Beyond the usual data: Using alternative sources of evidence to address child marriage

PICTURED: Members of the Girls Not Brides Uganda sharing evidence, experience and ideas to co-create collective action to end child marriage, 2023

Data is one of our most powerful tools in the effort to end child marriage. It helps us understand where and why child marriage is happening, track progress, and design more effective programs and policies. However, many organisations—particularly those working at the community level—face challenges in accessing reliable data, interpreting it, and using it to influence change. These challenges are even more pressing now with the discontinuation of large-scale data sources like the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), which many organisations have long relied on.

In this shifting data landscape, it’s more important than ever to go beyond the usual data and explore alternative sources and context-responsive ways of generating and using data and evidence. While sources like DHS, MICS (Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys), census data, and administrative records remain valuable, organisations are also generating meaningful data through their own program monitoring, research, and learning efforts. Programme data and citizen-generated data enable organisations to tell their own data stories, grounded in the realities they see every day.

Our first online Learning Series session of 2025 offered practical guidance and insights from Girls Not Brides members on alternative sources of data and evidence to support programming and advocacy to prevent and respond to child marriage.

Key takeaways

• We must broaden our definition of “evidence” to include administrative data, programmatic, and citizen-generated data. Local alternative data sources can help capture what national survey data misses. Many harmful practices and drivers of child marriage—such as gender norms, cultural beliefs, and economic stress—are not reflected in national statistics. Community scorecards, baraza discussions, and other forms of citizen-generated data can offer timely and locally relevant insights.
• Other underused but valuable sources like those highlighted by Mousumi Sakar in the session—can also contribute. These include program-level monitoring data, administrative records from child protection services, norm-focused surveys (e.g., Afrobarometer, World Values Survey), and evolving platforms like FAO’s 50x2030 and the World Bank’s Resilient Futures. Together, these sources can help paint a fuller, more nuanced picture of child marriage and the social conditions that drive it. (See link below to download the presentation for links to other sources)
• Data collection must centre girls’ experiences and evolving capacities: Girls are not a homogenous group. Data must reflect their diverse realities, including differences in age, geography, ethnicity, and lived experiences especially for those who are most at risk or have experienced marriage or union.
• Underreporting and data distortion remain major challenges: Fear of stigma, lack of birth registration, and informal marriages make it hard to track child marriage through formal systems. Alternative methods like anonymous reporting in schools or mapping through trusted community members can help surface hidden realities.
• Triangulation of data is essential: No single source is perfect. Combining program data, administrative data, and the experiences and perspectives of survivors and community members, ensures more accurate, inclusive, and actionable insights.
• Investing in digital tools and local capacities is crucial: Training community data champions and using tools like mobile apps or digital suggestion boxes not only improves data collection but can also promote youth participation and build community trust in programming. Where possible, data should be returned to the communities involved in generating it.
• Norms, not just numbers, must be measured: Changes in social norms, such as attitudes toward girls’ education, marriage timing, or decision-making are often incremental over long periods and can be invisible in large surveys. Tools like the Barometers and community conversations can help track these shifts, and detect these subtle, gradual changes that big surveys might miss.
• Data is not just for research—it’s for action: When survivor-led, citizen-generated data is combined with programme data, it creates a powerful force for change. Together, these approaches lead to more responsive programmes, stronger advocacy, and policies that are shaped by the realities and needs of people most affected.

Related resources

• Civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS)
• Child Marriage Atlas
• Gender Norms Data Engine
• 10 Step Guide to Conducting Youth-led Research
• Research techniques and evidence-based advocacy: training module
• Data for Governance Alliance Advocacy Manual
• Asia and the Pacific SDG Progress Report 2025: engaging communities to close the evidence gap | ESCAP
• The Sustainable Development Goals and child marriage
• Safeguarding Global Health Data: The Urgent Need to Sustain Population Surveys
• Leveraging Citizen Data to Improve Public Services and Measure Progress Toward Sustainable Development Goal 16
• Harnessing the Power of Data to End Harmful Practices
• SVRI Online Courses
• Online training for Civil Society on how to access, understand, and use International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) data