Support for the African Union's Campaign to End Child Marriage

This project supports the African Union's "Campaign to End Child Marriage in Africa: A Call to Action" which seeks to accelerate the end of child marriage in Africa by increasing awareness of the effects of child marriage. The African Union campaign aims to: (1) promote the effective implementation of African Union legal and policy instruments that affect young people especially girls to advance the fulfilment of their human rights; (2) support the African Union member states to frame launch and execute national strategies and programs to prevent and end child marriage; (3) promote universal access to birth registration quality education and sexual and reproductive health services including family planning; (4) improve knowledge on what policies and programs work to reduce child marriage; and (5) contribute to the African Union's priority area on gender mainstreaming.

The expected intermediate outcomes for this project include: (1) demonstrated increase of commitment and resources across sectors invested in the reduction of child marriage particularly in countries where the campaign to end child marriage has been launched; (2) greater involvement of all stakeholders including communities the private sector and civil society organizations; (3) increased numbers of countries that review enact and enforce the necessary legislation in line with regional and international regarding child marriage; (4) increased percentage of children and adolescents especially girls with access to birth registration and quality primary and secondary education and with access to family planning services particularly in countries where the campaign to end child marriage has been launched; (5) increased number of countries with comprehensive evidence-based policies and programs being implemented to end child marriage; and (6) an effective monitoring and evaluation reporting system instituted.