africa, with an educational experience proven to prepare students for successful lives and careers.
Ashesi has partnered with ESSA through ESSA’s paid internships for African students, giving them the opportunity to fully take part in a number of educational projects.
Atelier de Recherche sur l’Education au Burkina Faso (AREB) is an initiative to join up Burkinabé education researchers and provide options for dialogue with policy makers in the country. ESSA has been delighted to assist AREB’s work by supporting their conference “L’éducation au Burkina Faso: progrès, défis actuels et perspectives” in November 2017.
Decent Jobs for Youth was launched in 2016 as a UN system-wide effort, focusing on the youth employment challenge that is central to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
They work together to share knowledge, leverage resources, and take action at the country and regional level to support young people in accessing decent work and productive employment worldwide.
eBASE Africa is an international charity registered in Cameroon that works to make basic services more effective by ensuring the best available research evidence is applied in service delivery.
We have been working with eBase on a data alliance for education, making the best use of data to improve education in sub-Saharan Africa.
The Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC) is an agency of Ghana mandated to assure quality at the tertiary education level.
GTEC is ESSA’s first government partner for the pilot on “Demographics of Faculty.”
The Inter University Council for East Africa (IUCEA) was established in 1980 and originally called the Inter University Committee. IUCEA is hosted in Kampala, Uganda, with its main objective being to facilitate networking among universities in East Africa and with universities outside the region.
IUCEA works with ESSA on the Demographics of Faculty (DAF) initiative.
Network for international policies and cooperation in education and training (NORRAG) core mandate and strength is to produce, disseminate and broker critical knowledge and to build capacity for and with a wide range of stakeholders.
NORRAG and ESSA have partnered with AFD to support research on education in Francophone West Africa, particularly in Burkina Faso.
Network for international policies and cooperation in education and training (NORRAG)
The Partnership for African Social and Governance Research (PASGR) is an independent, non-partisan, pan-African not-for-profit organisation working to enhance research excellence in governance and public policy that contributes to the overall wellbeing of women and men.
Quilt.AI is a technology company that creates empathy at scale between organisations and the billions of people on the planet.
ESSA worked with Quilt.AI in developing a digital analysis to understand students' views on scholarships and faculty motivations and challenges in sub-Saharan Africa.
The Research for Equitable Access and Learning (REAL) Centre is one of the world’s top research institutions on education.
The REAL Centre is collaborating with ESSA to build a strong network of education researchers in sub-Saharan Africa, including those specialising in early childhood development, foundational literacy and numeracy. ESSA and the REAL Centre collaborated in 2017 to create the African Education Research Database, which now contains over 5,000 peer-reviewed publications on education produced by African education researchers.
The Research for Equitable Access and Learning (REAL) Centre
Southern Hemisphere is an African, women-owned socio-economic development consultancy with the single-minded focus of creating meaningful social change. Its participatory approach involves collaborating with its clients to achieve a shared end vision for beneficiaries.
AAU is one of the key players in higher education in Africa. With almost 400 members, its mission is to enhance the quality and relevance of higher education in Africa and to strengthen its contribution to the continent’s development.
AAU formed a partnership with ESSA in 2017, and we have been working together on a range of projects, most notably the "Demographics of Faculty" and the creation of a "Pan African Academic Jobs Board."
In 2017, Ashesi University started the Education Collaborative initiative. The initiative leads a collaborative of Higher Learning Institutions in Africa to collectively and sustainably raise the bar for higher education outcomes.
Jacobs University is a private, English-language campus-based university in Bremen, Germany. It offers the highest standards in research and teaching.
Jacobs University has partnered with ESSA in a number of ways, including workshops with its African students and paid projects and assignments to support our social media activity.
The Population Reference Bureau (PRB), in Washington, DC, is one of the world’s leading demographic institutions. It informs people around the world about population, health, and the environment. PRB empowers people to use that information to advance the well-being of current and future generations.
PRB works with AAU and ESSA on the DAF initiative.
The Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM), established by ten vice chancellors in 2004, is a consortium of 121 African universities operating within 38 countries spanning the African continent. The consortium will be a key partner for ESSA in the next phase of our strategy.
The Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM).
The University of Warwick has been an important partner for ESSA, even before it was founded. The catalyst to create ESSA was the experience of its founder, Warwick alumnus Patrick Dunne, in founding and growing another charity with Warwick, Warwick in Africa (WIA).
Since 2006, WIA has benefitted over 465,000 young Africans in deprived and rural areas with transformed Maths and English teaching. Warwick also provided support and encouragement in the early proof-of-concept research for ESSA.
Zizi Afrique Foundation consolidates evidence and innovates solutions through collaborative networking. This is with the aim of shaping policy and practice to equip all children and youth with competencies for life and work.
We are working on a data alliance for education, ensuring that data is used to improve education in sub-Saharan Africa.
Current Funders
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has provided funding to ESSA to augment its work in promoting African researchers.
The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation is a family foundation established in 1944 to provide funds to nonprofit organisations working to improve the lives of individuals living in poverty and experiencing disadvantage throughout the world.
Conrad N. Hilton Foundation’s $1.5 million commitment will support ESSA’s research project in collaboration with the Research for Equitable Access and Learning (REAL) Centre at the University of Cambridge, UK.
Carnegie Corporation of New York is one of America’s oldest grantmaking foundations that seeks to promote the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding.
ESSA, together with IUCEA, AAU, and PRB, have secured $390,000 of funding from Carnegie Corporation of New York for a two-year research project focusing on understanding and addressing ‘faculty challenges’.
Imaginable Futures is a global philanthropic investment firm driven by impact first and the belief that learning is key to well-being and equitable, healthy systems.
ESSA got funding from Imaginable Futures to augment its work promoting African researchers.
The EdTech Hub leads rigorous academic research and gives evidence-based advice about how to use technology in education.
We have been working with the EdTech Hub on a data alliance for education, making the best use of data to improve education in sub-Saharan Africa.
The Robert Bosch Stiftung is a leading European private foundation and ESSA’s major funder at start up.
The Bosch Foundation has also provided considerable non-financial support, including seconding ESSA’s founding director, Olaf Hahn, providing board support through the trusteeship of their CEO, and providing access to its broad network of relationships in Africa and around the world.
As part of Canada’s foreign affairs and development efforts, the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) champions and funds research and innovation within and alongside developing regions to drive global change.
ESSA has been supporting IDRC's research, particularly the IDRC-funded COVID-19 research in West Africa.
Previous Funders
Dubai Cares has been working towards providing children and young people in developing countries with access to quality education.
Dubai Cares partnered with ESSA in 2019, providing $1.5 million to strengthen ESSA as an organisation and accelerate its vision of high-quality education in sub-Saharan Africa that enables young people to achieve their ambitions.
The Mastercard Foundation is one of the world’s leading foundations in the higher education space, with a strong presence in Africa, especially in capacity building and scholarships. The Mastercard Foundation was a natural partner for ESSA on the "Demographics of Faculty" project, providing funding for the Ghana pilot as well as other support and insights.
The Jacobs Foundation has a main focus on the promotion of child and youth development all over the world. Seeing the value of ESSA’s partnership with the REAL Centre at the University of Cambridge to promote African researchers, the Jacobs Foundation was a key funder of that work.
As a significant foundation in the education space, the Jacobs Foundation supported ESSA in building its profile and relationships in West Africa.
The Schaufler Foundation aims to combine entrepreneurship with science, research, education, and the arts.
In the field of education, the foundation supports a variety of universities in Germany. It collaborated with ESSA to expand its activities into Africa. The Schaufler Foundation contributed significantly to ESSA's Pilot Scholarship Impact Hub project.
UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is a global organisation dedicated to saving lives, protecting rights, and building a better future for refugees, forcibly displaced communities, and stateless people.
UNHCR and ESSA mapped tertiary education and vocational opportunities in West and Central Africa.