Our People .
Senior Advisor Dr. Jennifer Swift-Morgan
Jennifer Swift-Morgan is an education and governance specialist with more than 20 years’ experience designing, managing, and evaluating innovative programming in Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East. Her expertise includes education systems strengthening for learning, assets-based political economy analysis to inform public service reform, and applied research. Jennifer served as technical director of USAID’s All Children Reading activity in Senegal, recognized as one of the most effective large-scale early grade reading programs in the world. She is a senior advisor in Chemonics’ Education and Democracy and Governance Practices and champions thinking and working politically across sectors to improve development effectiveness and sustainability, led by local actors. Previously, Jennifer worked for USAID, KfW Development Bank, Columbia University’s Earth Institute, Education Development Center, and the National Democratic Institute. A 2020 Fulbright U.S. Scholar, she holds a doctorate in international education policy from Columbia University’s Teachers College and has taught at the George Washington University in the U.S., the University of Yaoundé 1 in Cameroon, and Université Abdou Moumouni in Niger. She is fluent in French and Pulaar/Fulfulde.
by Dr. Jennifer Swift-Morgan
A Conversation with Jennifer Swift-Morgan
“A Conversation With…” is a series that explores the topics, experiences, and perspectives of Chemonics’ experts from around the world. This inaugural edition features Dr. Jennifer Swift-Morgan, a Fulbright U.S. scholar and a senior advisor at Chemonics, who spent one year in Cameroon teaching graduate students and working with faculty at the University of Yaoundé…
3 Questions with Jennifer Swift-Morgan on Supporting Cameroonian Scholars
Education and governance specialist Jennifer Swift-Morgan serves as technical director for the USAID All Children Reading project in Senegal and is a founding member of Chemonics’ Center for Politically Informed Programming. She was recently selected for a Fulbright award in Cameroon, where she will work with graduate students and university faculty in Yaoundé. Sponsored by…
Politics Matter: How Implementers Can Do Development Differently
It makes intuitive sense at many levels: power and politics matter. We know this to be true in our own hometowns, organizations, or governments: different formal and informal alliances, power imbalances, and motivators — stemming from kinship or affinity, party politics, economic interests, cultural ties, race and gender relations, and other informal systems — determine…
Making Schools Safe Across the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Overheard at a recent workshop: “Girls who are having sex with their teachers need to be coached to make better choices.” A debate ensued. Do they? Is that really a choice they are making? Or is it the teachers who need to change their behavior, school administration that needs to be part of the solution,…
Teaching Corner: Strengthening Academia-Government-Industry Linkages for Education Development in Cameroon
In the Spring 2021 issue of the Comparative and International Education Society's newsletter "Perspectives," Jennifer Swift-Morgan profiles a course named “Controversies and Perspectives in Curriculum Development,” which she taught as a guest in Cameroon.
Learning from All Children Reading Technical Briefs
The world has been facing a global learning crisis since even before the COVID-19 pandemic triggered widespread learning loss. In response, many countries are enacting reforms to improve foundational skills like reading, which require multiple coherent education system components that tightly align with learning and use cost-effective approaches to achieve and sustain outcomes at national scale.