Every year, 12 million girls are married before the age of 18 – roughly 23 every minute.<\/i><\/p>\n
Global rates have declined over the past decade, but progress is so slow and uneven that, at current rates, it would take centuries to end child marriage.<\/p>\n
Today, Girls Not Brides launches its 2026\u20132030 strategy with a stark assessment: the world knows how to end child marriage, but is not acting with the urgency or scale that girls need and deserve.<\/p>\n
Across education, health, legal reform, and community programmes, actors are each implementing parts of the solution, but with limited alignment. Without shared mechanisms to orchestrate these efforts, they fail to add up to sustained change.<\/p>\n
New analysis from Girls Not Brides and Girls First Fund<\/a> reveals that even before recent aid cuts, just 0.025% of official development assistance was directed to programmes primarily focused on ending child marriage. That is less than $1 per girl at risk per year.<\/p>\n Where funding does exist, it is typically short-term and siloed – poorly matched to the multi-sector, long-term approaches that evidence shows actually drive change. Community-based organisations, which research consistently identifies as central to progress, continue to receive a disproportionately small share of resources.<\/p>\n At the same time, the conditions driving child marriage are intensifying. Conflict, displacement, climate shocks, and economic instability are increasing pressure on families – particularly in fragile settings, where prevalence reaches 35% compared to 19%<\/a> globally. These dynamics are not always reflected in global progress narratives, meaning the most marginalised girls remain invisible in policy and funding decisions.<\/p>\n The Girls Not Brides 2026\u20132030 strategy catalyses and contributes to global efforts to reduce child marriage prevalence from 1 in 5 girls to 1 in 7 by 2030. It focuses on supporting locally-led action, bringing actors together around shared goals, and mobilising the funding and political commitments that the moment demands.<\/p>\n No single organisation can end child marriage, but the movement can. Our strategy is about taking what is already known, and the leaders already doing the work – and getting behind them. Because girls don\u2019t just need a better plan<\/i>, they need all of us united in the same direction.<\/p>\n Dr Faith Mwangi-Powell, CEO of Girls Not Brides<\/cite>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The headwinds are real: declining aid, global instability, and a coordinated pushback on girls\u2019 rights. This strategy answers them with something stronger: a movement aligned, an international commitment renewed, and a clear-eyed focus on the places where our work can change the most lives. Because every girl, everywhere, deserves the chance to choose her own future.\u201d<\/p>\n Dr Alaa Murabit, Board Chair of Girls Not Brides<\/cite>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Girls Not Brides is a global partnership of more than 1,400 civil society organisations working across nearly 100 countries, connecting actors from grassroots organisations to governments, and funders. Without faster and collective action, the partnership warns, millions more girls will be affected in the coming years.<\/p>\nRising global crises are increasing risk<\/b><\/h3>\n
A strategy focused on what needs to change<\/b><\/h3>\n
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