IDS is a Global Learning Partner to Education Out Loud, the Global Partnership for Education fund for advocacy and social accountability. Education Out Loud (EOL) supports civil society to be active, representative, and influential in shaping education policies to better meet the needs of communities, especially of vulnerable and marginalized populations.

The overall goal of EOL is to enhance civil society capacity to further Global Partnership for Education 2025 goals of accelerating access, learning outcomes and gender equality through equitable, inclusive, and resilient education systems fit for the 21st century. It currently supports more than 80 grantees in 70 countries to:

1. Strengthen national civil society engagement in gender responsive education planning, policy development and monitoring;
2. Strengthen civil society roles in promoting the transparency and accountability of national education sector policy and implementation; and
3. Create a stronger global and transnational enabling environment for national civil society advocacy and transparency efforts.

Our role as a Global Learning Partner is to bring together learning and evidence from across EOL to generate higher-level reflections and strategic lessons to benefit civil society in the education sector and more broadly. This includes synthesizing learning about civil society advocacy and campaigning strategies and mechanisms to influence educational policies and increase accountability in the education sector. It also involves supporting EOL on internal analysis on thematic areas, and on approaches to learning and evidence generation.

In a first phase of work as a Global Learning Partner (2022-24), IDS worked on:

• adaptive management and learning mechanisms within EOL,
• a review of Gender and Inclusion sensitivity of grant management processes,
• research on EOL grantee’s advocacy on education reform in challenging contexts.

Based on action research with civil society advocates we produced a video documenting lessons from education advocates based on their work in places with conflict, or closing civic space (also available in French, Spanish, and Portuguese).

In the current phase of the learning partnership (2024-26), we are working to explore:

• what enables civil society organisations in EOL to tackle identity-based exclusions in education systems,
• the efforts of EOL to engage with young people’s views and activism,
• and the impact of learning mechanisms within EOL.