Ending child marriage is a key priority in the strategic plans of UNFPA and UNICEF. As a response, the Global Programme to Accelerate Action to End Child Marriage (GPECM) was built to capture the complementarity of the work of each agency towards eradicating child marriage. The programme is implemented in 12 countries and four regions using a range of strategies and working with multiple partners at the national, regional and global levels.

The purpose of this joint evaluation, undertaken collaboratively by UNFPA and UNICEF, was to assess the progress towards results, sustainability of interventions, and programme efficiency and effectiveness to support the design of the second phase of GPECM, by learning early lessons in joint programme management and implementation.

The evaluation highlights that the programme is on track to achieve programme outputs. The programme has increased and collectively met targets for girls’ access to health and protection services over each year of the programme. The programme has also played a unique role in bringing together the combined capabilities of UNFPA and UNICEF to facilitate a multi-sectoral approach that is needed to handle the complex set of inter-related issues that enable child marriage.

Further, the evaluation makes eight strategic recommendations that call for leveraging normative leadership; moving the global framework towards country contextualization; consolidating and strengthening the evidence base and knowledge management; defining and monitoring ‘jointness’, convergence and complementarity; strengthening and contextualizing monitoring and reporting systems; further investing in human resources; strengthening the programme design; and finding funds or structuring the programme according to resource availability.

Read the evaluation report and related materials to learn more