Plan implementation: closing the policy-practice gap

Martín is a Peruvian sociologist who served as the Minister of Education at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. He oversaw the country's pre-primary, primary, secondary, and higher education systems and designed the national strategy for distance education in response to the pandemic. Between 2018 and 2020, he served as the head of Peru’s National Superintendence of Higher University Education (SUNEDU), the regulatory body of Peru's university system, where he led the reform for improving the quality of higher education. From 2015 to 2018, Martín was also a member of its Board of Directors.

Muriel Poisson is the acting Team Leader for IIEP’s team on Knowledge Generation and Mobilization (KGeM). In this capacity, she coordinates and develops the foresight, research, communication, publication, and library functions of the Institute. She is also managing IIEP’s new research project, Using digital tools to promote transparency and accountability, as well as capacity-building activities targeting Civil Society Organisations.

In addition, she is the task manager of the Institute’s capacity-building programme on Ethics and Corruption in Education. She coordinated several international research projects on related issues, including open school data, open government in education, and teacher codes of conduct. She trained more than 3,000 people in the area and provided technical assistance to national teams in charge of developing an integrity risk assessment, a public expenditure tracking survey, or a teacher code of conduct. She is also managing ETICO, a dynamic clearinghouse on transparency and accountability issues in education.

Throughout her career, Beatriz Pont has worked on education policy, education change, and school leadership internationally. As Global Training Lead at UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP), she currently leads a team of specialists to develop the IIEP UNESCO Global Campus and teaches selected courses, such as the new Education Leadership Seminar. Her work focuses on strengthening the capacities of education policy-makers and planners to analyze and formulate sound education policies and implementation plans.

Prior to joining IIEP, she worked at the OECD Directorate for Education and Skills, where she launched and led OECD countries’ education change and implementation support and worked with many different countries in their school improvement reform efforts. She also spearheaded a comparative series on education reforms, Education Policy Outlook, on school leadership, equity and quality in education, and adult learning. Previously, she was a researcher in the Economic and Social Council of the Government of Spain.

Pont teaches Comparative Education Policy at Sciences Po School of International Affairs, Paris, and has written numerous articles and keynotes internationally on leading education change.

Kate Sturla is the Technical Director for the What Works Hub for Global Education – a joint initiative supported by the Blavatnik School of Government, the UK Government’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Bank, USAID, UNICEF, UNESCO-IIEP, the Learning Generation Initiative, and the British Council. The Hub brings together academics, NGOs and government partners to enable and enhance learning for children in low- and middle-income countries. Kate’s work focuses on developing the field of implementation science in education, with the aim of understanding how effective policies can be implemented at scale. 

Previously, Kate led evaluations of health, agriculture and education programmes in India with the evaluation consultancy IDinsight and with the Behavioral Development Lab, including a randomised controlled trial of the world’s first development impact bond in education. Most recently, Kate was Analytics Director at the Global Innovation Fund, modelling the impact of innovations aimed at improving the lives of the global poor. Earlier in her career, she worked as a classroom teacher in a migrant camp in northwest India with a local non-profit.

Kate holds a master’s degree in public administration in international development from the Harvard Kennedy School, where she worked as a graduate student consultant at Peru’s Ministry of Education. She holds a bachelor’s degree in political science and South Asian studies from UC Berkeley.

Saamira Halabi is a Senior Education Specialist in the Global Knowledge and Innovation Unit at the Education Global Practice, where she serves as Program Manager of the REACH (Results in Education for All) Trust Fund. Since joining the World Bank in 2012, she has led a range of analytical, operational, and capacity-building activities focused on improving the quality of foundational education in countries in the Middle East and North Africa, West Africa, and South Asia. She holds a PhD in Educational Theory and Policy from the Pennsylvania State University, a Master’s degree in International Education Policy and Management from Vanderbilt University and undergraduate degrees in Business and Educational Leadership from the American University of Beirut.

Oswald has served as Senior Education Policy Analyst and Head of Technical Cooperation at IIEP-UNESCO in Africa since July 2024. From January 2017 to June 2024, he worked as an Education Policy Analyst at IIEP-UNESCO, contributing to training programs, technical cooperation, and research and development.

Prior to joining IIEP-UNESCO, he worked at the CONFEMEN Program for the Analysis of Education Systems (PASEC) from 2010 to 2016 and at the World Bank office in Dakar from 2008 to 2010, where he held roles in coordination and technical advisory.