Apply for one of the Short Courses
Applications close on 10 November 2025
Regional Short Courses 2025
Australia Awards Short Courses offer the next generation of global leaders an opportunity to undertake short-term study, research and professional development in support of key development and strategic priorities.
Australia Awards – Bangladesh invites professionals to apply for one of two specialised Regional Short Courses designed to build leadership, innovation, and policy skills across key regional priorities:
Course 1: Gender-Responsive Interventions for Climate Adaptation and Mitigation for Policy Makers
Design inclusive climate policies that empower communities and advance gender equality.
Course 2: Building Export Competitiveness
Strengthen trade policy, quality standards, and innovation to boost regional exports.
These Short Courses support the implementation of broader objectives across the region, including:
- National policies: For example, India’s National Action Plan on Climate Change, Bangladesh’s National Adaptation Plan 2023-2050, Pakistan’s Climate Change Action Plan, and Nepal’s Climate Change Policy 2019, which increasingly highlight the need for inclusive resilience.
- Nationally Determined Contributions under the Paris Agreement that recognise gender as a cross-cutting issue.
- Global donor priorities, including:
-
- Sustainable Development Goal 5 (Gender Equality) and Sustainable Development Goal 13 (Climate Action);
-
- Green Climate Fund and Adaptation Fund mandates for gender mainstreaming; and
-
- The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Gender Action Plan.
- Commitments under the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and UN Women’s regional gender-climate resilience agendas.
The Short Courses will be offered up to 24 participants from the South Asia and Mongolia region with a tentative allocation of three places in each course for Bangladesh. Ideally participants of these courses will be middle or senior-level managers in leadership positions within their organisation from the public, private and NGO sectors.
Note: Applicants can apply for only one of the Short Courses. Those who apply for multiple courses will not be considered. Previous recipients of Short Courses funded by the Australian government are not eligible to apply. Australia Awards long-term awardees who finished their studies before January 2021 are eligible to apply for this short course.
Learn more about the Short Courses below:
This Short Course’s emphasis will be on providing participants with practical implementation strategies including working with sub-national institutions and grassroots stakeholders.
Learning Outcomes
At the conclusion of this course, participants will be able to:
- Critically assess the gendered impacts of climate change across sectors to evaluate how climate change differentially affects women, men, and marginalised groups in sectors such as agriculture, water, energy, and disaster risk reduction, using intersectional and context-specific analysis.
- Understand the role of the private and finance sectors in gender responsive climate adaptation and mitigation.
- Analyse and critique national climate policies and financing mechanisms for gender responsiveness by assessing national climate policies both across South Asia and Mongolia and more broadly (e.g. NDCs, adaptation plans) and climate finance instruments (e.g. Green Climate Fund [GFC], Adaptation Fund) for alignment with gender equality principles and identify key gaps or opportunities.
- Design gender-responsive interventions for climate adaptation and mitigation, applying tools (e.g. gender analysis matrices, stakeholder mapping) to develop or revise climate-related programs or projects with concrete gender equality outcomes.
- Develop advocacy strategies to promote inclusive climate governance by formulating targeted strategies to strengthen women’s and marginalised groups’ participation in climate decision-making processes at local, national, or regional levels.
- Use digital and technology-enabled tools and data systems for modern policy making.
Course delivery
| Activity | Dates |
| Preliminary Activity (Online) | 17 November 2025 |
| Core Learning Elements (in-Australia) | 2—13 February 2026 |
| Applied Learning Activity (Online) | 23 March 2026 |
All dates and locations are tentative, and more information will be provided at the time of selection.
This Short Course aims to build the capacity of participants to improve their countries’ export competitiveness by addressing policy, institutional, supply chain and market challenges, and by learning from international good practices – including Australia’s.
The Short Course will:
- Enhance participants’ understanding of export competitiveness drivers
- Strengthen institutional and policy frameworks
- Build capacity in quality standards and compliance
- Promote market diversification and value chain integration
- Foster public-private cooperation
- Strengthen export marketing and branding skills
- Incorporate resilience and sustainability
- Create a regional platform for knowledge sharing to address common barriers, for example infrastructure gaps and financing of small to medium enterprises.
Course delivery
| Activity | Dates |
| Preliminary Activity (Online) | 1 December 2025
3 December 2025 8 December 2025 10 December 2025 |
| Core Learning Elements (in-Australia) | 2—13 February 2026 |
| Applied Learning Activity (Online) | 20—22 April 2026 |
All dates and locations are tentative, and more information will be provided at the time of selection.