From Learning To Earning: How The Qatar-Based Foundation Education Above All Is Building Pathways To Economic Opportunity

For decades, development conversations around education centered on access: building schools, increasing enrollment, and reducing dropout rates. Success was measured in classroom seats filled and attendance sheets completed. But as labor markets evolve and youth unemployment rises, a more urgent question has come to define the debate: what happens after students leave the classroom?

That question reflects a reality on the ground across the MENA region and much of the developing world, where the real challenge is not just about getting young people into classrooms, but also about translating that education into meaningful livelihoods. And it is within this landscape that the former First Lady of Qatar, HH Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, established the Education Above All (EAA) foundation in Doha in 2012.

Launched with a mandate to expand access to quality education for underserved populations, EAA has since helped more than 14.7 million children return to school, while its economic empowerment initiatives have benefited more than 3.2 million youth worldwide. Today, however, EAA’s work extends beyond access to education alone. Over the years, EAA’s strategy has evolved to integrate education with employment, entrepreneurship, and economic resilience, linking learning to livelihoods through ecosystem partnerships, blended finance models, and youth-centered economic programs. It has also adapted to respond directly to the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 4 on inclusive and equitable quality education, and SDG 8 on decent work and economic growth.

In an interview with Inc. Arabia, Fahad Abdulla Malik, Head of Government Engagement at EAA, spoke about the foundation’s shift in focus from learning to livelihood. “In its inception phase, EAA focused on mobilizing resources to support out-of-school children; scaling programs that address barriers to basic education; and creating partnerships with non-governmental organizations (NGOs), governments, and aid agencies to expand outreach,” Malik shares. “Since then, the vision has evolved to consider critical aspects of success that include a full ecosystem integration, data and outcome focus, multi-sector alignment, and innovative financing. Our strategy spans access for marginalized and out-of-school children, education in conflict and emergency contexts, and pathways that connect learning with livelihoods. Rather than treating these areas as discrete, EAA increasingly approaches them as interconnected components of a broader education lifecycle.” Today, the foundation’s strategic lifelong learning vision extends support beyond learning into employment and economic participation—as Malik put it, “This integration brings the learning-to-earning journey under one institutional framework, strengthening coherence between education and employment interventions.”

Fahad Abdulla Malik, Head of Government Engagement at EAA. 

But how exactly does EAA do that? For starters, instead of a linear pipeline from school to job, the foundation promotes what it describes as an adaptive ecosystem, with all of its initiatives adopting multiple entry and exit points. It also integrates lifelong learning and reskilling, in addition to “stackable opportunities,” allowing learning, job placement, and entrepreneurship to reinforce one another. That philosophy echoes a quote which features prominently on the foundation’s website by American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer, John Dewey: “If we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow.”

The quote, Malik adds, in many ways exemplifies the essence of EAA’s work. “Guided by the Dewey philosophy, EAA’s forward trajectory includes future-ready skills, including green skills and digital competencies to enable youth to adapt to a rapidly evolving labor market and economy, education that supports economic resilience, not just employability, youth as co-creators and leaders, not passive beneficiaries, and stronger alignment between education, protection, and youth economic empowerment—especially in fragile contexts,” he says.

According to Malik, the urgency of this approach is particularly pronounced in the MENA region, where, in addition to education, youth often lack market-relevant skills as they transition into the formal labor market. “Youth in the MENA region are confronted with several complexities,” he points out. “One of these challenges is a youth bulge colliding with slow job creation. This results in persistently high unemployment and underemployment, longer school-to-work transitions, and social and economic pressure. In parallel, many youth lack access to critical resources, including finance and skills, needed to pursue entrepreneurial pathways and drive job creation and economic growth. In addition, they face a pervasive skills-to-jobs mismatch where labor markets increasingly demand digital and technical competencies, problem-solving and adaptability, and entrepreneurial capabilities. Without malleable education models, a skills gap causes a downward pressure on MENA economies by allowing youth to complete their education without market- ready skills.”

“According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), only half of workers worldwide hold jobs corresponding to their level of education,” Malik continues. “The rest are either overeducated or undereducated for their roles—a direct indicator of a growing education-employment disconnect and a misalignment between young people’s trajectories and the economy’s needs.” And while this is not exclusive to the MENA, Malik stresses that these challenges are especially true for youth in conflict zones such as Yemen, Sudan, and Syria, as well as for other displaced populations across the region, where conflict has disrupted education continuity, labor markets, and trust in institutions. “This means youth are not just job seekers; many are rebuilding their livelihoods from scratch,” he adds.

