Working together to develop Girls Not Brides’ Strategy for 2017-2020
In nearly five years of working together, Girls Not Brides members have achieved a lot and significantly sped up progress to end child marriage- in fact, faster than many of us anticipated.
The global movement to end child marriage must now adapt to a changing environment and shift from raising awareness and making global commitments to implementing commitments to achieve tangible change for girls at the community level.
Where should we focus our efforts? As Girls Not Brides’ 2014-2016 strategy comes to an end, we seized this opportunity to consult members and, together, build a roadmap for the Global Partnership’s work over the coming years.
A consultation spanning across 60 countries
In April, the Girls Not Brides team, in partnership with StrategiSense, launched a month-long consultation with members to celebrate successes, reflect on how we work together, and what our priorities should be.
To ensure as many members as possible could feed into this process, we organised an online survey, in-country consultations, virtual focus groups, and one-on-one interviews with National Partnerships coordinators and external stakeholders. The response has been overwhelming!
To see this level of engagement is not only exciting, it is truly indispensable to the success of our collective efforts!
- We had over 275 responses from members to our online survey. Respondents were based in over 60 countries – with many working across multiple countries or regions.
- 45 participants took part in our virtual focus groups.
- We held in-country focus groups with members in Kenya, Malawi, Nepal and Uganda and we convened consultations in Senegal and South Africa.
- StrategiSense interviewed 14 key external stakeholders, including donor government representatives, private funders, UN agencies and researchers.
- Finally, our Member Reference Group – from different geographic regions and with expertise spanning across a wide array of sectors and levels – has provided valuable insights. They advised on key external stakeholders that should be consulted, participated in virtual focus groups, and suggested how best to run the next stage of consultations with members.
Without Girls Not Brides members, their expertise and knowledge of the local contexts in which child marriage occurs, the new strategy will not be able to deliver the wide-ranging impact we need to see.
Organisations of all types contributed to the strategy development, including small grassroots organisations, large international organisations, youth-led groups and policy or research institutes.
What next?
Developing our Global Partnership’s next strategy has only just started!
We are holding a strategic brainstorming on Thursday 19 May at the Women Deliver conference, open to members and non-members alike. More details are available here.
Over the coming weeks, we will be analysing and summarising the insights gathered during the consultation to identify major themes and opportunities, as well as areas for further conversation, in a discussion paper.
We will then invite Girls Not Brides in July to share their feedback on this document which will form the basis of the Girls Not Brides Strategy for 2017-2020.
We will need your input to make this strategy count, so keep an eye on our newsletter and blog for more information.
Overview of the strategy development process
If you have any questions, visit our Frequently Asked Questions page. If you still have questions, feel free to get in touch at info@GirlsNotBrides.org.
In the time it has taken to read this article 32 girls under the age of 18 have been married
Each year, 12 million girls are married before the age of 18
That is 23 girls every minute
Nearly 1 every 2 seconds
About the author
Heather Hamilton
Girls Not Brides
As Interim Executive Director, Heather is responsible for ensuring that Girls Not Brides delivers on its strategy and advances our collective efforts to end child marriage. She leads on ensuring that partner engagement translates to substantive progress toward ending child marriage at the global, regional and national levels, and on the development of staff."