Development Gateway

10/20/2026

DG is hiring!

We are looking for a Senior AI Technical Specialist to support the Early Grade Education Activity (EGEA, also known as ‘ASAS’) program. DG is one of several consortium partners, led by IREX, implementing the program in Jordan between 2023-2028, funded by the U.S. Government. The overarching objective of ASAS is to improve the quality of early grades (K-G3) education outcomes for children in Jordan.

Based in Amman, Jordan, you will turn fast-moving AI advances into practical opportunities for the Ministry of Education, schools, and universities, and explain their value clearly and simply to non-technical audiences.

Key qualifications:
-5+ years of experience in data systems, digital transformation, or technology adoption
-Experience with AI applications, data science tools, or emerging technologies in education
-Demonstrated capacity to map user requirements to applied AI/data tools and structure low-risk use cases (no direct programming required)
-Professional fluency in written and spoken Arabic and English, with demonstrated ability to draft technical specifications in both languages.
-Bachelor’s degree in STEM, Information Management, Education, or a related field

Applications accepted on a rolling basis.

For more information and to apply visit: https://lnkd.in/gtASdarB

10/15/2026

📣 We’re hiring!

DG is searching for a Project Manager / Assessment Researcher to serve as the senior in-country lead for DG on the Iraq Higher Education AI Workforce Readiness Program, a 12-month program implemented with IREX in coordination with institutional partners in Iraq. This position will be located in Baghdad, Iraq.

This role will lead day-to-day management of DG's activities under the program in Iraq including managing the program workplan, budget, and reporting and lead the AI ecosystem mapping, virtual university survey, and stakeholder interviews. The Project Manager will also guide the design of the in-person AI workforce convening and the AI readiness roadmaps, and will advise program leadership on political, institutional, and technical risks as they emerge.

Key qualifications include:
-Bachelor's degree
-7+ years of experience working in complex, multi-stakeholder environments
-Demonstrable experience building strategic relationships with government stakeholders in Iraq, ideally in higher education, alongside subject-matter experience in higher education, digital policy, or workforce development.
-Experience designing and conducting applied research and assessments
-Experience guiding, mentoring, or coordinating technical staff and consultants across teams and organizations.
-Professional fluency in written and spoken Arabic and English, with strong communication and diplomacy skills.
-Must have existing work authorization in Iraq.

DG will review applications on a rolling basis until the position is filled. Interviews are expected to begin in early November.

For more information and to apply, visit: https://developmentgateway.org/careers/?bzid=e89c7794f580

10/13/2026

🗓️ Upcoming event: The 50x2030 Initiative Brown Bag Lunch: Data-Smart Agriculture: Building Inclusive AI for Better Policy and Resilient Food Systems

As artificial intelligence transforms agricultural policymaking, investment decisions, and resilience building, low- and middle-income countries face a unique set of opportunities and challenges. Their ability to benefit from modern technologies around data and statistics will depend on the strength of the agricultural data systems that underpin them.

Ahead of the UN World Data Forum, DG’s Director of Policy Beverly Hatcher-Mbu will join the 50x2030 Initiative for a Brown Bag Lunch that will share country experiences, practical examples, and lessons learned on the role of survey data, new technologies, and AI governance.

Join us tomorrow, October 14, 12:30 PM UTC/8:30 AM EDT for this lunch-and-learn session.

Meeting link:

10/06/2026

As donor funding across sub-Saharan Africa shrinks, domestic resource mobilization is becoming an increasingly urgent part of the conversation about how countries finance public priorities. To***co taxation can play an important role in this, but making the case for reform requires credible, country-specific evidence that is accessible to policymakers.

This was part of the conversation at the South African To***co Taxation Conference, organized by CTPD Zambia, where our colleagues Mbaita Maka and Ngarii Tjejamba spoke on panels exploring the political economy of to***co taxation, as well as digital systems, open data, and youth to***co surveillance.

A few key points from the discussions:

• Evidence can move to***co tax policy. To***co taxes remain underused as a domestic revenue source. In Ethiopia, data from Development Gateway’s To***co Control Data Initiative and its partners (https://www.to***cocontroldata.org/en) helped inform to***co tax reform, contributing to a 21% rise in government revenue and a 29% fall in sales following the 2020 reform. Taxes were raised again in 2024.

