This project seeks to improve learning outcomes for girls and adolescent girls in 13 fragile and conflict-affected contexts, and in humanitarian settings. Violence in fragile or conflict-affected contexts and in humanitarian settings prevents girls and adolescent girls from accessing safe quality education. The project aims to use data to better understand the barriers to girls’ and adolescent girls’ education in Côte d’Ivoire, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The project also aims to ensure that national education policies and plans in these countries are informed by the most up-to-date evidence on the barriers to education for girls and adolescent girls. The project aims to examine the country data from Violence against Children Surveys (VACS). These are national surveys that have been conducted in 20 countries with information for over 10% of the world’s population under the age of 24 on the complex issue of violence, with the goal of informing our policies and programs. This project also provides additional targeted support to the government of Côte d’Ivoire and governments in the Northern Triangle (El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras) to enhance their ability to develop laws, policies and programs to address these barriers. Project activities include: (1) analyzing existing Violence against Children Surveys (VACS) data with a focus on barriers to girls’ and adolescent girls’ education in 12 fragile or conflict-affected countries (excluding Guatemala which will benefit from knowledge exchange); (2) advocating for increased understanding and use of new data from secondary analyses to maximize data that is already available, by key education actors in government and civil society; (3) developing a new methodology for conducting a VACS in a humanitarian setting to gain an understanding of violence against children in refugee camps/settlements, and also with special attention to girls’ and adolescent girls’ education; and (4) providing technical assistance to develop multi-sectoral and gender-transformative National Action Plans in Côte d’Ivoire, Honduras and El Salvador, to prevent and respond to barriers to education for girls and adolescent girls, especially violence. The project’s direct beneficiaries include Ministries of Education, of Health, of Women and Children, and of Social Protection among others, in the 13 targeted countries, as well as civil society, non-governmental organizations and advocacy groups working in the field of girls’ education.
