UNFPA-UNICEF Global Programme to End Child Marriage
Driving action to reach the girls at greatest risk.
The girls at greatest risk of early marriage are often those hardest to reach. They come from poor families, marginalized groups or rural areas. They are also more likely to be out of school than their unmarried peers, robbed of the opportunity to thrive and fulfil their potential. Child marriage can lead to further isolation from family, friends and communities, and threaten girls’ livelihood and health.
In 2016, UNICEF, together with UNFPA, launched a global programme to tackle child marriage in 12 of the most high-prevalence or high-burden countries: Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Mozambique, Nepal, Niger, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Yemen and Zambia.
Our response
Global momentum towards ending child marriage has never been stronger, with several resolutions by the United Nations General Assembly and the Human Rights Council urging countries to increase investments in eliminating the practice.
The UNFPA-UNICEF Global Programme to End Child Marriage promotes the rights of adolescent girls to avert marriage and pregnancy, and enables them to achieve their aspirations through education and alternative pathways. The Global Programme supports households in demonstrating positive attitudes, empowers girls to direct their own futures, and strengthens the services that allow them to do so. It also addresses the underlying conditions that sustain child marriage, advocating for laws and policies that protect girls' rights while highlighting the importance of using robust data to inform such policies.
The Global Programme is generously supported by the Governments of Belgium, Canada, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, and the United Kingdom, the European Union and Zonta International.
Some notable results from the programme in 2020 show:
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In Niger, over 11,000 adolescent girls received life-skills training and information on sexual and reproductive health through door-to-door outreach visits, making sure that the programme reaches otherwise “invisible” girls, in particular girls with disabilities, those who have had a child out of wedlock and those who cannot, due to their workload, attend life-skills sessions.
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In Zambia, following six months of school closures due to COVID-19, the Global Programme worked with community action groups to support over 2,200 adolescent girls return to school by providing them needed school materials and re-usable sanitary pads.
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In Burkina Faso, the programme reached over 175,000 boys and men, including through “husbands’ schools”, to support positive masculinities and behavioral changes to protect girls from child marriage in their communities.
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In Bangladesh, the “#Raisethebeat4ECM” communications campaign to foster public opposition against child marriage reached over 147 million people and the adolescent-focused entertainment-education drama-series “Icchedana” complemented the campaign with cross-sector behavioural and norms messages, reaching more than 67 million people.
The Global Programme achieves results for girls by aligning key players in education, child protection, communication for development, gender, health and other sectors. The Programme builds the capacities of Governments and non-government organizations while engaging with communities and partners for more harmonized action and accountability.
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Last modified June 2021
Learn more
Resources
Key programme documents
Annual reports
- Act now: Accelerating gender equality by eliminating child marriage in a pandemic (annual report 2020 and country profiles)
- Global Programme Phase I Report and country profiles (2016-2019)
Technical notes and fact sheets
Gender-transformative approaches
- Gender-Transformative Accelerator Tool
- Gender-Transformative Approaches in the Global Programme to End Child Marriage
- Adolescent Girls’ Empowerment
- Life Skills Programmes for Empowering Adolescent Girls
- Gender Norms
- Partnering with Men and Boys to End Child Marriage
- Leaving No One Behind
- Adolescent Girl-Responsive Systems
Humanitarian settings
- Addressing Child Marriage in Humanitarian Settings
- Preventing and Responding to Child Marriage in Humanitarian Settings: The Global Programme Approach
- Adapting to COVID-19: Pivoting the Global Programme to Respond to the Pandemic
- Monitoring and Evaluation of Child Marriage Programmes During COVID-19
Policy and legal frameworks
- Child Marriage and the Law
- Seven Steps to Strengthening Legislation, Policy and Public Financing to End Child Marriage
Convergence and scaling up
- Convergent Programming
- Scaling Up Efforts to End Child Marriage: The Global Programme Approach
- Ensuring Value for Money
Fact sheets
Stories of change
Research and evaluations
Research
- Global Programme research strategy
- Publications Catalogue 2018-2019 and 2016-2017
- Scoping review: Evolution in the evidence base on child marriage
- Advancing the Evidence Base on Strategies to End Child Marriage and Support Married Girls: Meeting Report
- Research spotlight: Gender-transformative and systems approaches to ending child marriage and promoting girls’ rights
- Global Consultation on Child Marriage in Humanitarian Settings: Meeting Report
Evaluations
- Joint Assessment of Adaptations to the Global Programme in Light of COVID-19
- Global Programme Phase I Independent Evaluation (report and annexes with a summary available in English, French, Spanish and Arabic)
- Global Programme Evaluability Assessment