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December 10, 2025

AGIP Members Take to the Global Stage: Girls’ Voices, Feminist Action, and Collective Power in November

Advocacy

November has been exceptionally busy for AGIP member organizations. Our members have been driving bold, girl-centered advocacy across major global convenings from the Second World Summit for Social Development (WSSD2) and the Seventh International Conference on Family Planning (ICFP), to the UN Climate Change Conference (COP30). Across these global spaces, one theme is clear: girls and young women are shaping international agendas with power, clarity, and a demand for justice. 

Below is a snapshot of how AGIP members have been driving commitments, investments, and accountability with and for adolescent girls worldwide.  

Calling for Investment in Adolescent Girls at (WSSD2)

At the Second World Summit for Social Development (WSSD2) from 4-6 November in Doha, Qatar, AGIP members, GAGE, Malala Fund, Plan International, along with UNGEI and the Government of Chile, co-hosted the event “Resourcing adolescent girls: sustainable solutions towards financing girls’ rights,” bringing together government and private sector representatives, philanthropic organizations, girls and youth activists, and wider civil society to progress sustainable solutions to financing and delivering adolescent girls’ rights in all their diversity. 

Caption: AGIP members, representatives from Plan International, Malala Fund, and GAGE/ODI, with UNGEI representatives and the Government of Chile for the Resourcing Adolescent Girls’ Rights side event at #WSSD2 in Doha. 

Malala Fund used the summit to spotlight the global debt crisis and its devastating impact on girls’ education. Their official Summit reflections highlight that 5.2 billion people live in countries where more money goes to debt repayment than to education, health, and social protection. They also launched the joint statement Debt is Stealing Girls’ Futures, backed by over 150 organizations and girl and young women leaders, calling for transformative debt reform that centers girls’ rights. 

Plan International further amplified adolescent girl and youth leadership at WSSD2 through its collective statement from over 60 girls and young people, calling on world leaders to build a fairer and safer world and to listen to what #FutureGirlsWant. Across co-hosted sessions, Plan International and other members drew attention to the 88 million adolescent girls currently out of school and the financial and structural barriers that keep them from accessing education. 

Though leaders reaffirmed commitments, the lack of urgency and practical solutions left advocates determined to push harder in upcoming global forums, including the G20 Summit. 

Strengthening SRHR Through Feminist and Girl-Led Leadership at ICFP 

At the International Conference on Family Planning (ICFP), from 1–6 November in Bogotá, Colombia, our member organizations advanced critical conversations on SRHR, governance, feminist health systems, and girl-led advocacy. 

IPPF Africa’s Governance Team presented a scientific poster detailing an accreditation model designed to strengthen NGO governance and enhance the impact of SRHR services across the continent. The team contributed to multiple sessions and side events, sharing innovations and exploring scalable approaches to advance SRHR for communities globally. 

AMPLIFY Girls joined ICFP 2025 under the theme “Equity Through Action: Advancing Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights for All.” Their engagements emphasized breaking structural barriers for girls’ health and expanding the leadership of grassroots girl-led organizations. 

Women Deliver hosted two Feminist Playbook consultations, including a youth-focused session, building collective frameworks for feminist health systems transformation. 

Caption: Winnie Nyabenge, Amplify Girl’s Director of Partner Learning at ICFP 2025. 

Women Deliver, together with members of the Emerging Leaders Program, joined advocates, experts, and community representatives to reaffirm their commitment to advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights and promoting feminist global health policies and systems.

Caption: Women Deliver team and Emerging Leaders Program members attending ICFP in Bogotá, November 2025. 

During the side event “Resisting Retrogression: Efforts to Analyze, Strategize, and Mobilize to Counter Anti-Rights Movements,” Paola Salwan Daher, Senior Director for Collective Action at Women Deliver, introduced the Feminist Playbook, described as a collective action tool intended to reimagine and rebuild systems that meaningfully serve girls, women, and gender-diverse people. She emphasized the urgency of strengthening collective action to confront rising regressive forces, interrogate long-standing institutional structures, and collaboratively envision the feminist futures the movement aims to achieve. 

Caption: Paola Salwan Daher, Senior Director for Collective Action (Women Deliver), introducing the Feminist Playbook during the “Resisting Retrogression” side event at ICFP. 

Women Deliver also hosted two Playbook consultations including one dedicated to youth voices bringing new partners to the table and strengthening existing ties toward a shared vision for justice and equality. 

Plan International contributed to global discussions under the theme “Equity Through Action.” with an international delegation that included colleagues from Colombia, Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda, Canada, and the Netherlands, as well as two youth advocates. 

