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2022-12-31-accounts

GIRLS NOT BRIDES: THE GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP TO END CHILD MARRIAGE

ACCOUNTS

FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2022

INDEX

Company number: 8570751

Charity number: 1154230

GIRLS NOT BRIDES: THE GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP TO END CHILD MARRIAGE

TRUSTEES’ ANNUAL REPORT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2022

REFERENCE AND ADMINISTRATIVE DETAILS

Trustees: Dr Anne T Gallagher (Chair)
Ann Cotton
Nick Grono (resigned 30 March 2022)
Karin Forseke (Treasurer) (resigned 10 June 2022)
Georgia Arnold
Emma Puig De La Bellacasa
Rita Sarin
Zipporah Jean Alaroker
Michael Feigelson
Chief Executive Officer: Dr Faith Mwangi-Powell
Key management personnel: Dr Faith Mwangi-Powell, Chief Executive Officer
Heather Barclay, Director of Policy, Advocacy and
Communications (left 30 April 2022)
Akila Lingham, Director of Finance and Operations
Rita Soares, Director of Partnership, Learning and Impact
Contact address and registered office: Seventh Floor
65 Leadenhall Street
London
EC3A 2AD
United Kingdom
Auditors: Sayer Vincent LLP
Invicta House
108-114 Golden Lane
London
EC1Y 0TL
Bankers: HSBC Bank plc
21 Kings Mall
London
W6 0QF
Solicitors: Bates Wells
10 Queen Street Place
London
EC4R 1BE

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INTRODUCTION TO GIRLS NOT BRIDES

The vision of Girls Not Brides: The Global Partnership to End Child Marriage (Girls Not Brides) is a world without child marriage where girls and women enjoy equal status with boys and men and are able to achieve their full potential in all aspects of their lives. We support a comprehensive approach to ending child marriage and addressing the underlying economic and social drivers of child marriage, including harmful gender and social norms that deny girls opportunities and their rights. By taking a holistic approach we not only contribute to ending child marriage, but also achieve progress across several global development goals including health, education, and poverty reduction. Our belief is that addressing child marriage in a holistic and comprehensive manner helps create a safer world for girls and leads to benefits far beyond simply delaying the age of marriage.

About child marriage

Every year, child marriage denies 12 million girls their rights to health, education, safety and control over their own lives. This is equivalent to one in five girls around the world.[1] This human rights violation occurs across cultures, countries and religions. Over 650 million women alive today were married as children, and every minute 23 more girls are married. Rooted in gender inequality and discrimination, child marriage disproportionately affects women and girls in terms of both the number of child brides and the life-long impact.

Ahead of the pandemic, we saw a decline in child marriage rates globally, but with the onset of COVID-19 experts are predicting an increase in child marriages as a consequence of a variety of factors including school closures, increased violence and domestic poverty. UNICEF estimates that we will see 10 million more child marriages by 2030[2] as a direct consequence of COVID-19, in addition to the 12 million girls already married each year.

Child marriage has many implications for both girls and their families and communities. Girls who are married early are at increased risk of dangerous complications in pregnancy and childbirth, and of domestic violence. With little access to education and economic opportunities, they and their families are more likely to live in poverty. Communities and nations also feel the impact of child marriage. Systems that undervalue the contribution and participation of girls and women limit their own possibilities for growth, stability and transformation. The World Bank and International Center for Research on Women estimate that child marriage costs economies around the world trillions of dollars. Girls affected by humanitarian contexts – including conflict, displacement and natural disasters – are more vulnerable to child marriage due to increased insecurity, greater poverty and weaker social networks.

One of the fundamental beliefs of Girls Not Brides is that if we address child marriage in a holistic and comprehensive manner, it is possible to empower adolescent girls and transform societies. Ending child marriage is a global commitment enshrined in Target 5.3 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to “eliminate all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced

1 For more information on child marriage prevalence rates in countries and across regions, please consult our Child Marriage Atlas, which is the only source of consolidated data on the issue of child marriage. It also highlights numbers of girls affected, the legal/policy situation in each country, and the distribution of Girls Not Brides’ members, National Partnerships and civil society coalitions.

