Guidelines for education experts and organisations looking for business or work opportunities in education development projects

There are thousands of opportunities for education development, but they are hard to find on your own. We wanted to make it easier for you to find those opportunities and participate global development projects as an individual education development expert, or as an organisation.

On this page you can explore guidelines for finding co-operation and funding opportunities in international development projects.

These guidelines are based on the expertise collected by the ScalED project.

 Guidelines for education experts and organisations looking for business or work opportunities in education development projects

1. Prepare your expert CV

A well articulated CV is a key element in finding business and job opportunities in the global education development market.

To make a successful CV we suggest you follow the guidelines and practises of the global education organisations. This helps you to match your skillset and offering with their needs. Having an updated, well-structured CV at hand makes the application process faster and you are always ready to catch the opportunities as soon as they arise.

If you don´t yet have a CV template, you can draft your skillset with the help of this generic template. (Downloads the template.)

2.  Explore and join education development expert databases

Explore these databases and when you find an interesting opportunity, fill in your CV in the respective database. Each database has different templates for the applicant CV.  Please modify your generic CV accordingly.

Here is a list of some education expert databases (Links open in a new window):

3.  Explore project opportunities for education organisations & innovators

There are many cooperation project opportunities available around the world. Many of the projects are listed in international project databases. Here we have collected a few tips for you so you can start exploring those most suitable for your situation. (Links open in a new window):

4.  Explore funding opportunities for education organisations & innovators   

There are many development funding opportunities available around the world. You can explore the following links for available funding for your education expertise project plan. Please find more information from the organisations’ websites. (Links open in a new window.)

  • The African Development Bank (AfDB) Group  

    AfDB comprises three entities: the African Development Bank (ADB), the African Development Fund (ADF) and the Nigeria Trust Fund (NTF). The overarching objective of the AfDB Group is to spur sustainable economic development and social progress in its regional member countries (RMCs), thus contributing to poverty reduction. 

    More information about African Development Bank: https://www.afdb.org/en 

  • Latin American Development Bank

  • The World Bank Group (WBG)

    WBG consists of five international organisations: IBRD, IDA, IFC, MIGA and ICSID. WBG is the largest financier of education in the developing world. It works in 90 countries and is committed to helping them reach SDG4: access to inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong learning opportunities for all by 2030. World Bank works directly with governments, providing technical assistance, loans, and grants. Generally, tenders are organised by the authorities of the target countries and follow the World Bank's procurement processes. 

    More information about World Bank Group:  https://www.worldbank.org/en/about 

    Read more: IFI-Outlook-Report-2021.pdf (businessfinland.fi) pg 65. 

  • Asian Development Bank Projects | Asian Development Bank (adb.org)

  • Finland´s Ministry for Foreign Affairs 

    The Finland’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs grants support to projects by, for example civil society organisations, state institutions, universities and companies.  

    More information about Finland's Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Funding and support - Ministry for Foreign Affairs (um.fi) 

5.  Study more about expanding opportunities in developing countries

The following organisations provide opportunities to expand or invest in developing countries. (Links open in a new window.)

6.   Study country spesific information

Get to know your target country. Here you can find some country-spesific information. (Links open in a new window.)

7.  Create an expert pool in your own organisation

Responding to international cooperation requests is a demanding task and requires quick action from your organisation. To be able to respond quickly it is good to be prepared in advance with the following steps:

  • In your organisation, identify persons who are interested and capable of participating in international projects as an expert, a teacher, a trainer or in another possible role.

  • Recognise the special skills needed in international projects. They demand both substance skills and international skills.

  • In your personnel management system, add a section for these special skills. Adding this kind of special information is possible in most personnel management systems, such as Sympa for example.

  • Make sure each person has attached their special skills in their expert profile. Also help them to recognise their special skills and encourage them to do so.

  • Collect an expert pool with relevant skills.   

  • Encourage staff members to update their skill profiles regularly.

  • Encourage staff members to update their international CV.

Here you can find a list of items which help mapping international competence in your personnel management system:

  • Interest into international expert assignments

  • Work title

  • Sector of education or profession

  • Previous international or other experience

  • Professional or other experience, e.g. project collaboration that is relevant to describe your skills, working on international expertise tasks

  • Language skills, name the language and describe your language proficiency according to the CEFR, A1-C2 (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR)

  • English CV

We hope these collected guidelines are useful for education experts and organisations looking for business or work opportunities in education development projects.