Summary of publication

Australia Awards is an integral part of the Australian Government's development cooperation program in Africa. Australia Awards seeks to equip Africans with the skills and knowledge necessary to influence the economic and social development outcomes of their own countries on return from the Award. An important element of this initiative is assessing program outcomes linked to development contributions by Award beneficiaries in their home countries. An Outcomes Study is carried out annually for this purpose. In 2014, this study involved a stratified random sample of Alumni at 12-18 and 24-30 months following completion of their Award and recipients of the Australia Awards Small Grants Scheme. This summary presents the highlights of the study's findings:

• Alumni are highly employable and excelling in their careers
• Alumni are using their Award-acquired skills to make significant development contributions in their home countries
• Two-thirds of Alumni report also making social contributions beyond their workplace
• Alumni are passing on Award-acquired skills to others in their workplaces
• The overwhelming majority of Alumni are well-supported in the workplace, although most face constraints to applying their skills
• Alumni are maintaining and developing the links they established while on-award
• The majority of Alumni are implementing their Work Plan on Return
• Funding Alumni's development work can be a positive avenue for enhancing their contribution in Africa

Alumni made five main suggestions on how to improve the Alumni engagement program going forward:

• more mechanisms to interact with Alumni
• changes to the Small Grants Scheme, in particular increased funding level
• further study opportunities through Australia Awards
• further strengthening of Alumni associations
• greater pathways to maintain contact with Australian institutions and organisations.

Full publication

• Australia Awards in Africa - 2014 outcomes study [PDF 1.3 MB]
• Australia Awards in Africa - 2014 outcomes study [DOCX 525 KB]