Adolescent Girls Programme Strategy, 2022 - 2025
Guiding UNICEF's direction of work for and with adolescent girls, setting out high ambition and the investment case for gender-transformative, multi-sectoral and integrated programming
Highlights
Adolescent girls around the world are speaking up and leading change toward a more gender equal world. But while girls stand ready to help shape our collective future, a myriad of concurrent and interlinked crises and barriers stand in their way. As the global community looks to “build back equal,” we have a unique opportunity to overcome these challenges, and to give adolescent girls the freedom and power they need to lead and thrive.
UNICEF made several ambitious commitments in 2021 that will, with appropriate follow-through, help the world act on what may otherwise be a fleeting opportunity to achieve these aims. By adopting its most progressive and forward-looking Strategic Plan, Gender Policy, and Gender Action Plan to date, UNICEF is committed to advancing bold, transformative change for a more gender equal world. These plans, which are grounded in numerous normative frameworks and intended to support the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, recognise that, to achieve success, gender equality must be integrated into all of UNICEF’s operations and programmatic work.
At the same time, the plans commit UNICEF to undertake transformative actions that place the rights, well-being, and leadership of adolescent girls at the very core of what we do. They call for specific and targeted actions that promote adolescent girls’ health, nutrition, learning, and skills, as well as protection against violence, exploitation, abuse, and harmful practices.
This Adolescent Girls Programme Strategy outlines just how UNICEF will advance such programming. With an aim of supporting adolescent girls to achieve their full potential, it articulates a plan for accelerated programming - with and for adolescent girls - that leverages UNICEF’s existing work and comparative advantage to promote more multisectoral, context-specific, girl-driven, rights-based support that meets adolescent girls’ diverse and overlapping needs. It is intended to guide UNICEF’s actions across the humanitarian, development, and peace nexus, reflecting the wide range of programmatic and technical work that UNICEF is engaged in with partners in more than 190 countries and territories.