Plan noted its active participation in the Youth Summit, CSE Pre-Conference, and WHO participatory workshop, where teams shared insights on adolescent SRHR, innovations in CSE, and practical approaches to implementing WHO guidelines on preventing early pregnancy. The organization showcased five program abstracts and hosted a booth featuring new SRHR and CEFMU resources, including the “Pleasure Project.” In addition, Plan highlighted ongoing bilateral meetings with key governments, UN agencies, and partners to advance collective commitments. 

Caption: Plan International members at ICFP, championing girl-centered SRHR advocacy and pushing for stronger global commitments to equity, access, and meaningful youth participation.

Beyond the Negotiation Rooms: Centering Adolescent Girls in Climate Action at COP30 

At COP30, held from 10–21 November 2025 in Belém, Brazil, Plan International elevated the leadership of girls and young women climate activists through the launch of the COP30 Youth Climate Declaration. Developed by a diverse cohort of young climate advocates from East Africa, West Africa, and the Middle East, the declaration represents the voices and demands of thousands of girls across their regions.

The declaration underscores: 

  • the disproportionate impacts of climate change on girls and young women
  • the chronic absence of gender-responsive climate finance, and 
  • the necessity of climate policies that safeguard girls’ rights, safety, and long-term futures

Plan International’s youth leaders reframed the climate agenda through a feminist, intergenerational lens, insisting that effective climate justice must uphold girls’ education, leadership, participation, and economic opportunity. 

Malkia John, a member of the Women Deliver Emerging Leaders for Change Program and founder of Sauti Salama (Kenya), attended the COP 30 to advocate for climate justice and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). For Malkia, advocating for SRHR at COP30 meant bringing the lived experiences, insights, and stories of young women from Africa into global climate discussions. Her call to action was clear: women and youth must be meaningfully included in all climate policies and climate negotiations. 

Collective Momentum Across Global Spaces 

Across WSSD2,  ICFP, COP30 and more, AGIP members, along with adolescent girls themselves, showcased the strength of coordinated, girl-centered advocacy, ensuring that girls’ rights remain at the heart of global debates. Together, they advanced girl-led statements and declarations, brought evidence-driven policy demands, shared regionally grounded insights, offered feminist analyses, and demonstrated a collective commitment to shifting systems, not just narratives. 

These moments speak to a broader movement: adolescent girls are not simply participants in global spaces; they are shaping agendas, influencing policy, and redefining what leadership looks like. 

Yet, as AGIP members highlighted throughout these convenings, there is still much more to do. The AGIP WSSD2 Advocacy Brief underscores this urgency: funding for gender equality and adolescents has declined for four consecutive years, and nearly 40% of developing countries are in severe debt distress, sharply restricting investment in girls’ education, health, and protection. 

AGIP is clear about what must happen next: governments must be accountable to their commitments to invest in girls’ priorities and leadership so that girls have the voice, choice, and agency to determine their own futures.  

October 9, 2025

GIRLS’ LEADERSHIP IN ACTION: Celebrations and Lessons From AGIP’s First Adolescent Girls Advisory Committee 

MGE and Safeguarding, Stay Updated

This handbook was co-created by AGIP Cohort 1 Girl Advisors Darshana, Jaliyah, Luisa, Misati, Nhi, Paola, Rushna, Vanessa, and Ximena, together with AGIP’s Youth Engagement and Advocacy Specialist, Pooja.

It captures key celebrations, lessons, and insights from AGIP’s first Adolescent Girls Advisory Committee (AGAC), with the hope of inspiring more organisations to embed girl-centered decision-making at the heart of their work. It calls on all allies for girls’ rights to champion intergenerational leadership by creating meaningful spaces—such as Advisory Bodies—where girls can actively shape the policies, programs, and interventions that impact their lives.

We hope reading this handbook brings you as much insight and inspiration as we found in creating it together.

This Handbook is available in English, Spanish, and French.

March 12, 2025

Towards Inclusive Systems: Understanding Adolescent Girls’ Engagement, Challenges, and Demands for System-led Accountability ​

Learn More, Research

 Adolescent girls must be at the heart of policies and decisions that shape their lives. To drive meaningful change, they need the skills, resources, and platforms to amplify their voices, hold governments accountable, and influence decision-making processes.

This research, in partnership with ICRW Asia, presents an Accountability Framework co-developed with adolescent girls from India, Nepal, Cambodia, Kenya, Tanzania, Cameroon, and Mexico. It explores:
✔️ The mechanisms girls are using to hold systems accountable to their commitments.
✔️ The challenges and opportunities they face in engaging with decision-makers.
✔️ A model accountability platform designed by adolescent girls, adaptable across different countries.
✔️ Key recommendations to strengthen system accountability to adolescent girls’ needs.

