Accelerating adolescent girls' education and empowerment: a call for action to the G7

Catalysing global action on adolescent girls’ education and empowerment is essential to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and establishing foundations for broader economic growth and prosperity. To achieve this, the G7 Whistler Declaration on Adolescent Girls can play a key role by recognising the second decade of life as an age of opportunity and strategically investing – through secondary school and beyond – in the world’s unprecedented 1.2 billion adolescents.

In this policy briefing, we outline the scale of the challenge and set forth three key actions for the G7:

1. Moving beyond global and national aggregates to focus on “leaving no girl behind”.
2. Improving educational quality by focusing on teacher training, tackling age- and gender-based violence in schools, and delivering a broad menu of skills relevant to girls’ real-world needs.
3. Increasing aid to education six-fold to tackle critical funding gaps, prioritising low-income countries and taking a coordinated, inter-sectoral approach focused on developing the multiple capabilities adolescent girls require.

Suggested citation

Jones, N., Presler-Marshall, E. and Lunin, L. (2018) 'Accelerating adolescent girls’ education and empowerment: a call for action to the G7.' Policy Note. London: Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence. (https://www.gage.odi.org/publication/accelerating-adolescent-girls-education-and-empowerment-call-action-g7/)