• Interoperability turns scattered data into usable evidence. Tax, health, trade, and industry interference data often sit across different agencies and organizations. Connecting these sources can help policymakers see the bigger picture and make evidence easier to use.

• Can digital tools and emerging technologies help connect the dots faster? From lightweight digital tools to emerging technologies such as AI, there is an opportunity to explore how technology can help teams bring together relevant evidence more quickly and make it easier for decision-makers to access.

• Data use needs to be institutionalized. For evidence to inform policy over time, it needs to be embedded in government and civil society processes, regularly updated, and supported by policymaker buy-in and political will.

concluded with the adoption of the Windhoek Declaration on To***co Taxation and Domestic Health Financing, calling for stronger to***co taxation to reduce to***co use, address noncommunicable diseases, and mobilize sustainable domestic resources for health.

For Development Gateway, the discussions reinforced the importance of making reliable, country-specific evidence accessible to policymakers, particularly as countries look to to***co taxation as part of their domestic resource mobilization efforts.

***coControl

09/30/2026

Across Africa, faculty and students are already using AI in teaching, research, and everyday academic work. The question is no longer whether universities are adopting AI, but whether that use is sufficiently supported, resourced, and governed.

Insights from our recent report with IREX on university AI readiness from around the world (https://www.irex.org/universityaireadiness) and a regional webinar we hosted with IREX and the African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA) point to three areas that will shape what comes next:

🔹 AI readiness is an institutional capability. It goes beyond having an AI strategy to building the leadership, policies, skills, and structures needed to use AI responsibly and effectively.

🔹 Infrastructure and talent matter. Universities need the digital infrastructure, technical expertise, and human capacity to move from experimentation to sustained use.

🔹 Funding needs to keep pace. Institutionalizing AI requires sustained investment, not just one-off resources for pilots or
tools.

These insights point to a shift from adoption to institutionalization. The focus now is on what universities need to make AI a meaningful part of teaching, research, and institutional practice.

🔗Read the full blog: https://developmentgateway.org/blog/making-ai-work-in-african-universities-readiness-infrastructure-and-funding/
▶️Watch the webinar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jPc58B4zt0

Thanks to our speakers, Prof. Chika Yinka-Banjo, Prof. Hewan D. Degu, Dr. Brian Halubanza, Vincent Nkundimana, and Loise Ochanda, whose insights helped shape this conversation.

Universities across Africa are already using AI, but much of this adoption remains informal. This blog explores what it takes to move from experimentation to institutional practice, focusing on readiness, infrastructure, talent, and investment.

09/24/2026

📅 ​Development Gateway is excited to host Katie Harbath for her upcoming book talk at the Open Gov Hub in Washington, DC.

On October 8 at 5:30 PM ET, Beverley Hatcher-Mbu, DG’s Director of Policy, will join Katie for a candid conversation on her forthcoming book, Disrupting Politics: A Front Row Seat to the Collision of Technology and Democracy (out October 6).

For over a decade, Katie Harbath sat at the center of the collision between Silicon Valley and global democracy — helping shape how elections play out on the platforms that now shape public opinion everywhere. Beverley and Katie will discuss what her firsthand experience means for the future of democratic institutions, disinformation, and digital governance.

Come ready for a real conversation about where technology and politics go from here in 2026 (and beyond).

​Register now to save your seat — the first 25 registrants will receive a free copy of Katie's book!
https://luma.com/uhngu7f1

09/21/2026

The AI landscape can often feel chaotic, with every day bringing new models, techniques, approaches, and yet another way to apply Large Language Models (LLMs) to solve problems. For the international development sector, this raises many questions about how to invest our limited resources into the correct model, technique, or approach. We must know if our choices today will become obsolete, unaffordable, or unsafe tomorrow.

That’s where an AI Sandbox comes in, argues Fernando Ferreyra in our blog “Signal vs Noise: Making Smart AI Choices”. A sandbox is a controlled environment where we can test high-risk technology against real-world problems without compromising data, processes, or organizational integrity.

This approach allows us to explore what AI can do while being deliberate about where and how it is used. Development Gateway’s AI Sandbox focuses on two aspects: efficiency and trust. While others openly consider replacing humans with agents, we look for use cases where we trust an AI agent to do the heavy lifting – like retrieving and synthesizing data – while keeping the human in the loop. In our framework, the human provides verification, direction, and an ethical compass to align outputs with national values and laws.

