About EGER

The Evidence for Gender and Education Resource (EGER) is the first freely available resource to help the global gender and education community make informed decisions about their programming, investments, and policy and research priorities. EGER is a searchable, easy-to-use, interactive database for practitioners, researchers, donors, and decision-makers to drive better education results for girls, boys, and communities around the world. Through data visualizations EGER shows the greatest education needs of girls and boys, what’s being done to meet them on the ground, and where evidence, and evidence gaps, exist.

What’s in EGER?

EGER hosts more than 700 profiles of organizations that implement programs, conduct research, advocate, network, and fund efforts in the gender and education space in more than 100 low- and middle-income countries. It contains details on more than 950—and counting—current projects. Curated evidence from recent meta-analyses and systematic reviews helps identify what interventions work for which outcomes, and highlights where the research gaps remain. EGER also shows country-level indicators for key gender and education outcomes, including literacy, completion rates, school-related gender-based violence, and more.

How do I use EGER?

Each organization and program in the database has its own profile page. You can search for organizations or programs based on where they work, what populations they focus on, what type of work they do, and more.

The Table Builder allows you to construct a customizable and downloadable table to show which organizations are working on different topics, who their programs are reaching, whether their programs will be evaluated, and much more.
The Map Builder allows you to select and display information about gender and education needs by country, and to see where ongoing work is taking place relative to those needs.
The Graph Builder allows you to select and display quantitative information about gender and education organizations and programs in a bar graph format.
Preset Table, Map and Graph queries show you how these data visualizations work and highlight interesting findings from the data.
The Evidence to Practice Tool allows you to search by program approaches (e.g. gender-sensitive curricula), or by outcome (e.g. improved literacy for girls), to learn what the latest evidence says (or what it does not say).
The Power in Numbers Data Table allows you to explore data on gender and education in 133 low- and middle-income countries.

Stay tuned for additional data visualizations and profiles to be added soon!

How did you decide which organizations to include?

EGER casts a wide net, so we included organizations and projects that work on girls’ education specifically, gender and education activities that focus on structural barriers such as child marriage, and general education programs for girls and boys (provided they have improvements in girls’ education as an outcome). Global organizations (working in more than one country) with annual operating budgets of $250,000 or more were initially included. Then, in 2022 we expanded the database to also include national level NGOs and programs that work on girls' education. In 2023, we expanded the database to include national level programs implemented by governments.

How can I add my organization and/or ongoing programs?

We are constantly expanding and updating EGER. We welcome new entries, so if you notice an organization or program that is missing and that meets our inclusion criteria above, please use our online submission system. This system allows you to create an account and update your organization or program information directly. See the full list of currently included organizations.

How do you decide “what works” to improve gender equality in education?

The evidence for what works to improve gender equality in education is evolving and drawing simple conclusions about complex issues is always challenging. We expect that our approach to synthesizing the evidence will continue to evolve with feedback from the field, and that the conclusions we draw will evolve as the available evidence grows.

Currently, we are using results from recent systematic reviews and meta-analyses. We made this decision because these studies have adopted a systematic approach to reviewing existing evidence on topics of interest, and in many cases have conducted analyses (meta-analyses) that attempt to estimate the average effect of those interventions. There are drawbacks, however. Only results from individual studies captured in those recent reviews are available and not every important topic in gender and education has been covered by a recent systematic review and/or meta-analysis. We plan to continue updating this information with new reviews and hope to expand our approach to include individual studies in the future.

Using those recent systematic reviews and meta-analyses (see the full list), we have extracted findings to come up with five levels of evidence—Effective; Promising; More research needed; Ineffective; and Unknown. Ratings are shared for more than 200 program approaches and outcome pairings. These pairings reflect what we believe are the core questions those working in gender and education might seek to answer, e.g. does school construction (approach) improve school enrollment (outcome)? Or does school construction (approach) improve literacy (outcome)? The same approach may be effective at improving some outcomes but not others.

We defined these rankings as follows:

Effective: More than one meta-analysis has been published recently (that we’re aware of), and in each meta-analysis more than 50% of the model results are in the expected direction and statistically significant (meaning, the intervention improves education outcomes).
Promising: Only one meta-analysis has been published recently, and more than 50% of the results are in the expected direction and statistically significant. OR More than two systematic reviews have been published recently (without meta-analyses), and for each review more than 50% of the results for individual papers are in the expected direction and statistically significant.
More Research Needed: Does not fit into Effective, Promising, Ineffective, or Unknown categories.
Ineffective: More than one meta-analysis, where more than 50% of the results are not in the expected direction and are statistically significant (that is, the intervention leads to poorer education outcomes).
Unknown: No studies (either meta-analyses or systematic reviews) on approach/outcome pairing.

We are continuously updating the evidence on gender and education. Did we miss a systematic review or meta-analysis? Or do you have feedback on our approach to ratings? Let us know.

What are the plans for EGER?

Going forward we will continue to map national level organizations and their programs and government initiatives. Please share your work with us here . We’ll also continue mapping current global gender and education efforts alongside updates of current needs data and evidence of what works. And we’ll continue to add new syntheses (check out our Girls Education Roadmap) and data visualizations. Join our mailing list to be notified of updates to EGER.

Who developed EGER?

EGER was developed by the Population Council’s Girl Innovation, Research, and Learning (GIRL) Center in partnership with Echidna Giving, to help accelerate progress in achieving gender equality in education by fostering connections, identifying needs, curating evidence, and driving smarter investments. It is guided by our stakeholder advisory group, and the participation and feedback of users like you.

More information about ongoing programs, as well as interactive data visualizations, will be added in the coming months, so please check back regularly. Or join our mailing list.

Who funds EGER?

We are grateful for the generous support of our partners who share our commitment to girls’ education, including Echidna Giving, the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

General disclaimer

EGER is operated, administered, and maintained by the Population Council in partnership with Echidna Giving. All content included on this site is for information purposes only. The Population Council makes no claims, promises, or guarantees about the accuracy, completeness, or adequacy of the contents of this website and expressly disclaims liability for errors and omissions in its contents. The organization makes no warranty and assumes no legal liability related to the site’s contents, nor offers guarantees on the reliability of third-party services that you might access through the platform such as hyperlinks, services, or third-party e-tools.