The global state of evidence on interventions to prevent child marriage
Objectives
The brief aimed to synthesise rigorous evidence on what works to prevent child marriage by reviewing interventions evaluated through RCTs, quasi-experimental studies and natural experiments over the past 20 years. It sought to describe the types of interventions and approaches used, assess which strategies successfully reduce child marriage, examine effects on girls’ schooling and pregnancy, and summarise available information on intervention costs to guide future programming and research.
Findings
The review identified 22 rigorously evaluated interventions across 13 low- and middle-income countries and found a shift over time from single to multi-component programmes. Empowerment approaches that build girls’ skills, information and support networks were the most consistently successful in reducing child marriage, while economic approaches, especially when used alone as cash or asset transfers, were the least effective. Schooling interventions that reduced direct costs of education often improved school enrolment and completion and frequently lowered pregnancy and childbearing, whereas community-level norm change efforts showed mixed results. Most successful programmes also improved girls’ educational outcomes and reduced early pregnancy, but very few evaluations reported costs or cost-effectiveness, limiting the ability to compare value for money across models.
Recommendations
The authors recommend that future child-marriage programmes prioritise empowerment components that directly strengthen girls’ assets and agency, ideally combined with schooling or other supportive approaches rather than standalone economic incentives. They call for more rigorous impact evaluations that report on individual components, implementation quality, coverage and cost-effectiveness, and for transparent documentation of unsuccessful as well as successful interventions to avoid repeating ineffective models. They further advise practitioners and policymakers to use the existing evidence base carefully when designing interventions, adapting approaches to context and target group, and investing scarce resources in proven, multi-component packages that can both delay marriage and enhance girls’ broader well-being.
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