We are building this Sandbox not just as a series of tools, but as a blueprint for the international development sector, sharing our findings as we go. To learn more, read the full blog at:

As the AI landscape evolves rapidly, it’s increasingly difficult to know which investments will last. This blog shares how Development Gateway uses sandboxing to test AI in controlled environments, focusing on efficiency, trust, and practical use cases while keeping humans in the loop.

09/16/2026

📣 DG is hiring! We are searching for a Program Lead for the Early Grade Education Activity (EGEA, also known as ‘ASAS’) program and soliciting requests for proposals for our Business Development and Proposal Development Consultant roster. Information and details about how to apply ⬇️

ASAS Program Lead, 📍Amman, Jordan:

As our full-time program lead for ASAS - a consortium that we are part of (led by IREX), you will serve in a pivotal leadership capacity, managing DG’s arm of the program, bridging relationships both within the consortium and with external partners, strategic positioning, and technical ex*****on.

DG will review applications on a rolling basis until position is filled. Interviews expected to begin in early October.

Apply here: https://developmentgateway.org/careers/?bzid=a7ad5a02d36b

Business Development and Proposal Development Consultant Roster, 📍Worldwide:

Development Gateway seeks to establish a roster of qualified individual consultants to provide business development and proposal development support across a range of technical and operational areas.

This RFP is intended to support surge and ongoing proposal needs across Development Gateway’s portfolio. Offerors may submit qualifications for one or more functional areas. Development Gateway anticipates awarding multiple contracts and establishing a pre-qualified pool of consultants.

Applications due September 30, 2026.
Apply here: https://developmentgateway.org/careers/?bzid=fb119116fbea

09/14/2026

We are excited to join colleagues from around the world at events focused on the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly. UNGA Week’s focus on a critical push to accelerate progress on the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through collective action aligns with our longstanding commitment to build the data systems and digital tools that drive lasting transformation, improve public services, and promote equality.

Our colleagues, Josh Powell, Beverley Hatcher-Mbu, and Sarah Orton-Vipond will be in attendance at side events throughout the week, including the UN Digital Cooperation Day, Foreign Policy’s Tech in AI Forum, and Devex’s Tech that Delivers event.

We are also pleased to be co-hosting an event on September 24 at the Institutional Intelligence Forum, Africa Edition with Athena Infonomics, focused on AI-enabled public service delivery. Additionally, DG will join our colleagues at Civic Strength Partners, Accountability Lab, and the Ban Ki Moon Foundation for the September 22 event on “Civil Society and Climate Futures in an Age of Fracture”.

If you are at UNGA Week, be sure to say hi to the team, especially if you want to discuss digital transformation, data governance, and how digital public infrastructure is vital to the SDGs.

09/09/2026

💡 Conversations on Soil Health and Data at 🌱

On the sidelines of The Africa Food Systems Forum - AGRF in Kigali, Development Gateway hosted a strategic breakfast dialogue bringing together stakeholders from government, research, implementation, finance, the private sector, and technology for a vibrant conversation on soil health, agricultural data, and decision-making.

A few takeaways:

⭐ Good agricultural decisions start with good data, and that means investing in the foundation underneath it – ownership, quality, validation, and governance – not just the tools built on top. But that doesn’t mean waiting for perfect data. Working with what’s already available while closing those gaps gets countries further.

⭐ Real insight on soil health comes from bringing diverse data together – soil, crop, climate, and economic – across disciplines, rather than treating fertilizer data as the whole picture.

⭐ AI is proving genuinely useful, both in the analysis itself and in how people get to interact with it, and it’s showing real promise for bridging gaps between systems that aren’t yet interoperable.

⭐ Evidence works best when it’s built to move at the pace policymakers actually need it. That means designing it to arrive early and plug directly into real planning and budget cycles, not around them.

⭐ Translating continental agriculture commitments into national plans works best when priorities are grounded in each country’s own context and backed by real evidence, rather than a one-size-fits-all approach.

These conversations are closely aligned with what we’re building through the Soil Nutrient Roadmap (SNR) – a tool that brings together geospatial and agricultural data to help countries identify nutrient needs, design tailored solutions, and plan investments. We’re also building an AI layer that allows users to explore the model, ask questions, test scenarios, and generate tailored analysis and visualizations. (Launching soon – stay tuned!)

Learn more about SNR: https://youtu.be/fG6yEDOvbMk