Assessing the integration of national and sectoral policies to end child marriage

2022
UNICEF, Multi-country

A Mokoro team, led by Alta Fölscher, undertook this study which was commissioned by the UNICEF Regional Offices in Eastern and Southern Africa and West and Central Africa under the auspices of the Spotlight Initiative to Eliminate Violence Against Women and Girls. It included six country case studies: Chad, Mali, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe.

The study focused on the extent to which the countries’ plans to end child marriage have been integrated into the countries’ public expenditure plans. The purpose of the study was to enhance the capacities of UNICEF staff and their government and civil society partners, to advocate for, influence and develop regional, national and sub-national programmatic actions and budgets to end child marriage. This was done by providing new data and analysis of the linkage between policies and budgets for ending child marriage (ECM). The study developed a taxonomy of ECM interventions, to aid the systematic analysis of ECM policies and expenditure. To supplement data from central governments, the teams visited one sub-national location to assess fund flows at this level to ECM activities in Chad, Mali, Nigeria and Zimbabwe, where prevailing Covid-19 regulations and the security situation allowed sub-national studies. Validation workshops were held with government, development partners and civil society ECM stakeholders in each country, to review country findings, conclusions and recommendations.

The team produced a country report and policy brief per country, and the findings from the country studies were synthesized in a regional synthesis report and policy brief, which is linked adjacently.