The MoU was signed in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, by GESCI’s Chief Executive Officer, Jerome Morrissey and the Executive Director of FAWE, Mrs. Hendrina Doroba. The signing took place during the 2^nd African Ministerial Forum on the Integration of ICT in Education and Training on the theme “Advancing Inclusive Knowledge Societies in Africa to implement Africa's Agenda 2063 and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)”. The purpose of the MoU is to capitalise on the strengths of FAWE and GESCI to promote African women policy makers’ leadership skills with the view of achieving the objectives of their programs and advancing inclusive knowledge societies. GESCI and FAWE have therefore agreed to jointly develop a leadership capacity building program targeting African women policy and decision makers to influence education, science and technology policies and strategies and to increase girls’ and women’s representation in STEM education. The program will build on the AUC’s flagship African Leadership for ICT and Knowledge Society development (ALICT), which has been successfully implemented by GESCI in 16 African countries. Other areas of collaboration will include:

• Consultations on how ICT can help advance girls’ representation in STEM education;
• Jointly identifying public and private partnerships and mobilizing resources to support joint initiatives.

Signed for a period of 3 years, the agreement seeks to improve education and training of girls and women and to develop the untapped capacity of women to contribute to Africa’s social and economic transformation. FAWE is a pan-African Non-Governmental Organisation based in Nairobi, Kenya. Its goal is to promote girls’ and women’s education in sub-Saharan Africa. FAWE envisions a world in which gender disparities in education are eliminated and all African girls access education, perform well and complete their studies.