Project profile — Accelerating action to end female genital mutilation in Ethiopia - program 2020 to 2024

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) program aims to speed up action to end female genital mutilation (FGM) under Ethiopia's National Costed Roadmap to end child marriage and FGM. UNICEF helps provide women and girls, including out-of-school girls, with the skills and knowledge required to voice their opinions and promote gender equality in decision-making at the household and community level. The project aims to engage adolescent girls in developing and implementing community-level interventions to end FGM, including establishing support networks and communication campaigns. UNICEF builds the capacities of master trainers to train and supervise community-level health workers to integrate prevention of FGM, management and referral for FGM-related complications. The project focuses on establishing community surveillance mechanisms, including through social and protection services and community leaders, to spread information about the harms of FGM, and track and intervene in cases of FGM. UNICEF performs formative research with a human-centred design and participatory approach to inform and identify effective processes in empowering women and girls and ending FGM. UNICEF disseminates best practices to tackle the root causes of FGM, including through Ethiopia’s National Alliance to End Child Marriage. The project also builds the capacity of the Government of Ethiopia to collect data and monitor progress related to its efforts to end FGM.

The expected outcomes of this project include: (1) empowered girls and women to transform their communities’ social and gender norms to end FGM; (2) empowered girls and women to receive quality services for FGM prevention, protection and that are care responsive to their rights and needs; and (3) empowered girls and women through programming to end female genital mutilation supported by reliable data, evidence-based decision-making and innovations that foster gender equality.

Results achieved at the end of the project (September 2024) include: (1) contributed to empowering girls and women to exercise their rights by fostering positive changes in knowledge, attitudes, and community norms on FGM. By the end of the project, almost all girls and women (99.39 %) participated in the project showed near-universal awareness of FGM’s harmful effects. Engagement with religious leaders reinforced this shift, with most leaders across denominations opposing FGM. Consequently, 103 communities formally declared abandonment of FGM and adopted community bylaws to sustain compliance; (2) supported the expansion of rights-based prevention, protection, and care services for girls and women. More than 10,000 adolescents received information and guidance on accessing confidential services, while protection interventions prevented FGM in 88 high-risk cases. Health system capacity is strengthened through equipping 146 health posts, 83 health centres, and 13 hospitals, and over 11,000 FGM survivors received counselling and clinical care, including referrals, with 96 facilities providing integrated post-FGM, sexual assault, and maternal and newborn health services; and (3) strengthened gender equality outcomes by improving the availability and use of data for evidence-based decision-making and accountability. Survey findings showed increased egalitarian beliefs and a growing consensus among boys, men, adolescents, and religious leaders that FGM violates human rights, alongside high awareness of its harms, girls’ rights to refuse, and available support services, strengthening the evidence base for policy dialogue, programming, and community accountability.