Empowering marginalised girls: The United Kingdom’s Girls’ Education Challenge

Abstract

The Girls’ Education Challenge (GEC) is the largest global fund supporting the education of marginalised girls in 17 countries across Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. It employs a girl-focused, adaptive and intersectional approach to improve access to education and livelihood opportunities for girls affected by poverty and discriminatory gender social norms. GEC’s partnership with CAMFED, a pan-African consortium of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Ghana, has increased education and livelihood opportunities for marginalised girls.

This content is part of TIPs In Practice series on poverty and inequalities developed in collaboration with the Development Co-operation Report 2024: Tackling poverty and inequalities through the green transition. 

Challenge

Over a third of the world’s poorest girls (130 million), aged between 10 and 18, have never been to school. Many are “invisible” in household surveys and administrative data, making it challenging to identify, enrol, and retain them in education. Despite substantial global investments, many education programmes struggle to reach these girls due to barriers such as marriage, poverty and interrupted schooling.

To address these challenges, in 2012, the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) launched the Girls’ Education Challenge (GEC). This is the largest global fund supporting the education and livelihoods of the world’s most marginalised girls, as evidenced by two GEC projects The Virtuous Cycle of Girls’ Education and Girls Learn, Succeed and Lead, implemented by CAMFED, a pan-African consortium, in Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Approach

• Facilitating transition from school to livelihood: GEC projects have been implemented in two phases. Phase 1 (2012-2017) focused on access to quality education. Phase 2 (2017-2025) supports beneficiaries to complete primary and secondary education and transition to employment. This second phase includes a Leave No Girl Behind initiative, which helps marginalised girls and out-of-school girls acquire literacy and numeracy skills for improved livelihood opportunities.

• Girl-focused and contextual approach: GEC’s approach to tackling marginalisation involves understanding the contexts (e.g. family, community, school) from the girls’ perspective. In other words, to design and implement interventions tailored to their needs. Based on this approach, CAMFED identified constraints that prevented girls’ access to education, such as the need to work and support their families. CAMFED addressed these constraints, supporting girls to attend school and adapting activities to times that suited them.

• GEC projects employ an intersectional approach: The Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) Framework allows for understanding and addressing the drivers behind girls’ exclusion. In communities where CAMFED works, poverty intersects with discriminatory gendered social norms, such as early marriage, sexual and physical exploitation, and additional financial burdens.

• Multistakeholder collaboration: GEC projects involve 198 implementing partners. CAMFED collaborates with district and national authorities. Leveraging a grassroots-led approach facilitated reaching teachers, parents, schools and communities to tackle challenges to girls’ education.

• Leveraging the multiplier effect: Women beneficiaries of CAMFED’s programme provide social and economic support to the next generation of girls through the Learner Guide Programme, which focuses on life skills, mentoring and enterprise development, significantly expanding the programme’s outreach.

Results

Monitoring exercises conducted in 2022 and 2024 identified a wide range of benefits for marginalised girls:

• Improved learning and training outcomes: Over 12 years, the GEC’s USD 1.1 billion global fund has enabled over 1.6 million girls in 17 countries across Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia to access learning opportunities through 41 projects. The GEC projects in Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe, implemented by CAMFED, have supported 270 845 girls, trained 5 022 community and school leaders, and developed improvement plans for 418 schools. Additionally, 2 816 girls transitioned to employment, enterprise, or further education and 725 young women were trained as Learner and Transition Guides.

• Improved wellbeing: The GEC has contributed positively to girls’ wellbeing, safety, self-esteem, economic circumstances, support networks and life skills. CAMFED collaborated with the University of Warwick in Tanzania to generate evidence linked to girls’ wellbeing and advocated for the inclusion of mental wellbeing in Ministry of education programming.

• Sustainability of GEC initiatives: GEC interventions are being embedded and sustained at school, community and national levels. As of 2024, CAMFED’s pan-African alumnae network, CAMA, includes 278 959 young women activists educated with CAMFED’s support and now leading CAMFED’s programmes.

• Value for money: Preliminary analyses of GEC’s projects show its cost-per-child is comparable to government schools in Africa and Asia, enabling partner governments to replicate and scale up interventions, offering the UK government good value for money.

Lessons learnt

Learning from the GEC portfolio of projects is compiled into 13 Learning Briefs, covering topics ranging from tackling gender-based violence and child marriage to providing social and emotional learning and community-based education.

Through its work in Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe, CAMFED has gathered valuable insights:

• Poverty is the main barrier to girls’ education: Financial constraints must be addressed to improve access. Improved family incomes boost girls’ self-esteem and societal status, and contribute to broader gender equality goals.

• Girl-focused and adaptative approach: CAMFED's success stems from adapting programmes and rapidly responding to marginalised girls as circumstances change, including during COVID‑19. CAMFED uses monitoring and evaluation data for strategic management and data-driven decision making, allowing the project to respond to emerging needs over time.

• Education Technology (EdTech) has potential to drive improvements in low-resource environments without exacerbating education inequality. However, robust, impartial evidence on the impact of EdTech is limited and particularly scarce in low-resource contexts.

• Collaborative partnerships within established governance structures enhance impact, sustainability and cost-effectiveness. Systematic engagement with local and national actors, including governments, is crucial to securing buy-in at different levels and ensuring that interventions are sustained beyond individual project lifetimes.

• Peer mentoring is an effective mechanism to support girls by providing access to positive role models, emotional support and individualised economic guidance. As witnessed through the alumnae network CAMA, mentors from similar communities help create important social networks.

Further information

Girls’ Education Challenge (2024), Educating girls: Making sure you reach the most marginalised, Learning Brief #10, January, https://girlseducationchallenge.org/media/rljfag5i/gec_learning_brief_most_marginalised_final.pdf.

Girls’ Education Challenge (2024), Results 2024, https://girlseducationchallenge.org/media/hkuj4tdg/gec_results-march-24_final.pdf.

CAMFED (2022), Final Reflections: Achievements and lessons learned, CAMFED International projects, https://girlseducationchallenge.org/media/edenrznx/summary_learning_camfed_v3.pdf.

OECD resources

OECD (2024), Development Co-operation Report 2024: Tackling poverty and inequalities through the green transition, OECD Publishing, Paris, (forthcoming).  

OECD (2020), OECD Development Co-operation Peer Reviews: United Kingdom 2020, OECD Development Co-operation Peer Reviews, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/43b42243-en.

OECD (2001), Poverty Reduction, The DAC Guidelines, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264194779-en.

To learn more about the United Kingdom’s development co-operation: 

OECD, “United Kingdom”, in Development Co-operation Profiles, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/ff4da321-en.

See more In Practice examples from the United Kingdom here: https://www.oecd.org/development-cooperation-learning?tag-key+partner=united+kingdom#search.