AUDACIA, the Global Forum for Girls’ Education, showcases and garners resources for programs and practices that hold the most promise for eradicating the barriers – poverty, violence and prejudice – that prevent tens of millions of girls from receiving a quality education or any education at all. It is a multi-sector meeting in which leaders from all segments of society come together to learn, share ideas and commit to collaborations that get results.

The evidence is indisputable – when girls are educated everyone benefits. Poverty is alleviated, average life span increases as infant mortality and preventable diseases decline, societies are more peaceful and armed transnational conflict is less likely. One might say, without fear of exaggerating, that global girls’ education is a powerful tool for world peace.

It is not only in developing countries that obtaining a quality education for girls is a challenge; the same is often true in advanced, rich countries such as the United States. Low-income, minority and rural girls are often enrolled in schools in which they are further disadvantaged by de facto discrimination. 

AUDACIA focuses on three issues:

1. Increasing access by showcasing interventions that overcome obstacles like violence, poverty and cultural beliefs

2. Determining how to create girl-friendly educational environments that have high academic standards, are respectful of gender differences, and are nurturing and safe

3. Encouraging more collaboration on best practices in order to achieve systemic and sustainable change on behalf of equity and equality in education for girls everywhere

AUDACIA asks:

1. Are there comprehensive models for decreasing gender disparities that address all barriers?

2. What are components and examples of quality education?

3. When are the investments or interventions of philanthropists, faith-based organizations, social entrepreneurs and NGOs most effective?

4. Is there an opportunity for new informational and social technology to decrease gender disparities?

5. What is a girl-friendly quality educational environment?            

6. Given limited resources what should states work on first?

7. Personal and structural violence are major obstacles in most countries with gender disparity; what are the best models for preventing and dealing with these barriers?

8. What can philanthropists, faith-based organizations, NGOs, technologists and social entrepreneurs do to create or foster access to primary and secondary educational settings in which girls are likely to succeed?