The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Global Programme to End Child Marriage (the Global Programme) works with governments, civil society and partners to advocate for and support practical actions to end child marriage and promote gender equality and the empowerment of girls and women.

This brief explains the ‘what’, ‘how’ and ‘why’ of the Global Programme’s technical support and advocacy for evidence- and rights-based legislative and policy reform, and public financing.

These seven steps promote a common understanding of key concepts and provide practical examples of partnerships with governments and civil society organizations to promote legislative and policy reform as well as public financing to help end child marriage. Their execution relies on the leveraging of existing institutional mechanisms and support for UNFPA and UNICEF country office teams to ensure operationalization of legislative and policy reforms. 

The information presented here is evidence based, informed by promising practices from the Global Programme and its many partners, including Girls Not Brides, and its member organizations. The end goal of this brief is to facilitate the exchange of knowledge and good practices for application in Phase II of the Global Programme; in so doing, it provides a public good to countries beyond the Global Programme.