UNESCO estimates that 617 million children—nearly all in low-income countries—are not achieving minimum proficiency levels in reading and mathematics. To overcome this, education systems in the Global South require better and more effective teacher training, more gender equity, better learning processes and more efficient ways of using evidence to better inform planning in the education sector. All of this will help achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4, which aims to ensure “inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.” A key way to hasten progress is addressing knowledge gaps, improving access to evidence, and strengthening systems that support the generation and uptake of evidence and innovations in the Global South.
The Global Partnership for Education Knowledge and Innovation Exchange (KIX) is a global response to these challenges. With a budget of over US$75 million, KIX supports the scaling of promising education innovations and strengthens partners’ capacity to address these challenges. KIX is the largest fund solely dedicated to bridging the knowledge gaps that undermine education systems in developing countries.
HOW KIX WORKS
KIX is designed to be shaped by the demand from national education systems and respond to their principal policy and programming challenges. KIX both funds research and facilitates knowledge sharing among country stakeholders to enhance their education systems using relevant evidence and actionable research.
Key mechanisms of KIX include:
- the learning exchange mechanism, which brings together representatives of national education system in four regional hubs to share information, identify best practices, and guide regional priority-setting processes, among other things.
- the funding mechanism, which provides research funding at global and regional levels for knowledge generation and innovation, and learn how to scale proven approaches to education; and
- as supporting activities to these two mechanisms, KIX is developing a results framework to monitor, evaluate, and learn from KIX key mechanisms and a communications and knowledge mobilization strategy to enhance the visibility of the work KIX does, share the evidence that emerges, and encourage research uptake by key decision-makers in the education sector.
WHERE KIX WORKS
KIX brings together 68 low- and middle-income countries that are partners of the Global Partnership for Education to identify common policy challenges and facilitate knowledge sharing and evidence building. KIX currently funds 12 projects, including one project that supports scaling efforts of grantees and conducts research on scaling across them.
KIX TEAM
KIX is implemented by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and includes a globally diverse team.
Tricia Wind
Program Leader
Canada
Tricia is the Program Leader for the Knowledge and Innovation Exchange (KIX). She has worked in international development and international research programming for over 20 years. She worked with IDRC both in the 1990s and from 2008 to the present. Between those years, she worked for a variety of non-governmental organizations in Canada and East Africa. She has a Master's Degree in International Relations.
Florencio Ceballos
Senior Program Specialist
Canada
Florencio Ceballos is a Senior Program Specialist with the Knowledge and Innovation Exchange (KIX). He holds a degree in Sociology, a Diplome d´Etudes Approfondis on Education Sciences at University Paris 8 and PhD studies in Sociology at EHESS Paris. Florencio has 20+ years of experience in design and implementation of global programs in international development and research support. Within IDRC, Florencio led the telecetre.org initiative on public access to technologies and has been part of the ICT for Development and the Governance and Justice Programs, focusing on issues of youth participation, citizenship and inequalities. Before joining IDRC Florencio was a private consultant and taught Sociology of Education at Universidad de Valparaiso.
Margarita Lopez
Senior Program Specialist
Canada
Margarita Lopez is a Senior Program Specialist with the Knowledge and Innovation Exchange (KIX). She holds a PhD in Political Science from Université Laval, Quebec. She worked as the Planning Director of the Ministry of Education as well as the Director of Education at the National Planning Department in Colombia. She was also the Executive Director of the research centre on education, Corpoeducacion. Recently she was the director of the Canadian project FORTA in Honduras that supported the strengthen of education at the district level. Her expertise is on public policy and decentralization with emphasis on the education sector.
Hamidou Boukary
Senior Program Specialist
Kenya
Dr. Hamidou Boukary is a Senior Program Specialist with the Knowledge and Innovation Exchange (KIX). Prior to joining KIX, he was the Chief Education Specialist at the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA). From 2015 to 2019, he worked as a consultant to several continental, bilateral and multilateral organizations. He’s a co-writer of the AU’s Continental Education Strategy for Africa (CESA 2016-2025) and coordinator of the recently endorsed UNESCO Global Strategy for Youth and Adult Literacy (2020-2025). He specializes in comparative international education and has expertise in education policy analysis, education systems design, policy implementation and research.