To respond directly to these challenges, EAA has designed Silatech, a youth-focused economic empowerment program that supports youth self-employment and enterprise development in regions where formal job creation is limited. Malik explains that Silatech does this by connecting people to employment or self-employment pathways, providing access to financing, equipping them with life and technical skills, and supporting startups and micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) through incubation and ecosystem partnership. “By linking market-relevant skills with access to finance and ecosystem support, Silatech enables youth to generate income, create jobs, and strengthen local economic resilience,” Malik notes.

A scene from an EAA project in Morocco.

In addition to the assistance it provides through Silatech, EAA also operates Al Fakhoora, a program that provides higher education scholarships to marginalized communities, with a focus on refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs). Through its Qatar Scholarship Program, Al Fakhoora partners with leading higher education institutions and works closely with local governments to expand access for financially vulnerable students. Plus, in order to advance its goals, EAA has also forged partnerships with governments, development banks, NGOs, and the private sector. These include a US$250 million partnership with the Asian Development Bank, which aims to expand access to education and skills development across Asia and the Pacific.

Closer to home, EAA announced a multi-year initiative at the UN General Assembly in partnership with Generation Unlimited (a public-private-youth partnership that aims to bring youth together with global organizations and leaders), to co-create innovative solutions at scale, to train and mobilize more than 565,000 youth across Jordan, Lebanon, and Egypt. “The partnership focuses on education access, climate action, employment, and entrepreneurship, demonstrating how blended public-private coalition models can scale youth empowerment and skill development in alignment with sustainable development goals,” Malik shares. “The collaboration pulls together technical expertise, funding, and networks—from international organizations to private sector and youth actors—to embed green and digital skills and employment opportunities across communities.”

Across its programs, EAA deploys a strategic model that combines blended finance, multi-stakeholder coalitions, technology-enabled delivery, and finally, integrated programming that runs from primary education to employment. The aim: to strengthen systemic outcomes over siloed projects. Now, given that EAA has millions of beneficiaries worldwide, it is keen to ensure that its metrics extend well beyond enrollment numbers. As Malik explains, the foundation works to ensure that education leads to meaningful learning, livelihoods, and social resilience over time. As for how the outcomes are tracked, EAA deploys results frameworks that align with SDG 4 and SDG 8, which are reinforced through independent evaluations, data, and, in some cases, longitudinal follow-up.

A scene from an EAA project in India.

“In addition to access, EAA assesses educational quality and completion through literacy gains, progression, and retention rates,” Malik adds. “For youth, it evaluates employability and skills relevance by monitoring market-aligned skills acquisition, job placement, or self-employment outcomes. At the social and systems level, outcomes are measured through indicators like social cohesion in refugee-host communities; reduced vulnerability to child labor or early marriage, inclusion of marginalized groups, psychosocial well-being, and the successful integration of learners into national education systems, alongside policy influence and institutional capacity-building.”

Looking ahead, Malik argues that the private sector has a key role to play in shifting the paradigm from learning to livelihoods, signaling that central to that is treating education as economic infrastructure rather than philanthropy. Here, he points to how EAA programs like Silatech are built for collaborations with partners across the private and public sectors. “For Silatech, this requires private-sector engagement across the full education-to-employment continuum— working alongside education, training, and financial institutions from the outset to shape market-relevant pathways,” Malik explains. “This includes private-sector engagement in co-designing curricula aligned with real market demand and supporting youth acquisition of critical skills, particularly digital and green skills, enabling youth to participate in emerging economies and respond to evolving labor-market and environmental needs.”

“The private sector also plays a key role in leveraging technology, including digital and artificial intelligence-enabled tools, to strengthen job matching, enable freelancing and remote work pathways, and expand youth access to markets and financial tools,” Malik adds. “Through Silatech, this is delivered through partnerships with the private sector and financial institutions that enable employment pathways, freelancing, and youth enterprise development, while expanding economic inclusion for underbanked and unbanked youth. By investing in youth across the full education- to-employment journey, the private sector contributes directly to job creation, economic resilience, and long-term social stability across the region.”

Pictured in the lead image is a scene from an EAA project in Djibouti. All photos courtesy Education Above All. 

This article first appeared in Inc. Arabia's February 2026 edition. To read the full issue online, click here.