Community Evidence Shaping Policy

Bunyad was founded in 1994 for one reason. Too few girls in Pakistan could read.

Thirty years on, that concern still drives the organisation, though it has grown well beyond where it started. Bunyad now works in 14 districts of Punjab, across a much wider range of activities.

Bunyad already knew its communities. What it wanted was a way to connect what it saw on the ground to the debates that shape policy. The coalition gave it that. "Being part of the coalition has enabled Bunyad to better understand the national and international education landscape," they say, including the key commitments and policy priorities. It also strengthened their ability to take part in policy dialogue at a national level, and gave them other members to learn from.

On the ground, this worked through PAGE. In Hafizabad and Khushab, Bunyad ran district-level advocacy campaigns built on community evidence, using local realities to press for better access and better quality. Their own staff got sharper along the way: stronger on evidence generation, on advocacy, and on engaging the right people. Data from PCE also helped with something less visible but just as necessary: writing better funding proposals.

What really changed was their method. Their teams learned to present community concerns in a structured, evidence-backed way, to identify precisely where the education gaps were, and to link a local issue to a national policy priority. That made them much harder to dismiss.

They are honest about what remains difficult. Funding is the constraint behind almost everything, and they would like the coalition to help members find opportunities, write better proposals, build partnerships, and reach donors and development partners.

Their hope has not shifted much since 1994, because the problem has not either. They want every child, and particularly every girl, to start school and finish it. Out-of-school children and dropouts, especially among girls, are still a serious problem in many communities, and they want stronger efforts to bring those children back and to tackle the social and economic barriers that push girls out.

And after thirty years, this is what they would tell the rest of the coalition:

"Sustainable change in education cannot be achieved through policies and programmes alone. Communities, parents, teachers, children, and local stakeholders must be meaningfully involved in identifying problems and developing solutions. When local evidence, community voices, and policy advocacy come together, they can create stronger and more sustainable solutions."