Edem Ossai is a lawyer and development practitioner with over 15 years of experience working at the intersections of child rights, education, and gender in Nigeria and across Africa. She is the founder and now, Trustee of MAYEIN, a Nigeria-based nonprofit that advances the development of children and young people through educational equity, entrepreneurship development, and civic pathways, with particular attention to ensuring that girls are not left behind. She is also Network Regional Coordinator for Africa at NORRAG, an international network for policies and cooperation in education and training.
As an inaugural Obama Foundation Scholar in 2018, Edem initiated Girls Without Borders, a school-based programme that teaches adolescent girls about their rights and supports them in exercising their agency. With a strong interest in strengthening evidence-based policy and systems for educational equity and gender responsiveness, she has published several resources and blogs, including a policy brief on gender-responsive education in emergencies in Nigeria. In 2021, Edem was appointed an Echidna Global Scholar at the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC. In 2022, she served as the Nigeria country consultant for the Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE) Minimum Standards Update Process. She has also provided consultancy support to the Women, Gender and Youth Directorate of the African Union Commission in Addis Ababa.
Edem holds a master’s degree in International Development and Policy from the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and a master’s degree in Cultural and Media Studies from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. She has received several awards and fellowships for her work in education and gender equality. In 2016, she was selected as a Mandela Washington Fellow by the U.S. Department of State. She also received an African American Institute Pitch Fest Prize at the State of Education in Africa Conference in Nigeria in 2015 and a Commonwealth Women in Leadership Prize, conferred at the Tenth Women Affairs Ministers’ Meeting in Bangladesh in 2013.