From 1994 to 2001, Dr. Vargas-Barón served as Deputy Assistant Administrator for Human Capacity Development of USAID, leading programs for educational development, professional training, and telecommunications. She established an agency-wide Goal for Basic Education and developed programs for: HIV/AIDS-affected children; ECD; workforce development; secondary and youth education; information technologies; basic education to combat abusive child labor; girls’ education; food for basic education; and higher education partnerships. She established several inter-agency working groups, and represented the U.S. at the World Education Forum in Dakar, and several other global conferences. She helped prepare the “Education for All” Dakar Framework for Action and she was a prime contributor to G-8 initiatives for basic education.

Currently, she directs The RISE Institute, an international NGO that focuses on education and child development, and she consults for many international agencies. She has worked in over 50 countries of Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia. She is on the Board of the Consultative Group for ECCD, the ECD Advisory Board of the Open Society Institute, and the Steering Committee of ADEA’s ECD Working Group in Africa.

Dr. Vargas-Barón’s approach to ECD is integrative and participatory. She is committed to strategic planning, building partnerships, promoting inter-agency collaboration, and designing, managing and evaluating innovative programs. She is the author of several books, chapters, articles, and other documents, including:

Going to Scale: Early Childhood Development in Latin America. (2009).

With Ulf Janson. Early Childhood Intervention, Special Education and Inclusion: a Focus on Belarus. (2009).

Co-editor of journal with Sian Williams. “Early Childhood Investment, Finance and Costs.” (2008). Coordinators’ Notebook.

“Participatory Early Childhood Development Policy Planning in Francophone West Africa” chapter in Africa’s Future, Africa’s Challenge: Early Childhood Care and Development in Sub-Saharan Africa. (2008).

Formative Evaluation of Parenting Programmes in Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia and Kazakhstan, (Includes international standards for parenting programmes.) (2006).

With Robert J. Melton. “Health Promotion and Early Childhood Development: Some Emerging Global Research Issues,” in Combating Disease and Promoting Health, Vol. III, Global Forum Update on Research for Health. (2006).

“Payroll Taxes for Child Development: Lessons from Colombia,” (UNESCO Policy Brief on Early Childhood. (2006).

With A. Lawrence Chickering, P. Edward Haley, Isobel Coleman. Strategic Foreign Assistance: Civil Society in International Security. (2006).

Planning Policies for Early Childhood Development: Guidelines for Action. (2005 (Published also in French, Spanish, and Russian.)
With Hernando Bernal Alarcón, editors. From Bullets to Blackboards: Education for Peace in Latin America and Asia. (2005).

Impact Evaluation: Early Childhood Development Virtual University in Sub-Saharan Africa. (2005).

Policy Analyses and Recommendations on Early Childhood Development and HIV/AIDS in Mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar. (2004).

Final Report, Project to Support National Policy Planning for Early Childhood Development in Three Countries of West Africa. (29 February 2004).

"State Financing of Higher Education Partnerships for Trade and Development" chapter in Technology and the Educational Workplace: Understanding Fiscal Impacts. (1998).

With Maureen McClure, "The New Heroics of Generational Commitment: Education in Nations with Chronic Crises" in Education as a Humanitarian Response. (1998).

Austin's Best Investment: Young Children, Five-Year Plan and Budget Projections. (1993).

With Martin Arocena and Paul Davis. "CEDEN's Parent-Child Program," in Fair Start for Children: Lessons Learned from Seven Demonstration Projects. (1992).

With Martin Arocena and Paul Davis. The Parent-Child Program: Research Report. (1990).

Policy-Planning for Culturally Comprehensive Special Health Services, a US policy paper. (1990).

With Martin Arocena and Paul Davis. "The Under-utilization of Social and Health Services by Hispanic Families" in Proceedings of the Hispanic Health Status Symposium. (1988).

Non-Formal Education in Lesotho: A National Study for Policy-Planning and Program Development. (1983).

Non-Formal Education: Assessment at the National Level. (1980).

With Wilson Velandia and Gilberto Bello. (1975). La educación no-formal en Colombia: hacia un diagnóstico de su realidad.