Désirée Acholla has spent nearly 15 years in the international development sector. Her global education experiences began when she ran a low-fee private school in Burundi. She has since contributed to research on the role of teachers in Rwandan peacebuilding, conducted research on education financing in Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana, and published a background paper for UNESCO’s 2021/2022 Global Education Monitoring Report on non-state actors in education. Désirée is currently a social impact consultant with her company, Inararibonye Advisors and a 2022 Collaborative Doctoral Award student in History at the University of Southampton and the University of Exeter. Through the South, West and Wales Doctoral Training Partnership, she is building a digital resource, DecolonizeDevelopment.org, that explores how historical colonial power dynamics are perpetuated (and can be upended) in the international development sector. She is also on the board of Sustainable Education & Enterprise Development in Nigeria and a Senior Fellow with the Center for Indonesian Policy Studies. Désirée holds a certificate in Diversity and Inclusion from Cornell University, a Bachelor of Arts in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Montana, and is a 2015 graduate of GLOBED.
Master Thesis: Public-Private-Partnerships to Develop Education Markets in Rwanda: evaluating the impact on access, quality, and parental choice
Internship Placement: Right to Education