2 UNICEF, 2021, COVID-19: A thread to progress against child marriage.

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marriage and female genital mutilations”. It is also necessary to achieve almost half of the SDGs, including those related to poverty, education, health and inequalities.

Child marriage is a complex issue with no single solution. We must work collectively across sectors – and from the local to global level – to change the perceptions, norms and experiences that shape and hinder girls’ lives. In 2014, Girls Not Brides worked with 150 members and partners to develop our Theory of Change (revised in 2023). It identifies four strategies to end child marriage: working directly with girls; mobilising families and communities; providing services (including health, education and child protection); and creating and sustaining an enabling legal and policy framework.

Our members and partners work across the four key strategies outlined in the Theory of Change, and the Girls Not Brides secretariat plays a distinctive catalytic role within the movement. We mobilise collective action and support at the national, regional and international levels; support member organisations to build their knowledge, skills and leadership and share their expertise; advocate for financial resources; and synthesise and disseminate learning on ending child marriage. In this role, we create a supportive environment to enable greater change. Currently the Girls Not Brides partnership comprises over 1,600 members worldwide. 82% work in communities, and nearly 40% identify as youth-led. Less than 12% identify as international organisations.

In 2022 Girls Not Brides launched a new Partnership Strategy (2022-2025)[3] and a new Secretariat Strategy (2022-2025)[4] . These ambitious plans will guide and shape our work for the next three years and we are confident that together with our members, we will make huge progress in making a positive impact on girls’ lives globally.

Abbreviations

3 https://www.girlsnotbrides.org/learning-resources/resource-centre/girls-not-brides-partnership-strategy-2022-2025/

4 https://www.girlsnotbrides.org/learning-resources/resource-centre/secretariat-strategy-2022-2025/

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Definitions

Child marriage

We use the term “child marriage” to refer to all forms of child, early, and forced marriage and unions where at least one party is under the age of 18. In this, we include all girls and adolescents affected by the practice – whether in formal or informal unions – and acknowledge the culturallyspecific understandings of childhood and development, and the complex relationship between age, consent, and force.

The movement to end child marriage

The movement to end child marriage comprises an informal global network of civil society and grassroots organisations, national and international non-governmental organisations (INGOs), activists, academics, United Nations (UN) agencies, funders, governments, leaders and champions – all working towards a world without child marriage where girls can exercise their rights and reach their full potential.

The Girls Not Brides global partnership (the Partnership)

At the end of 2022, the Girls Not Brides partnership comprised 1,604 member organisations from 110 countries committed to working together to end child marriage and support married girls. Girls Not Brides member organisations work across sectors – including health, education, human rights and humanitarian contexts – and range from small grassroots actors to large international organisations.

The Girls Not Brides secretariat

The Partnership is supported by the Girls Not Brides secretariat – a diverse team based largely in the United Kingdom with staff in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The secretariat plays three broad roles in civil society: a central support and coordination body for the largest global civil society partnership working to end child marriage; a representative of and advocate for civil society on work to end child marriage (including to influence decision-makers and funders at different levels); and an expert and trusted source and convenor of evidence and shared learning on what works to end child marriage.

National and State Partnerships and coalitions

Many Girls Not Brides member organisations have come together to accelerate progress to end child marriage in their countries by forming National and State Partnerships and coalitions.

National and State Partnerships are networks of Girls Not Brides member organisations that believe in the power of collective action to end child marriage and ensure girls can reach their full potential. They have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Girls Not Brides secretariat to align their work with the Partnership Strategy.

Coalitions are networks of civil society organisations committed to addressing child marriage and working together at the national level to spearhead change. They are close allies to Girls Not Brides but have not signed an MoU.

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STRUCTURE, GOVERNANCE AND MANAGEMENT

Girls Not Brides was incorporated as a company in the United Kingdom (UK) on 14 June 2013 and registered as a charity in England and Wales on 17 October 2013. It transferred its assets and activities from what was once an initiative under The Elders Foundation to the independent entity on 10 December 2013.

