Author: Alessia Mortara, Primrose Adjepong and Onyinye Oguntoye
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Want to Get Girls to School in Sub-Saharan Africa? Tackle Poverty
How poverty impacts girls' access to education in SSA
Alessia Mortara is Policy Manager at J-PAL Africa and leads the Girls’ Education & Empowerment Portfolio. Alessia works closely with governments and their partners to promote the use of evidence in policy-making through dissemination, technical assistance, partnership building and building learning agendas. The Girls’ Education & Empowerment Portfolio focuses on using evidence from the education, health and labour space to support the human capital development of adolescent girls, predominantly in West Africa. Prior to working at J-PAL, Alessia was the Head of Government Relations for One Acre Fund in Burundi and worked as a consultant to the civil service in the UK and Mexico. Alessia holds a BSc in International Relations from the London School of Economics and an MPP from the Blavatnik School at Oxford University. Onyinye is a Senior Policy and Communications Associate at J-PAL Africa. She manages J-PAL Africa’s communications delivery, brand management, press relations and social media administration. Prior to joining J-PAL, Onyinye served as the Communications and Knowledge Manager for FCDO’s Learning, Evidencing and Advocacy Partnership (LEAP) programme. She also led content production and engagement at BBC Media Action Nigeria, co-Chaired the Cambridge Africa Together Conference and consulted for international donor-funded programmes. Onyinye holds a Master’s degree in Public Policy from the University of Cambridge. Primrose is a Senior Policy Associate at J-PAL Africa where she works with affiliates, policymakers and practitioners to apply evidence-based approaches to boost girls’ education enrolment and learning in West Africa. Prior to J-PAL, Primrose co-founded an education design firm in Ghana, working with local governments and schools to design and execute various educational programmes. She also worked as a Behavioural Scientist with a beirut-based NGO working with local communities to increase access to education, health services and water, as well as developing programmes to improve good governance. Primrose holds a BSc in International Relations from St Andrews University and a Masters in Public Policy from the Blavatnik School at Oxford University.