Amala at UNGA 81

Amala’s first UNGA week is behind us, but one word has stayed with our Co-Executive Director Polly since she left New York: agency. 

Here she reflects on what she heard, and the big question the discussions brought up. 

Words by Polly Akhurst 

It’s taken me a few days to digest Amala’s first #UNGA week. I was so proud to represent us there - and came away thinking a lot about one word in particular: agency.

It seemed to be everywhere.

At the Devex House events, in conversations about the future of international development, and then again in education-focused discussions. 

The event Nothing About Us Without Us, hosted by Transform Schools, Echidna Giving and Global School Leaders focused on secondary education in low- and middle-income countries, the question was asked: what should we count as success?

The resounding answer was agency.

That really resonated with me. Agency is at the heart of Amala's learning model. We don’t just see it as an outcome of education - we design the learning experience itself to help young people develop the knowledge, confidence and skills to shape their own futures and create positive change.

Hearing agency discussed so often made me think about a bigger question:

If agency is what we want young people to develop, how do we genuinely build our education systems around it?

That means thinking not just about what young people learn, but how they learn, the choices they have, the relationships they build and the opportunities available to them.

I was particularly excited to hear about the Girls Agency Lab Consulting's work to develop tools to measure agency among adolescent girls. We need to get better at understanding what agency looks like and how we know when we are building it.

For me, that is the really interesting challenge: moving beyond saying that agency matters, and designing education systems that actually make it possible.