The Malala Fund has announced a new two-year Joint Action Grant to support a youth-led coalition aimed at curbing child marriage by prioritizing girls’ education as a primary policy solution.
The initiative seeks to activate Nigeria’s National Strategy to End Child Marriage by moving the plan from paper to practice across five key states.
The coalition, led by Education As a Vaccine (EVA), will coordinate advocacy efforts at the national level and within Adamawa, Borno, Kano, Kaduna, and Bauchi states. Working alongside YouthHubAfrica (YHA), the Civil Society Action Coalition on Education for All (CSACEFA), and Onelife Initiative, the group aims to ensure that secondary education remains the standard for all girls, regardless of their marital status.
Currently, more than 30 percent of girls in Nigeria are married before age 18, with rates surging to 50 percent in the country’s Northeast and Northwest regions. Research from Accelerate Hub, led by the University of Oxford and the University of Cape Town, indicates that reaching out-of-school adolescent girls in Northern Nigeria with educational support could reduce child marriage by approximately two-thirds within four years.
“Ending child marriage requires political will coupled with a clear path forward, not just good intentions,” said Nabila Aguele, Chief Executive for Nigeria at Malala Fund. “This grant backs youth leaders to drive collective action, and move Nigeria’s National Strategy off paper and into action, with clear state plans, real financing, and accountability for results. Keeping girls in school through secondary education, whether they are married or unmarried, is one of the most powerful policy choices governments can make.”
The project emphasizes that school dropout is the tipping point for early marriage. To counter this, the coalition is pushing for state-level adoption of national re-entry policies that allow married and pregnant girls to return to the classroom. The economic argument for this shift is significant; analysis suggests a $114 million investment in these combined programs could deliver economic returns more than 21 times the initial cost while preventing an estimated 327,000 child marriages.
In addition to policy and legislative advocacy, including the implementation of the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act, the coalition will engage in community-based behavior change campaigns. These efforts are designed to challenge harmful social norms and mobilize male allies to support girls’ right to learn.
“Every girl has the right to complete 12 years of education, and when she does, child marriage becomes far less likely,” said Toyin Chukwudozie, Executive Director of Education As a Vaccine. “This partnership is about keeping girls in school through secondary education by fixing the gaps that push them out. When we protect a girl’s education, we don’t just change her life, we break the cycle of child marriage for the next generation.”
The two-year Joint Action Grant (JAG) will support coordinated advocacy and implementation efforts nationally and across Adamawa, Borno, Kano, Kaduna, and Bauchi states.
Malala Fund is working for a world where every girl can learn and choose her own future.
