Successful multisectoral and multilevel approaches to address child marriage

Summary

The Research Spotlight reviews recent evidence on multisectoral and multilevel approaches to prevent child marriage and support adolescent girls. It shifts focus from describing the problem to examining which programmes work, how they work, and for whom. It draws on evaluations from 2021–2022 of alliances and initiatives such as Her Choice, Yes I Do, More Than Brides, AGI-K in Kenya, Keeping Girls in School in Bangladesh, Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Programme, and the WISH SRHR programme.

Across these studies, programmes that combine interventions at multiple levels; girls’ skills and schooling, community norms, SRHR services, economic support, and laws and policies, can reduce child marriage and sometimes adolescent pregnancy, especially among the most marginalised girls and those out of school at baseline. They also improve school enrolment, knowledge and use of SRHR services, and gender-equitable attitudes. However, results vary by context, social norms change is slow, economic components show mixed effects, and SRHR gains often depend on how comfortable frontline workers are delivering sensitive content.

The Spotlight concludes that multisectoral and multilevel approaches are promising but still under-evaluated compared with research on prevalence and drivers. It calls for more investment in impact and implementation research, especially in humanitarian settings and under-researched regions such as parts of Latin America and Francophone Africa, and for better use of large-scale government programmes and policy reforms to achieve change at scale.

Purpose

The brief aims to summarise the latest evidence on multisectoral and multilevel approaches to addressing child marriage. It highlights what recent programme evaluations reveal about effective strategies, identifies where evidence remains limited, and provides insights to guide stronger intervention design, coordination and investment across sectors and levels

Audience

The brief is intended for policymakers, donors, practitioners, programme designers, and researchers working on child marriage, adolescent girls’ wellbeing, gender equality, SRHR, education, social protection and child protection.