UNESCO Prize for Girls’ and Women’s Education 2024

Gender equality in education is a basic right and a prerequisite to build inclusive societies. Although notable progress has been made over the last 20 years, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has caused unprecedented disruption to education and exacerbated existing inequalities, disproportionately affecting girls and women.

Today, 127 million girls of primary and secondary school age are out of school,  three quarters  of children who may never set foot in school are girls while women still accounted for almost two-thirds of all adults unable to read in 2019. (UNESCO Institute for Statistics).

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 US $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.

Established by UNESCO’s Executive Board, the Prize directly contributes to the attainment of the 2030 Sustainable Development agenda, particularly SDG 4 on education and 5 on gender equality. It also supports UNESCO’s global priorities included in the Medium-term Strategy 2022-2029 and the Gender Equality Action Plan 2014-2021 (GEAP II), as well as the UNESCO strategy for gender equality in and through education (2019-2025).

The project/ programme of the candidate will be assessed by the Jury based on the following three criteria:

1. 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; and/or

• removing barriers to girls’ and women’s education, such as gender bias and stereotypes.

2. Innovation

The project/programme stimulates, and/or draws 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 mobilized 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.

3. 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; and/or
• generation of further initiatives to advance girls’ and women’s education as a result of the project/programme.