Identified challenge

In French-speaking West and Central Africa, 39% of girls are married before the age of 18. Evidence consistently shows a direct link between school dropout and vulnerability to early marriage, yet education systems across the region have not been systematically designed or resourced to function as protection mechanisms. Coalitions working on education and those working to end child marriage have largely operated in parallel, without a shared regional framework to coordinate their efforts or translate political commitments into concrete changes in budgets and laws. 

Our Approach

Commissioned by Girls Not Brides, Bantare designed a regional strategy that positions education not simply as a development goal, but as the most powerful protection mechanism against child marriage and gender-based violence. The strategy is built on a systems change approach, recognising that lasting transformation requires simultaneous intervention at multiple levels.

The strategy is based on a systems change approach:

• Gender Transformative Education (GEE): curriculum reform and teacher training to deconstruct gender stereotypes from the classroom.

• Socio-Ecological Model: simultaneous interventions at the individual, family and institutional levels.

• Bilingual Evidence Centre: the creation of a platform for sharing good practices between West and Central African coalitions.

• Budget Advocacy: support for CSOs to demand increased funding for safe school infrastructure (health, security, transport).

The strategy draws on a review of regional literature that demonstrates the direct relationship between school dropout and child marriages, ensuring that every pillar is grounded in evidence.

Outcomes

By the end of 2026, the strategy sets the goal of transforming public systems and policies through:

• Political influence: the explicit positioning of the marriage-education link in the agenda of regional bodies such as UEMOA and the ECOWAS Parliament.

• Budget advocacy: the use of a 10-step guide to encourage ministries of finance to prioritize financing girls' schooling.

• Resilience mechanisms: the deployment of operational guides (playbooks) to protect girls' rights in crisis contexts.

• A learning space: the creation of a bilingual evidence hub and learning collective on transformative education.

• Inclusive governance: the institutionalization of seats for young people on the overseeing national coalitions’ committees.

By bringing together coalitions for education and ending child marriage, this strategy builds a strong regional infrastructure, ensuring that political commitments are translated into concrete changes in budgets and laws, while securing a safe and equitable future for every girl in the region. The ambition by end of 2026 is to have shifted how education is resourced and governed across the region with girls’ safety embedded within budget decisions, curriculum designs, and the composition of the bodies that make those decisions.