This report is a valuable resource for policymakers, practitioners, and organizations seeking to centre adolescent girls in governance and decision-making. It highlights the power of adolescent-led accountability and provides a roadmap for ensuring their voices shape policies that affect them.

Download the report in English, Spanish and French.

March 12, 2025

Investing in Adolescent Girls: Mapping the Donor Landscape (2022 Update)

Learn More, Research, Stay Updated

The 2022 update of the “Investing in Adolescent Girls” report provides a comprehensive review of global bilateral donor funding dedicated to adolescent girls. The analysis reveals both progress and persistent challenges in achieving equitable and sustainable investments for this demographic. 

This research, part of the AGIP-GAGE series Investing in Adolescent Girls, maps the latest donor Official Development Assistance (ODA) flows, examining funding gaps, trends, and donor priorities while identifying actionable recommendations to ensure robust investments in adolescent girls’ well-being and development. 

Download the full research report here or the webinar report here.

Learn more about AGIP Research here.

November 12, 2024

Resourcing girls: The potential and challenges of girl- and youth-led organising

Learn More, Research, Stay Updated

Young people have been hailed as torchbearers of gender equality and as key actors in identifying and implementing solutions our world urgently requires. This said, understanding how girl- and youth-led organisations operate and their positioning within the ecosystem of gender equality and social change efforts requires careful examination. This report explores the experiences of girl-and youth-led work across low-and middle-income country contexts, and aims to understand the characteristics, contributions, and challenges of girl-and youth-led organisations. It highlights the global focus on gender equality and girls’ rights, emphasizing the increasing visibility of these issues in development commitments yet the complexities in translating these into tangible benefits for girls.

It draws on a rapid evidence review of secondary literature and key informant interviews with girl-and youth-led organisation members, intermediary organisations involved in funding girl- and youth-led groups and monitoring and evaluation experts to understand the contributions and impact of girl-and youth-led initiatives within the broader ecosystem of adolescent and youth empowerment and development as well to investigate the challenges they face in carrying out and expanding their work. The report concludes with reflections and key recommendations stemming from the research.

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September 19, 2024

Beyond commitments: Championing a new Girl-Centred Accountability Charter

Advocacy, Learn More

The Girl-Centered Accountability Charter, launched at the Summit of the Future Action Days 2024, is the keystone of AGIP’s Global Accountability Champions Platform. The Charter outlines 8 actions for governments to model and promote accountability with and for adolescent girls in global advocacy and policy platforms.  

Governments which sign the Charter become ‘Accountability Champions’ and make a public pledge to be accountable to their girl-centred commitments, lead by example, and influence other powerholders to practice accountability.  

Young people, UN bodies and girl-centered organisations can also support the initiative by endorsing the Charter and show solidarity with adolescent girls globally.  

Download the Event Summary report.

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September 19, 2023

Investing in adolescent girls: Key changes in the bilateral donor funding landscape – 2021 updateInvesting in adolescent girls

Learn More, Research, Stay Updated

Investing in adolescent girls can bring significant returns. There are currently 1.8 billion young people between the ages of 10 and 24 years globally, and most of them (90%) live in low-and middle-income (LMIC) countries. In order to understand the unique challenges faced by adolescent girls in particular, and effectively deliver on the Agenda 2030’s promise to leave no one behind, robust and disaggregated data collection efforts that capture inequalities faced by adolescents are paramount to drive smart investment.

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August 23, 2023

Where is the Money? Funding adolescent girls and young feminist

Advocacy, Learn More

On 18 July 2023, through an intergenerational dialogue hosted by adolescent girls, AGIP brought together adolescent girls, young feminist-led organisations, donors, researchers, and intermediary civil society organisations to identify challenges, showcase innovative solutions, and workshop what needs to shift to make funding more accessible for adolescent girls and young feminist-led initiatives.

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July 19, 2023

Investing in Adolescent Girls: Key Changes in the bilateral donor funding landscape – 2021 Update

Learn More, Research

Amplifying girls’ voices and visibility has been highlighted as a key approach both to ensure programming aims to meet their needs, and to increase young people’s voice, agency and participation in decisions that affect their lives – both as individuals and collectively. There have been growing calls to increase funding to movements and organisations led by girls and youth (Arutynova et al., 2022; Salley, 2019; Mama Cash and FRIDA The Young Feminist Fund, 2018). To date, however, there is limited evidence on how much funding is currently invested in adolescent-and youth-led organisations.

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