Joy Nafungo
Senior Program Officer
Kenya
Joy Nafungo is a Senior Program Officer with the Knowledge and Innovation Exchange (KIX). She holds a master’s degree in Education (Innovations in Teaching and Learning) from University of South Wales, a master’s degree in project planning and management from University of Nairobi and a bachelor’s degree in Education (Early Childhood Development and Education) from Kenyatta University. She has over 10 years’ experience working in various education initiatives in the non-profit sector. Her work with KIX involves managing and providing technical oversight to projects while directly supporting the Africa 19 hub. Prior to joining IDRC, she led the pilot of an early childhood development programme at UNICEF, focussing on strengthening multisectoral coordination for integrated Early Childhood Development in Kenya.
Tiffany Barnes-Huggins
Program Officer
Canada
Tiffany Barnes-Huggins is a Program Officer with the Knowledge and Innovation Exchange (KIX) at the International Development Research Centre (IDRC). She holds a Masters in Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership from Carleton University and Bachelor's in International Development Studies from McGill University. Her work with KIX involves managing and implementing the communications and knowledge translation activities for the initiative. During her time at IDRC, she has also led knowledge mobilization projects in Canada and across Asia and Africa on topics related to institutional strengthening and women’s economic empowerment. Prior to joining IDRC in 2017, she performed advisory research projects on public and digital governance for clients in the public and private sector. She also developed and implemented marketing and communications strategies for organizations in the non-profit sector.
Serhiy Kovalchuk
Program Officer
Canada
Serhiy Kovalchuk is Program Officer with the Knowledge and Innovation Exchange (KIX). He received his doctorate in curriculum studies and teacher development with a specialization in comparative, international and development education from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto. His expertise and research interests include comparative and international education, democratic citizenship education, and post-socialist education transformations. He is a co-editor of Reimagining Utopias: Theory and Method for Educational Research in Post-Socialist Contexts (2017) and Democratic Citizenship Education in Non-Western Contexts: Implications for Theory and Research (2019).
Cheryl Chan
Program Management Officer
Canada
Cheryl Chan is a Program Management Officer with the Knowledge and Innovation Exchange (KIX). She holds a Master’s in Environmental Studies from the University of Waterloo, where she was a member of the global Community Conservation Research Network. She also holds Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Education degrees from Queen’s University. Prior to beginning her graduate work, she was a member of the Ontario College of Teachers and taught in the international school system. Her work with KIX involves coordinating program operations, donor relations, and supporting activities in communications and monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL). Her interests include gender and education, sustainable development, and science communication.
Lidiane Lustosa
Program Assistant
Canada
Lidiane Lustosa is a Program Assistant with the Knowledge and Innovation Exchange (KIX). She has bachelor degree in International Relations and in Translation Studies from the University of Brasilia, in Brazil. Prior to joining IDRC, Lidiane worked in a broad range of organizations, from Shared Services Canada, Le Programme canadien de bourses de la Francophonie and the University of Ottawa. Her work with KIX involves administrative support to the team in the implementation of KIX global and regional grants wich includes managing travels, expenses reports, tracking of different systems, and coordinating the translation, proofreading and editing of documents as required.
Samantha Nixon
Summer Student
Canada
Samantha Nixon is a Summer Student with the Knowledge and Innovation Exchange (KIX). She will be entering into the final year of her Master’s degree in International Development from the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Politics from Acadia University. Her work with KIX involves supporting the team with the implementation and managing of KIX global and regional grants. Prior to joining IDRC, she held an internship with the Forum of Federations. Her Master’s specialization is in International Organizations and Global Public Policy. Her research interests include education in emergencies and gender equality in education.