Girls have the right to a quality education and must be able to continue and complete their studies.

Investing in girls’ education is one of the smartest investments a country can make. It boosts economic growth, with every $1 spent on girls’ rights and education potentially generating a $2.80 return; it curbs infant mortality and improves child nutrition. Just one additional year of schooling can increase a girl’s potential earnings by up to 20%.

Still, 118.5 million girls remain out of school across the world—a reality we cannot accept that is also costing countries: Limited educational opportunities for girls amount to $15 to $30 trillion in lost lifetime productivity and earnings.

Targeted funding accelerates progress for girls

The Global Partnership for Education (GPE) is committed to achieving gender equality in and through education, and the Girls’ Education Accelerator is key to our mission.

Designed to accelerate progress for girls in countries where their education lags behind the most, the Girls’ Education Accelerator offers countries a strong incentive to focus on girls’ education alongside GPE’s other grants, including system transformation and Multiplier grants.

Meaningful advances in gender equality have been made in El Salvador, the first country to access the Girls’ Education Accelerator in 2022, to fight gender stereotypes limiting what a girl can become and achieve. With a combined grant of $5 million from the Accelerator and $10 million from the GPE Multiplier, El Salvador has used GPE financing to:

• develop reading materials for children and their families addressing harmful social norms affecting girls’ education prospects in higher grades and future employment,
• and revise national education assessments so that they no longer include reinforced gender stereotypes, such as family care roles for girls and overlooked women’s employment in science and technology.

In Zimbabwe, financing from the Girls’ Education Accelerator is supporting 194,000 girls through scholarships, promoting safe learning environments, an early warning system for school drop-out for girls most at risk and developing a national life skills curriculum to boost self-esteem and confidence while also providing social support and study groups.

We need more girls-focused financing

Grants from the Girls’ Education Accelerator have incentivized countries to look not only at what causes educational disadvantages that girls face, but also at mainstreaming gender equality across the entire education sector.

There is now a large pipeline of countries eligible for and interested in accessing the Girls’ Education Accelerator, including Nigeria and Pakistan which have among the highest numbers of child marriages in the world, but insufficient funds to address their ambitions.

The Accelerator’s over-subscription demonstrates there is momentum for girls’ education through clear demand for and commitment to this type of mechanism by our partner countries.

This commitment needs to be met with resources, or we risk failing to support interventions with the potential to address the root causes of why thousands of girls from the world’s most marginalized communities are not accessing the life-changing benefits of quality education.

By investing in girls’ education to create safe and inclusive learning environments, we can build a path to growing economies and ensuring every girl has the opportunity to reach her full potential.

We must continue the collective effort to resource transformative efforts in education towards gender equality, and it is crucial that all kinds of partners join in.