ODA investments in girls

This GAGE workstream aligns with the urgent need for a detailed and up-to-date understanding of funding to support the well-being and development of adolescent girls globally. By tracking official development assistance (ODA) over time, GAGE’s trend analysis highlights key changes in bilateral donor investments in adolescent girls, and maps how funds are thematically distributed.

Overall, the prioritisation of adolescent girls’ well-being as reflected in the distribution of ODA is volatile and politicised, and leaves behind adolescent girls that are multiply marginalised (e.g. girls with disabilities, girls in displacement and girls at-risk of child marriage).

GAGE research serves as an accountability measure for bilateral aid and reinforces the urgency of increasing both advocacy and evidence on the importance of funding programming that targets adolescent girls’ well-being.

Publications about ODA investments in girls

Cross-Country

Investing in adolescent girls: Key changes in the bilateral donor funding landscape – 2022 update

publication

19.02.2025

Cross-Country

UK ODA cuts: How do they impact adolescent girls?

publication

15.11.2023

Cross-Country

Investing in adolescent girls: Key changes in the bilateral donor funding landscape - 2021 update

publication

16.09.2023

Bangladesh

Investing in adolescent girls: mapping global and national funding patterns from 2016-2020

publication

17.01.2023

Multimedia about ODA investments in girls

06.07.2025 -multimedia

UNFFD: what are the implications of the new financing landscape for adolescent girls?

08.10.2024 -multimedia

In their own words: Spotlighting girls’ vision for the future on International Day of the Girl

03.09.2023 -multimedia

Women Deliver Conference 2023: What we’ve learned and what we’re doing about it

18.01.2021 -news

Adolescent girls at the centre

In May 2020, GAGE was involved in an AGIP (Adolescent Girls Investment Plan) initiative to draft a joint paper 'adolescent girls at the centre', calling for concerted efforts to put adolescent girls at the centre of developing the Action Coalition process as part of Generation Equality. AGIP highlights priority areas for the movement to be responsive to adolescent girls in the current pandemic and beyond. The joint paper is authored by the following members of the Adolescent Girls Investment Plan (AGIP): Girls Not Brides, Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence (GAGE/ODI), ICRW, IPPF, Malala Fund, Plan International, Women Deliver. Download the joint paper Adolescence is a critical period of great transition for girls. It is a unique window when life changing events happen and offers a distinct opportunity to break cycles of poverty and deprivation. However, for girls in the global South, early adolescence (10-14) is typically a period where their worlds shrink and opportunities are curtailed due to norms and expectations of their social environments – their mobility becomes limited to protect their sexual ‘purity’ and family honour, they take on care and domestic work, drop out of school, abandon their friendships and networks, and may become married. The double discrimination they face due to their gender and age is compounded by poverty and other factors of discrimination such as disability, sexual identity or ethnicity. Often, they enter adulthood already at a severe disadvantage as a result of violence, early pregnancy, child marriage and limited opportunities for education and employment. Adolescence also offers a unique opportunity to reap a triple dividend for adolescent girls now, for their adult trajectories, and for their children’s futures. The benefits of investing in adolescent girls’ healthy, safe and successful transition to adulthood have a positive impact on wider society over the long term, and on the overall achievement of gender equality. However, the global crisis brought about by

29.09.2020 -multimedia

Beijing+25: why we should work with families to upskill adolescent girls