Girls Speak: A New Voice in Global Development

This fourth publication in the Girls Count series of the Coalition for Adolescent Girls is a result of their investigations to "uncover girl adolescent girl-specific data and insights to drive meaningful action," as a poverty reduction strategy. As the Coalition notes: when an adolescent girl "stays in school, remains healthy, and gains real skills, [she] will most likely marry later, have fewer and healthier children, and earn an income that she will invest back into her family."

As stated here, girls have a fundamental right to be heard, valued, and respected. Moreover, by listening to girls’ voices, policymakers and programme managers can help bridge the gaps between girls’ aspirations and their actual experiences. In this report, the authors outline six themes that arise from girls’ aspirations, including: the desire to be healthy and educated with viable livelihoods and career opportunities; financial security, and independence; and the opportunity to marry and have children at the appropriate time. Underlying all other themes is one universal: a shared inability to make decisions about their own lives, even though they know what they need.

This report also builds on girls' voices in ways that make them more accessible to policymakers and programmers. The recommendations call for families, communities, and development efforts that create an environment where girls can thrive. Girls themselves state:

• "We want an education.
• We want to stay healthy.
• We want to choose when to marry and when to have children.
• We want to be empowered economically."

As a result of this listening process, the authors have laid out five actions that "will help make the unheard heard."

1. Listen to girls, learn about their aspirations, and engage them in decision-making processes.

• Work with adolescent girls as partners, rather than working for them, to allow their unique insights to inform programmes and services. In particular, programmers should amplify girls' voices within their communities - not only about their contributions but also their opinions about how the programme's services might conflict with school and other goals.

2. Engage families, teachers, and traditional leaders as girl champions.

• Build a network of community-based local girl champions that prepare an enabling environment to facilitate girls' socio-economic development, participation, and self-expression. Programmes can raise awareness by promoting dialogue about the impact of long-term and short-term decisions made by families for girls. Programmes can also help by building networks of advocates and mentors for girls to provide girls with support in their community.

3. Provide safe and inclusive community spaces where girls can develop and raise their voices. Laws, policies, and services for violence against women should be expanded to include younger ages to address the real fear of violence that girls have in moving about.

• Safe spaces and times where girls can talk, play, and learn, as well as access to public spaces, give girls a chance to find and hone their voices and perspectives. Policymakers should do a more focused job of addressing the needs of girls in infrastructure projects - better access to water, fuel, and light will kick off change for girls right away. And expenditures on services for girls should be tracked - girls notice when schools and health services are not always welcoming to them, for example.

4. Give girls public platforms to amplify their voices.

• Include girls' voices at institutions, in media, at events, and in campaigns.

5. Change social norms that stifle girls' voices.

• The most powerful silencer of girls is the harmful social and gender norms from family to education, healthcare, and livelihood. Changing those discriminatory norms in every sector is key to girls' voices being heard.
• Make girls visible by formally recognising them as citizens.

Click here to download a PDF and PowerPoint slides of the report.