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The first five years are the most dynamic period for children’s physical, cognitive, social, and emotional development. Evidence shows that children who experience high-quality early childhood development education programs are more likely to build a strong foundation for success in school and life. Abt collaborates with federal, state, and local agencies, nonprofit organizations, higher education institutions, and philanthropies to improve access to and affordability and quality of early childhood education programs. We analyze state and local policies, data, and funding to understand early childhood career pathway advancement and compensation. We help our clients expand opportunities to serve children, families, and ultimately, communities.

Effective climate action isn’t just about mitigating threats. It’s also about advancing global environmental justice, renewable energy resources, and economic opportunity to create fair, resilient, sustainable, and secure societies. Abt Global develops inclusive, evidence-based, and impactful climate solutions in partnership with governments, the private sector, and communities on the frontlines of climate change. Our multidisciplinary approach helps our clients confront climate change at the necessary speed and scale while restoring our natural world and responding to an existential threat to the planet. We also aggressively reduce greenhouse gas emissions within our own operations, supply chain, and products and services as we head toward our own net zero emission goal.

Abt Global generates, supports, and disseminates evidence-based education strategies that foster equity for all learners. We’re leaders in educational program evaluation, technical assistance, surveys, digital transformation, and systematic evidence reviews. Abt experts collaborate with policy makers and practitioners to shape consistent, evidence-driven approaches that address everything from STEM and educator quality to adult learning and career training. We assess program impact on communities and individuals. If there are gaps, we work with our partners to improve the processes and outcomes to ensure equity, tailoring activities to meet client needs and objectives.

Abt’s evidence-informed strategies support policymakers and educators to enhance K-12 education programs and student learning outcomes. Our work for educational institutions— from state and local education agencies to public and private schools—includes surveys of state and district coordinators to assess whether block grants provide better education for all students. We focus on a wide range of topics, including social and emotional learning, student engagement, literacy, STEM, educator development, and state and federal education policies. We deliver research and technical assistance to leaders so they can implement scalable interventions, and we prioritize academic, behavioral, and social-emotional growth to cultivate fair learning environments for all students.

Earning a college degree is a primary pathway for economic success, yet students can lack awareness of and access to vital resources for successful college application and enrollment. This gap hinders academic and economic advancement. Abt identifies and disseminates evidence-informed practices that help students enroll and complete their college education or other postsecondary credentials and reduce barriers to success. We design and conduct rigorous evaluations of programs—from high-school coaching to smartphone apps—that help keep students on track. Our technical assistance and strategic advising increases program impact, paving the way for fair futures and successful careers.

To support effective governance for just, secure societies, Abt brokers partnerships among governments, public-private coalitions, civil society organizations, and communities to calibrate and lead programs and policies responsive to local needs. We deliver expertise in public service and financial management, stabilization, decentralization, political economy, and digital planning and budgeting. We apply a political economy lens to all our programs to understand how incentives and motivations interact with rules and structures and affect power dynamics, resource distribution, and information asymmetry. In the U.S., we also advance meaningful change across the criminal and juvenile justice system, including intersections with health, housing, and social policy.

Abt’s research, implementation, evaluation, and technical assistance expertise advances meaningful change across the U.S. justice system. With expertise in criminology, sociology, survey methodology, and computer science, we approach criminal and juvenile justice system challenges and reforms comprehensively, considering the intersections with health, housing, and social policy. Our team’s robust portfolio of research and data analysis, rigorous mixed-methods evaluations, technical assistance, and training spans the justice process from community-based prevention through reentry and community supervision. This broad view enables us to provide data-informed insights and support for federal and state agencies, service providers, and communities as they face their most pressing justice issues.

Effective sustainable development requires local solutions to local problems. Abt applies a political economy lens to all our programs to understand how incentives and motivations interact with rules and structures affect power dynamics, resource distribution, and information asymmetry—and which interests are at stake. We ensure the process of articulating problems and identifying solutions are politically feasible and technically appropriate. Through our commitment to localization, we team with local actors so our shared contextual knowledge informs our understanding of the coalitions or networks that can shape or advance policy and institutional reform. We also use system-aware, contextually appropriate approaches to design, implement, and monitor our programs to achieve better results for everyone.

Abt teams with governments around the world to develop sustainable service delivery through better management of the public sector and public finance. Our systems- and evidence-based approaches—refined in partnership with government, service providers, and communities—facilitate mutual goals in public management. By fostering trade and investment-friendly environments, we help set the stage for sustainable economic growth. We increase transparency and accountability in public institutions by facilitating e-governance and digital platforms.

In fragile and conflict-affected states, Abt navigates complex development and humanitarian challenges to support people on the frontlines and to develop conditions for sustainable peace and security. We start by analyzing and engaging with political settlements to understand the power dynamics and to identify politically feasible opportunities for change. Our established approaches include political economy analysis (PEA), gender-sensitive conflict analysis and adaptive management to understand the structural drivers of conflict and violence. We engage power brokers, including non-traditional actors, to facilitate coalitions with similar interests, to broker peace agreements and to initiate state building. Where conflict prevention isn’t possible, we use conflict resolution techniques and war damage assessments to stimulate and stabilize economic sectors, streamline supply chain management, to foster civilian peacebuilding and to improve evidence-informed decision-making as nations transition out of conflict.