She conducted the research as a 2024 Echidna Global Scholar, revealing the findings at the Research and Policy Symposium on Gender Equality in and through Education hosted by the Center for Universal Education at BROOKINGS, focused on “Centering Marginalized Girls and Women for More Inclusive Policy.”
Re-watch the Symposium here:
During the event, four 2024 Echidna Global Scholars presenting their research on the challenges marginalized girls and women face in education across various contexts. They explored how we can address women and girls’ unique challenges holistically, including by centering them in research, policy and action to promote gender equality in and through education.
As an Echidna Global Scholar, Lydia Wilbard researched women’s leadership pathways in Tanzania’s secondary education sector from July to October 2024, seeking to identify the factors enabling or hindering women’s advancement into leadership. She also examined how current policies, strategies, and practices support or impede progress.
Findings reveal that social narratives about gender roles and about leadership translate into opportunities and barriers. These narratives manifest in perceptions held by women themselves as well as in their relations with others around them, and they interact with institutional policies, practices, and structures. Taken together these limit women’s advancements into leadership positions, and while promotion policies and guidelines exist, they often fail to address these issues
Read Lydia Wilbard's research and recommendations
As a 2024 Echinda Global Scholar, CAMFED's Lydia Wilbard is exploring pathways into educational leadership in Tanzania, with the goal of deepening our understanding of the root causes of the gender imbalance in leadership roles in Tanzania’s education system.
At a symposium hosted by the Research for Equitable Access and Learning (REAL) Centre at the University of Cambridge, the University of Dar es Salaam and CAMFED, representatives of government Ministries, researchers, global philanthropic organisations and practitioners joined forces to explore how community engagement, women's leadership and a conducive policy environment can provide the perfect recipe for education systems transformation.
New research shows that CAMFED’s Learner Guides have become “agents of change” in challenging harmful gender social norms in their communities.
Ruth Wagner $21.4
Tonya Freeman $106
Traci Holloway $158
Poe Cee $63.4
Rita Kungel $14
Kathlyn Hendricks $158
Emiliano Conde $263
Jeff Tulk $5000
Lori Gonzales $26.6
Sherolyn Duckworth $200
Deborah Lee-Goldsmith $211
Nancy Kovacic $21.4
Jean Simpson $42.4
Lara Holding-Jones £6.5
Karen Knoke $10
TIME100 Most Influential People
CAMFED CEO, Angeline Murimirwa, named to TIME’s list of the world’s 100 most influential people.
