Partnering with Universities to Promote Gender Equality and Women’s Leadership

USAID recently announced 5 US universities are partnering with universities in Rwanda, Paraguay, Armenia and South Sudan to promote gender equality and women’s leadership.

I was wondering how many other, possibly informal, university partnerships are possible to facilitate using the same model, to speed up the progress of promoting equality and women's leadership. It seems to me that with increasing access to the the internet and multiple platforms, the possibilities might only be limited by our powers to communicate.

Partnership activities will include:

• Armenia: Arizona State University and Yerevan State University (YSU) will establish a new Center for Gender and Leadership Studies at YSU that will develop a new curriculum in women and gender studies; promote career advancement for women university graduates; conduct outreach activities; and advance public policy research on issues related to gender equality and women’s leadership.

• Paraguay: University of Florida and National University of Asunción (UNA) will support national and local development goals that promote gender equality by nurturing alliances among civil society and the public and private sectors to advance women’s leadership and employability skills in the agricultural sector.

• Rwanda (Agriculture): Michigan State University and National University of Rwanda seek to create a gender-sensitive master of science program in agribusiness that will promote women's leadership in agriculture, lead to increased opportunities for export, and train agribusiness professionals with strong analytical and business development skills.

• Rwanda (Education): University of California Los Angeles and Kigali Institute of Education will foster strategies that promote gender awareness in classrooms through targeted outreach and recruitment programs, institutional capacity building, and gender-sensitive curriculum and teaching approaches.

• South Sudan: Indiana University, in partnership with Virginia Tech University, the University of Juba, Upper Nile University, and the Ministry of Higher Education, Research, Science, and Technology in South Sudan, will promote gender equality and female empowerment by creating a supportive environment for women to pursue careers in secondary and higher education.