Founded in 1956, the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) exists to advance comparative and international education through research, teaching, application of evidence in practice, and the publication and dissemination of cross-cultural studies. The Society’s 70th Annual Conference took place from 28th March – 1st April, 2026 in San Francisco, California, United States of America, at the Hilton San Francisco Union Square under the theme “Re-examining Education and Peace in a Divided World.” The conference convened researchers, practitioners, students and policy actors for formal paper panels, plenary sessions, roundtables, poster sessions, workshops, and book launches.

A group photo of participants in the PAL Network workshop on Leveraging Citizen Data for Foundational Learning, at which Uwezo Uganda co-facilitated.

In this conference, Uwezo Uganda participated independently and collaboratively within the wider Regional Education Learning Initiative Africa (RELI Africa) Action for Life Skills and Values in East Africa (ALiVE) initiative and People’s Action for Learning Network (PAL Network) fraternity, contributing evidence on foundational learning and life skills and values.

While we participated in a number of sessions, our staff directly contributed to the following sessions either as facilitators, chairs, presenters or co-presenters:

• A formal panel, ‘From Access to Belonging: Education Policy and Practice for Refugees and Migrants’, which we chaired and at which we also presented two papers on refugee integration and cohesion in Ugandan mainstream schools, and social cohesion and equitable learning in refugee contexts.
• Chaired and co-presented a paper in the ALiVE-organised panel session on Building Cohesive Societies Through Education: Systems-Level Approaches to Nurturing 21st-Century Skills for Social Cohesion in Diverse Contexts.
• Co-facilitated in a workshop organised by PAL Network on Leveraging Citizen Data for Foundational Learning.

To learn more about the CIES 2026 Conference, please visit: https://cies.us/

Photos of session chairs, discussants and presenters after the two sessions on Systems-Level Approaches to Nurturing 21st-Century Skills for Social Cohesion in Diverse Contexts, and Education Policy and Practice for Refugees and Migrants.