Objects

The charity’s objects are all regarded as exclusively charitable under the laws of England and Wales including, but not limited to:

Board of Trustees

Girls Not Brides is currently governed by Board of nine Trustees (the Trustees) who are responsible for overseeing the management of all Girls Not Brides’ affairs. The Trustees are selected and elected according to procedures set out in the Articles of Association. The Trustees ensure that all activities fall within the charitable objectives. The Trustees’ main responsibilities are related to administrative and financial governance, management of reserves and investments as well as guiding and overseeing strategy development and planning. In particular, the Trustees are responsible for ensuring the legal and financial compliance of Girls Not Brides , including compliance with the Charity Commission’s guiding principles and charity law.

The Trustees meet regularly throughout the year and act on advice and information provided by the Chief Executive Officer and the senior management of the charity. All Trustees are provided with an individual induction covering all aspects of the Girls Not Brides organisational structure and roles and responsibilities of the Trustees within the organisation, as well as Charity Commission guidance on governance, and the duties of Trustees in the UK. Trustee-specific trainings are organised to

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ensure that the Board remains compliant with the Charity Commission and up to date on current trends within the non-governmental sector. The Board of Trustees has two committees, being a Finance and Policy Committee and a Fundraising and Donor Relations Committee:

In 2022, two Board members stepped down: Nick Grono and Karin Forseke. In December 2022, the Board carried out a skills audit to start the recruitment for two new Board members in 2023. At the same time, the Board carried out a governance review to ensure that the Board is effective in relation to the Charity Code of Governance and to support the delivery of the new strategy. Trustee Essentials training was also offered to all Trustees during the year and was undertaken by the Chair.

Statement of Trustees’ responsibilities

The Trustees (who are also directors of Girls Not Brides for the purposes of company law) are responsible for preparing the Trustees’ annual report and the financial statements in accordance with applicable law and UK Accounting Standards (UK Generally Accepted Accounting Practice).

Company law requires the Trustees to prepare financial statements for each financial year, which give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the charitable company and of the incoming resources and application of resources, including the income and expenditure, of the charitable company for that period. In preparing these financial statements, the Trustees are required to:

The Trustees are responsible for keeping adequate accounting records that disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the charitable company and enable them to ensure that the financial statements comply with the Companies Act 2006. They are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the charitable company and hence for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities.

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In so far as the Trustees are aware:

The Trustees are responsible for the maintenance and integrity of the corporate and financial information included on the charitable company's website. Legislation in the UK governing the preparation and dissemination of financial statements may differ from legislation in other jurisdictions.

The Trustees have no beneficial interest in the charity.

Disclosure of information to auditors

So far as the Trustees are aware, there is no relevant audit information of which the company's auditors are unaware. The Trustees have taken all the steps that they need to as Trustees in order to make themselves aware of any relevant audit information and to establish that the company's auditors are aware of that information.

Auditors

Sayer Vincent LLP have indicated their willingness to continue in office and in accordance with the provisions of the Companies Act it is proposed that they be re-appointed auditors for the ensuing year.

Members of Girls Not Brides

The Girls Not Brides secretariat supports the global partnership of member organisations. Membership is open to non-governmental organisations that endorse its mission statement and agree to its membership principles. These organisations are publicly and commonly referred to as “members” (as opposed to the Company Members described above).

Members contribute to the Partnership and engage with one another, as well as with the secretariat, in a variety of ways depending on their interests and capacity. The work and interests of members help define the strategy of Girls Not Brides , and the secretariat requests feedback from them on various issues on a regular basis.

Secretariat

Girls Not Brides’ day-to-day operations are run by its staff based in its London office, with additional individual team members based in New Delhi (India), Nairobi (Kenya) and Mexico City (Mexico). The secretariat is made up of four directorates (Communications & Influencing; Development & Outreach; Finance & Operations; and Partnership, Learning & Impact), with a Chief Executive Officer overseeing their work. The Chief Executive Officer reports to the Trustees. The Trustees delegate the day-to-day running of the organisation to the Chief Executive Officer.

GIRLS NOT BRIDES: THE GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP TO END CHILD MARRIAGE

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Principal risks and uncertainties

The organisation’s approach to risk management includes reviewing the organisational risk register, with oversight from the Board of Trustees and input from all senior staff, and updating risk management guidance for staff. Girls Not Brides views risk management as a continuous process that must be considered at the forefront of all activities by all staff members.

