H. R. 4508 

One Hundred Sixteenth Congress 

of the 

United States of America 

AT THE SECOND SESSION 

Begun and held at the City of Washington on Friday, 

the third day of January, two thousand and twenty 

An Act 

To expand the number of scholarships available to Pakistani women under the 

Merit and Needs-Based Scholarship Program. 

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 

the United States of America in Congress assembled, 

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 

This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Malala Yousafzai Scholarship 

Act’’. 

SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 

Congress makes the following findings: 

(1) In late 2008, Malala Yousafzai began making the case 

for access to education for women and girls despite objections 

from the Pakistani Taliban. On October 9, 2012, Malala was 

shot in the head by Pakistani Taliban on her way home from 

school. 

(2) In 2013, Malala Yousafzai and her father Ziauddin 

Yousafzai co-founded the Malala Fund. The Malala Fund works 

to secure 12 years of free, safe, and quality education for 

all girls. Completion of a full 12-year cycle of primary and 

secondary education ensures a pipeline of girls able to pursue 

higher education. 

(3) On July 12, 2013, Malala delivered a speech before 

the United Nations General Assembly calling for expanded 

access to education for women and girls across the globe. She 

said, ‘‘[L]et us wage a glorious struggle against illiteracy, poverty, and terrorism. Let us pick up our books and our pens. 

They are the most powerful weapons * * *. Education is the 

only solution.’’. 

(4) On October 10, 2014, Malala Yousafzai became the 

co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for her ‘‘struggle against 

the suppression of children and young people and for the right 

of all children to education’’. 

(5) According to the United Nations 2016 Global Education 

Monitoring Report, more than 130 million girls worldwide are 

out of school. 15 million girls of primary-school age will never 

enter a classroom. As of 2016, at least 500 million adult women 

across the globe are illiterate. 

(6) According to the World Bank, ‘‘Girls’ education is a 

strategic development priority. Better educated women tend 

to be healthier, participate more in the formal labor market, 

earn higher incomes, * * * marry at a later age, and enable 

better health care and education for their children, should 

they choose to become mothers. All these factors combined 
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can help lift households, communities, and nations out of poverty.’’. 

(7) In 2015, all United Nations Member States, including 

the United States, adopted quality education, including access 

to higher education, and gender equality as sustainable development goals to be attained by 2030. One of the education goal 

targets is to ‘‘ensure equal access for all women and men 

to affordable and quality technical, vocational and tertiary education, including university’’. 

(8) In January 2010, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham 

Clinton stated, ‘‘We will open the doors of education to all 

citizens, but especially to girls and women * * *. We are 

doing all of these things because we have seen that when 

women and girls have the tools to stay healthy and the opportunity to contribute to their families’’ well-being, they flourish 

and so do the people around them. 

(9) In February 2019, the White House launched the 

Women’s Global Development and Prosperity Initiative to 

advance women’s economic empowerment across the globe and 

reach more than 100,000 women. 

(10) The World Economic Forum ranks Pakistan the second 

lowest among all countries in the world evaluated for gender 

equality. On educational attainment for women, Pakistan is 

ranked the tenth lowest. 

(11) In Pakistan, the rate of higher education enrollment 

beyond high school for girls and women is just 9 percent as 

reported by the World Bank. The global rate is 40 percent. 

Less than 6 percent of women 25 and older in Pakistan attain 

a bachelor’s degree or equivalent as of 2016. 

(12) Factors such as poverty, early marriage, disability, 

ethnicity, and religion can contribute to the lack of educational 

opportunities for women in marginalized communities. 

(13) According to the World Bank, ‘‘Higher education benefits both individuals and society. Economic returns for college 

graduates are the highest in the entire educational system— 

an average 17 percent increase in earnings per year of schooling 

as compared with 10 percent for primary school.’’. 

(14) The United States provides critical foreign assistance 

to Pakistan’s education sector to improve access to and the 

quality of basic and higher education. Since 2010, the United 

States Agency for International Development (referred to in 

this Act as ‘‘USAID’’) has awarded more than 6,000 scholarships 

for young women to receive higher education in Pakistan. 

(15) The Merit and Needs-Based Scholarship Program 

administered by USAID awards scholarships to academically 

talented, financially needy Pakistani students from all regions, 

including female students from rural areas of the country, 

to pursue bachelor’s or master’s degrees at participating Pakistani universities. 

SEC. 3. SENSE OF CONGRESS. 

(a) IN GENERAL.—It is the sense of Congress that— 

(1) every individual should have the opportunity to pursue 

a full cycle of primary, secondary, and higher education; 

(2) every individual, regardless of gender, socio-economic 

status, ethnicity, or religion should have the opportunity to 

pursue an education without fear of discrimination; 
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(3) educational exchanges promote institutional linkages 

between the United States and Pakistan; and 

(4) recipients of scholarships referred to in section 4 should 

commit to improving their local communities. 

(b) CONTINUED SUPPORT FOR EDUCATIONAL INITIATIVES IN PAKISTAN.—Congress encourages the Department of State and USAID 

to continue their support for initiatives led by the Government 

of Pakistan and civil society that promote education in Pakistan, 

especially education for women, in accordance with USAID’s 2018 

Education Policy. 

SEC. 4. MERIT AND NEEDS-BASED SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM. 

(a) IN GENERAL.—The USAID Administrator shall award at 

least 50 percent of the number of scholarships under the Merit 

and Needs-Based Scholarship Program (referred to in this Act as 

the ‘‘Program’’) to women for each of the calendar years 2020 

through 2022. 

(b) LIMITATIONS.— 

(1) CRITERIA.—The scholarships available under subsection 

(a) may only be awarded in accordance with other scholarship 

eligibility criteria already established by USAID. 

(2) ACADEMIC DISCIPLINES.—Scholarships authorized under 

subsection (a) shall be awarded for a range of disciplines to 

improve the employability of graduates and to meet the needs 

of the scholarship recipients. 

(3) OTHER SCHOLARSHIPS.—The USAID Administrator shall 

make every effort to award 50 percent of the scholarships 

available under the Program to Pakistani women. 

(c) LEVERAGING INVESTMENT.—The USAID Administrator shall, 

to the greatest extent practicable, consult with and leverage investments by the Pakistani private sector and Pakistani diaspora 

communities in the United States as part of USAID’s greater effort 

to improve the quality of, expand access to, and ensure sustainability of education programs in Pakistan. 

SEC. 5. ANNUAL CONGRESSIONAL BRIEFING. 

(a) IN GENERAL.—The USAID Administrator shall designate 

appropriate USAID officials to brief the appropriate congressional 

committees, not later than 1 year after the date of enactment 

of this Act, and annually thereafter for the next 3 years, on the 

implementation of section 4. 

(b) CONTENTS.—The briefing described in subsection (a) shall 

include, among other relevant information, for the most recently 

concluded fiscal year— 

(1) the total number of scholarships that were awarded 

through the Program, including a breakdown by gender; 

(2) the disciplines of study chosen by the scholarship recipients; 

(3) the percentage of the scholarships that were awarded 

to students seeking a bachelor’s degree or a master’s degree, 

respectively; 

(4) the percentage of scholarship recipients who voluntarily 

dropped out of school or were involuntarily pushed out of the 

program for failure to meet program requirements; and 
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(5) the percentage of scholarship recipients who dropped 

out of school due to retaliation for seeking an education, to 

the extent that such information is available. 

Speaker of the House of Representatives. 

Vice President of the United States and

President of the Senate.