Nominations Open for 2019 UNESCO Prize for Girls’ and Women’s Education

Deadline: 28 May 2019

Nominations are open for the 2019 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Prize for Girls’ and Women’s Education.

The UNESCO Prize for Girls’ and Women’s Education honours outstanding and innovative contributions made by individuals, institutions and organizations to advance girls’ and women’s education. It is the first UNESCO Prize of this nature and is unique in showcasing successful projects that improve and promote the educational prospects of girls and women and in turn, the quality of their lives.

Funded by the Government of the People’s Republic of China, the Prize is conferred annually to two laureates and consists of an award of USD 50,000 each to help further their work in the area of girls’ and women’s education. The Director-General of UNESCO awarded the Prize for the first time in 2016.

Eligibility Criteria

Individuals, institutions or organizations having effectively contributed to the advancement of girls’ and women’s education. Nominations must focus on an established project or programme of the nominee, which has been running for at least two years, and meets the selection criteria.
Governments of UNESCO Members States via their Permanent Delegations to UNESCO and National Commissions for UNESCO, and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in official partnership with UNESCO can make up to 3 nominations. Self-nominations are not accepted.
The nominations will only be considered if the project/programme:
- has a clear focus on advancing girls’ and women’s education, and the promotion of gender equality in and through education, and contributes to one or more of the five priority areas of the Prize:
  - Participation: Supporting girls to transition from primary education to lower-secondary education and to complete full basic education
  - Literacy: Supporting adolescent girls and young women to acquire literacy skills
  - Environment: Supporting the creation of a gender-responsive and safe teaching-learning environment
  - Teachers: Engaging teachers to be change agents with gender-responsive teaching attitudes and practices
  - Skills: Supporting girls and women to acquire knowledge/skills for life and work
- has already been running for at least two years; and
- shows evidence that it may be replicable, scalable and/or provide significant learning potential for initiatives in other contexts

Selection Criteria

Impact: The project/programme’s impact should be qualitatively and/or quantitatively measureable, and deliver tangible results relative to the invested resources. This can include demonstrable changes in:
- attitudes, beliefs and practices in favour of girls’ and women’s education;
- girls’ educational participation, attendance, completion and learning outcomes;
- removing barriers to girls’ and women’s education, such as gender bias and stereotypes.
Innovation: The project/programme is stimulating, and/or drawing on, innovative approaches advancing girls’ and women’s education. This includes new ways of working where “business as usual” has failed, and transformative “out-of-the-box” thinking and actions. The project/programme can demonstrate innovation in terms of:
- the themes covered;
- the methodology employed;
- the channels used to create change for girls’ and women’s education;
- the specific knowledge mobilised about gender-related aspects of girls’ and women’s education in order to elaborate innovative solutions; and/or
- other aspects, such as tools and products advancing girls’ and women’s education.
Sustainability: The project/programme has taken steps, ideally from its design or implementation phases, to ensure it will have a lasting impact on girls’ and women’s education beyond the project lifecycle. This may include efforts to ensure the:
- continuation of local action in favour of girls’ and women’s education;
- institutionalization of approaches, tools and products, to advance girls’ and women’s education;
- sustainable ways to ensure stakeholders’ mobilization;
- generation of further initiatives to advance girls’ and women’s education as a result of the project/programme.