Advancing the Evidence Base on Strategies to End Child Marriage and Support Married Girls: Meeting Report

In October 2019, the UNFPA-UNICEF Global Programme to End Child Marriage, WHO/The Human Reproduction Programme and Girls Not Brides convened a meeting to take stock of the progress made in addressing research priorities for preventing child marriage and supporting married girls, to identify an updated set of research priorities for the next five years, and to determine options for strengthening the dissemination and uptake of research findings and the execution of the new research agenda.

Four key messages emerged from the stock-taking exercise:

1. The evidence-base on child marriage has grown substantially over the past 5 to 10 years, especially with regard to its levels and trends, causes and consequences;
2. Much more clarity exists around some key issues such as levels and trends, drivers, and protective factors;
3. Less clarity exists around other key issues such as levels, trends and characteristics of child marriage at subnational levels; the factors that lead to large scale declines; and the effectiveness, cost, and cost-effectiveness of interventions to prevent child marriage and support married girls; and what it takes to deliver such interventions at scale and in a sustainable manner, and;
4. There is a need to be more transformational in linking research to policy and programme needs. Based on these key messages, research priorities and options to strengthen dissemination and uptake of research findings were identified and collected in this report.

Based on these key messages, research priorities and options to strengthen dissemination and uptake of research findings were identified and collected in this report.