Over the past decade, Girls Not Brides: The Global Partnership to End Child Marriage has had an exceptional journey of growth and progress. From our beginnings as a group of around 60 individuals in 2011, to a global partnership with over 1,500 member organisations present in more than 100 countries, we are stronger than ever and ready to take on the next stage of our journey.
As we reflect on the outstanding gains of the Partnership over the last 10 years – and more recently on our collective response to a devastating global pandemic – we have thought about how, as a secretariat, we can best adapt our work to a changing world. We have grappled with the question of how to better harness the power of our growing movement, support the implementation of hard-won national commitments, and instil a new energy into the global Partnership so that together we can deliver, at scale, change with and for millions of girls.
We believe that this Strategy – borne out of rich and in-depth conversations with member organisations, leaders, decision-makers, experts and Girls Not Brides staff – will revitalise the secretariat’s approach and strengthen our work. It will reinforce the leadership and collective power of Girls Not Brides member organisations, influence a wide range of actors in the movement at all levels and strengthen our collective learning about what works to end child marriage.
With increased emphasis on supporting Girls Not Brides National and State (or sub-national) Partnerships and coalitions to lead national movements, and growth of our presence and leadership at the regional level to deliver our vision, we will accelerate all our efforts for change.
Four years from now, we will see that we embody the same values, vision and best practices that we espouse today, but that we are markedly different in how we do our work and deliver change. We believe this Strategy will accelerate our progress to a world without child marriage. But it doesn’t change who we are: a global Partnership standing together to say, “let girls be girls, not brides”.