Making evidence count in GPE supported education system transformation

In international development, the existence of quality evidence is not enough. Reports are written, studies are commissioned, and lessons are documented. Yet too often, this knowledge remains disconnected from the moments that matter most—when governments decide what to reform, what to fund, and how to deliver change at scale.  

Over the past seven years, the Global Partnership for Education Knowledge and Innovation Exchange (GPE KIX) has been working to change this. Within GPE’s broader support to partner governments - strengthening education systems through policy dialogue, financing, and coordination - GPE KIX serves as its dedicated mechanism for evidence generation, knowledge mobilization, inter-country learning, and capacity strengthening. 

In this blog, we explore how GPE KIX is connecting evidence to national decision-making in practice, drawing on examples from reform design, financing decisions, data systems, and capacity strengthening across GPE partner countries.

For national reform processes to take root and last, evidence must be timely, relevant, and aligned with national decision-making cycles. Within GPE-supported reform processes, GPE KIX helps ensure that evidence is increasingly available and actively used at multiple stages. In practice, this often means convening the right actors at the right time when potential priority reforms are being discussed; supporting the assessment of enabling factors such as capacity, coordination, and inclusion; and generating and packaging evidence in ways that directly respond to policy questions as Partnership Compacts are developed and reviewed. GPE KIX also provides evidence to inform program design and GPE grant applications, and brings evidence into reflection and review spaces to assess progress and discuss course correction.

In Lao PDR, GPE KIX evidence supported the reform process during the programme design stage. Evidence linked to the country’s priority on foundational learning showed that an accelerated summer programme could effectively prepare rural children for pre-primary education. Rather than remaining a recommendation on paper, this evidence was taken up by the Ministry of Education, which incorporated the approach into its national strategy. As a result, USD 1.5 million from a GPE System Transformation Grant was allocated to support the programme’s scaleup—demonstrating how evidence can directly influence both policy choices and funding decisions.

Under GPE’s 2030 Strategy, countries are encouraged to align domestic and external financing with system transformation priorities. GPE KIX contributes by providing policymakers with comparative cost and implementation insights that inform these choices. 

Evidence can also help unlock additional financing. In Lesotho, GPE KIX evidence, including data showing only 17% of Grade 3 children had expected reading skills, built the case for urgent early learning investment. This attracted the Roger Federer Foundation's USD 2.5 million commitment, triggering an additional USD 2.5 million via the GPE Multiplier grant. This supported pre-primary education expansion and teacher training in five districts, reaching over 57,000 learners.

Good decisions depend on good data. Robust education data systems are an essential enabling factor for system transformation. Without reliable data, governments cannot effectively plan reforms, monitor progress, or identify who is being left behind. Yet many education systems continue to grapple with fragmented datasets, uneven quality, and limited use of existing information

GPE KIX is supporting GPE partner countries to address these challenges by strengthening data systems and, just as importantly, data use. This includes modernizing education management information systems, improving data quality and integration, and building the capacity of institutions at national and subnational levels to analyze and apply data in planning, budgeting, and accountability processes.

For example, in Uganda, GPE KIX-supported work has focused on the subnational level, where the gap between data availability and decision-making is often most pronounced. By strengthening how district-level education data are analyzed and used, GPE KIX has helped administrators apply data more systematically to planning, budgeting, and school supervision. This has improved accountability across the system and enabled more informed decisions about where support and resources are most needed. Another powerful example is Eswatini, where GPE KIX-supported evidence is helping to address a critical equity gap by integrating disability indicators into the national education management information system. With stronger data on learners with disabilities, the Ministry of Education is now better positioned to plan inclusive policies, monitor progress, and allocate resources in ways that ensure marginalized learners are no longer invisible in national data.

Even the best evidence has limited impact if institutions lack the capacity to interpret and apply it. Recognizing this, a central part of GPE KIX’s contribution lies in strengthening the skills that underpin evidence use over time.

This has been supported through structured GPE KIX learning cycles and sustained opportunities for inter-country exchange targeted to ministry of education officials. Through GPE KIX learning cycles, countries work collaboratively on shared reform challenges—using evidence from research, implementation experience, and peer countries to inform policy choices. These cycles support participants to jointly interpret evidence, compare reform options, and translate lessons into concrete policy and programme design decisions aligned with national priorities. In the Maldives, for example, participation in a KIX EMAP Hub learning cycle on teacher professional development enabled national education leaders to examine evidence from both within and beyond the country, assess what approaches were feasible in their context, and apply these insights directly to policy and programme design. Evidence from the learning cycle informed the development of the country’s GPE System Transformation Grant and Capacity Grant, helping ensure that investments in teacher development were grounded in evidence and aligned with national priorities.

Inter-country exchanges further strengthen this capacity by creating structured spaces for policymakers and practitioners to learn from peers facing similar system constraints. By examining how other countries have navigated reform trade-offs, aligned evidence with political and institutional realities, and operationalized reforms at scale, participants develop practical skills in evidence use that extend beyond individual projects. 

For example, The Gambia had no formal Teaching Council or equivalent institutional body to regulate the teaching profession, meaning teacher licensing, professional standards, and accountability mechanisms were not formally institutionalized. Through the KIX Africa 19 Hub Regional Competence Enhancement Workshop held in Ghana in November 2025, Gambian officials learned from Ghana and other countries about statutory teaching councils, professional regulation frameworks, and governance models that could be adapted to their own context. These lessons directly informed national reform discussions and contributed to the establishment and inauguration of The Gambia’s Professional Standards Board under the Education Act 2018 — the country’s first formal mechanism for strengthening teacher regulation and professional standards. This represents a major institutional milestone for the education sector and has already generated momentum for broader policy reforms and stronger stakeholder coordination around teacher professionalization.

Evidence is most useful when embedded in decision-making processes. By connecting evidence, learning, and peer exchange to national reform priorities, GPE KIX is helping move evidence from the margins to the center of education system transformation—including through the education system transformation processes that GPE supports. 

What sets GPE KIX apart is not only the knowledge it produces, but also where and how it engages: close to national policy processes and financing systems that align  domestic and international funding through GPE. This proximity gives evidence generated and mobilized through GPE KIX a clearer path into national reform strategies, programme design, and funding decisions supported by GPE grants. Few global initiatives are connected to national decision-making—and to a financing platform of this scale—in such a direct way.

As countries pursue ambitious reforms amid diverse and often complex national circumstances, the points of connection between evidence and decision-making will continue to vary. Yet across these varied contexts, the direction of travel is consistent: GPE KIX is helping ensure that real decisions are shaped by high quality, context-driven evidence, contributing to more durable education change.