Support to UNFPA-UNICEF Global Programme to Accelerate Action to End Child Marriage

This project represents emergency support of $10M to contribute to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)/United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Global Programme to End Child Marriage’s COVID-19 response at the country level. Project activities include: (1) supporting the program to empower young feminist innovators to address child marriage by partnering with innovation hubs. These hubs bring these innovators together from across Africa and South Asia to enhance their understanding of the issues around child marriage and aggregate their creative abilities to address child marriage; (2) supporting the program to launch a global communications campaign on boys and gender equality using the lens of COVID-19 and child marriage. This campaign engages men and boys to act as champions of gender equality and to interrogate and transform harmful masculinities from an early age; and (3) supporting the program to ramp up its use of digital technologies to address child marriage by developing a coherent uniform digital system to ensure strategic oversight adaptability interoperability and scale in addressing the challenges of ending child marriage in the context of COVID-19. These digital platforms facilitate the faster learning and program adaptation needed to inform Global Programme actions in the path to ending child marriage by 2030. The project supports the UNICEF/UNFPA Global Programme to End Child Marriage a multi-donor joint United Nations program aimed at eliminating child marriage in 12 countries in Africa and South Asia where the rates of child marriage are among the highest: Bangladesh Burkina Faso Ethiopia Ghana India Mozambique Nepal Niger Sierra Leone Uganda Yemen and Zambia. The project focuses on enabling girls at risk of child marriage to choose and direct their own futures through activities aimed at the empowerment of girls with the ultimate aim to prevent child marriage and support already married girls. The COVID-19 pandemic is di

The expected outcomes for this project include: (1) adolescent girls at increased risk or affected by child marriage due to COVID-19 are making informed decisions and choices about marriage education and sexual and reproductive health; (2) marginalized adolescent girls including those in contexts of humanitarian crisis have enhanced knowledge education life skills and attitudes on their rights relationships sexual and reproductive health and personal finances; (3) adolescent boys families traditional and religious leaders community groups and other influencers demonstrate more gender-equitable attitudes and support for girls’ rights; (4) relevant sectoral systems and institutions effectively respond to the needs of adolescent girls and their families in targeted Global Programme areas; (5) education health gender-based violence and child protection systems have increased capacity to deliver coordinated quality program and services that are responsive to the needs of adolescent girls and their families including for those in contexts of humanitarian crisis; and (6) increased capacity of national and sub-national social protection poverty reduction and economic empowerment programs and services to respond to the needs of the poorest adolescent girls and their families including in those in contexts of humanitarian crisis.