Challenges identified

Despite measurable progress on ending child marriage globally, 640 million women and girls were married as children, and current progress is considered too slow to achieve the 2030 goals. Progress is now being actively threatened by growing normative and political resistance, declining commitments to gender equality, and climate shocks that compound the vulnerabilities girls already face. At the same time, the research infrastructure designed to support girls’ rights advocacy has its own gaps: 

• The lack of common research priorities.

• Limited consensus on scaling strategies. 

• The need to strengthen knowledge translation. 

Without a coordinated global research agenda that reflects current realities and is rooted in lived experience, the legislative and social gains made for girls risk being reversed.

BIG’s Approach

As part of the quarterly meetings of the CRANK Research Network (UNICEF Innocenti, WHO, Girls Not Brides), Bantare Impact Group contributed to the global launch of the technical paper " Navigating Pushback". The contribution was led by Executive Director, Aïcha Awa Ba, drawing on lessons learned in The Gambia to explore the resilience strategies needed to protect legal and social gains in the face of growing opposition. 

Bantare’s intervention was grounded in the co-creation and democratisation of evidence as carried by the CRANK network. It foregrounded the voices of activists and local actors to ensure that evidence reflects lived experience and directly influences policy, rather than remaining within academic or institutional spaces. BIG presented an in-depth analysis of the mechanisms of pushback, examining how resistance to girls’ rights manifests at normative, legislative, and community levels. A dedicated panel explored the added value of the UNFPA-UNICEF Joint Programme in the context of FGM elimination in The Gambia, and an inventory of litigation before the Supreme Court was developed to anticipate and prepare for potential legislative regressions. 

The intervention contributed to the final phase of the Global Research Agenda, “Accelerating Action”, with a focus on three concrete outcomes:

• The provision of concrete tools to CSOs and international partners to counter opposition to children's rights.

• The commitment to make research more accessible through diversified formats and translations (especially in French), to bridge the gap between research and practice.

• The alignment The Gambia's local priorities with global platforms to ensure that local knowledge drives global action.

Outcomes

The Navigating Pushback contributions make a clear argument that protecting girls’ rights in the current political moment requires not only good evidence, but an agile and inclusive research infrastructure capable of translating that evidence into tools that frontline actors can use under pressure. The Gambia case study is particularly instructive. It demonstrates that legal and social gains, once achieved, are not self-sustaining but rather they require active, evidence-based defence strategies that anticipate opposition and are grounded in the realities of the communities most affected. The integration of local experience into global research agendas is not simply good practice but it is fundamental to ensure that knowledge driving global action originates with the girls and communities it is designed to serve. This webinar demonstrates that the children's rights agenda cannot be protected without an agile and inclusive research infrastructure. By integrating the Gambian case study into the Joint Global Research Programme, the project ensures that girls' advocacy strategies are evidence-based, able to withstand current political and social pressures and safeguard progress towards equality.

For more information on the Global Research Agenda: CRANK Research Programme - Girls Not Brides