ICRW Experts Engage with Global Partners on Ending Child Marriage

Article Date

21 May 2015

Media Contact

Anne McPherson

Vice President, Global Communications email [email protected]

This week, Girls Not Brides: The Global Partnership to End Child Marriage (GNB) held its first global member meeting in Casablanca, Morocco, convening over 300 experts, activists, donors and practitioners to mobilize and strengthen efforts to end child marriage.

Several experts from the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) attended the meeting and led training sessions, including: Suzanne Petroni, senior director, gender, population and development; Priya Nanda, group director, reproductive health and economic development; Lyric Thompson, senior policy manager; and Allison Glinski, gender and evaluation specialist.

Petroni, Nanda, Thompson and Glinski brought evidence from ICRW’s long history of preventing and ending the harmful practice of child marriage. Specifically, ICRW experts developed and conducted training sessions focusing on: 1) developing effective programmatic approaches to child marriage; 2) integrating child marriage prevention or response elements into existing programs that are not directly focused on child marriage (i.e. programs on maternal health, access to justice, or education); and 3) training members to use GNB’s Theory of Change and gain the skills to develop their own theories of change and map their organizations’ work on child marriage. Additionally, Thompson made presentations on the advocacy efforts of Girls Not Brides USA, which ICRW co-chairs.

“Our aim with these trainings has been to share essential knowledge and skills that can help our partners design, implement, evaluate and disseminate learning from effective projects and programs,” said Petroni.

Girls Not Brides is a global partnership of civil society organizations committed to ending child marriage and enabling girls to fulfill their potential. 

“It’s an honor to be here with so many passionate and talented individuals from around the world who are all working to end child marriage, which not only violates the rights of millions of girls worldwide by forcing them into a life of servitude, but also stifles global efforts to reduce poverty and improve health and economic growth,” Petroni said. “There is no single solution to ending child marriage. That is why it is crucial that we work in partnership to amplify, accelerate and learn from efforts to develop effective solutions to ending this harmful practice.”

Visit Girls Not Brides to learn more about the global movement.