Desmond Bermingham

Desmond Bermingham is the Director of the Save the Children Education Global Initiative.  Desmond has worked in the education sector as a teacher, teacher trainer, senior education adviser and researcher in the UK and globally for over 20 years.  Desmond is also a member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Education and a member of the advisory board for the Global Monitoring Report.

Prior to joining Save the Children, Desmond was the Head of the Education for All–Fast Track Initiative (FTI) Secretariat at the World Bank in Washington. Under his leadership, the FTI grew to over 35 countries and secured donor commitments through to 2010 of over $1.5 billion. He also helped to establish the FTI as an important global partnership to promote aid effectiveness in the education sector.    He has also been a Visiting Research Fellow at Oxford University and a Visiting Fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington DC where he published a series of papers on aid effectiveness and education.  He is also currently working with Results for Development and the Open Society Institute on options for innovative financing for education.

Desmond was Head of Profession for the education team in the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) from 2003 – 2005 and he was a key player during the U.K.’s G-8 presidency in 2005 and worked closely with the UK Treasury team in preparing Gordon Brown’s announcement in 2006 of $10 billion commitment to education over the next 10 years. 

Desmond Bermingham has a bachelor’s degree from St. Johns College, Oxford, as well as masters degrees in education and development management. He has worked as a senior education adviser for DFID in Ethiopia, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, and Guyana and has a particular interest in increasing the effective use of aid in the education as well as responses to support education in fragile states and conflict affected countries.