In December 2022, the Trustees conducted the annual review of the risk register and were satisfied with the controls and procedures the secretariat had put in place. The Trustees were also satisfied with progress in monitoring and mitigating previously identified potential risks, including financial risks related to its ability to raise sufficient funds, the impact of currency fluctuations, inflation, the increased cost of living, and management risks.

The risk register is classified into six categories (external engagement, finance and due diligence, fundraising, governance and leadership, operational and partnership) that are further defined into specific potential risk elements. Within this, significant risks are identified and summarised. This includes the following risks and mitigation strategies:

Safeguarding and Serious Incidents

During the year, Girls Not Brides continued to step up its efforts in ensuring high standards of safeguarding, monitoring and training of all relevant persons across the globe.

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The charity maintains its zero-tolerance policy towards abuse or other forms of serious misconduct and sets clear standards and expectations around members’ behaviour in our international Code of Conduct. All employees and other representatives are required to take part in both induction and recurring annual training on safeguarding and associated policies and controls (through webinars, face-to-face discussions, and consultations).

The Trustees are cognisant of their obligations to report the most serious misconduct or abuse to relevant authorities in the UK and other countries of operation, in particular the formal requirements for Serious Incident Reporting to the Charity Commission for England and Wales. This obligation is understood across the broader definitions of Serious Incidents in which the Commission would have an interest. There were no Serious Incident Notifications made to the Commission during the period covered by this report.

Public benefit

The Trustees’ report sets out Girls Not Brides’ charitable activities contributing to ending child marriage, which we have carried out in line with our charitable objects, being the promotion of equality and human rights, the prevention and relief of poverty, the advancement of health, the advancement of education and the relief of those in need by reason of youth and/or ill health. The Board has considered the issue of public benefit and is confident that Girls Not Brides’ activities comply with the duty in section 17 of the Charities Act 2011 to have due regard to public benefit guidance published by the Charity Commission.

Fundraising

In 2022, Girls Not Brides actively fundraised from a small pool of donors, primarily made up of governments and foundations. Activities were led by our Senior Leadership Team and Development and Outreach Team with active support from our Global Champion. We also benefited from the support and expertise of other colleagues and Board Members. Activities included researching prospective government and foundation funding, a variety of communications with existing and prospective donors, and preparing concept notes, proposals and reporting for these donors. Girls Not Brides’ fundraising activities are guided by the Fundraising and Donor Relations Committee.

During the year under review, Girls Not Brides did not use professional fundraisers or commercial participators and did not actively solicit funds from the general public, including vulnerable people, for the secretariat’s work. We complied with fundraising regulation and codes in 2022 and we did not receive any complaints.

Remuneration policy

Girls Not Brides applies a Global Pay and Benefits policy, which provided the organisation with a framework and principles for pay and benefits for all employees, including how salaries are set, how pay increases are determined, and other pay related topics.

In line with the values of Girls Not Brides , the new policy aims to provide transparency, equity, and fairness to staff following a ‘Total Reward Approach’, which includes financial and non-financial elements.

Girls Not Brides is guided by the following remuneration principles in line with Project Fair:

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GIRLS NOT BRIDES’ 2022 IMPACT REPORT

Message from the Chief Executive Officer

As Girls Not Brides: The Global Partnership to End Child Marriage entered its 11th year of operations in 2022, the countdown towards the Sustainable Development Goals began in earnest. With only eight years left on the clock, no country is on track to achieve these Goals, including Target 5.3: “To eliminate all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilations.”

Over the past decade, child marriage prevalence has declined by 15%, but progress has been uneven and is not happening fast enough.[5] With governments, communities and individuals the world over facing the interconnected challenges of climate crisis, conflict, COVID-19 and rising costs, our work to address child marriage is more urgent than ever.

It is in this context that we began implementing our ambitious new Secretariat Strategy 2022-25. Our approach seeks to deliver the long-term systems change needed to address the root causes of child marriage and gender inequality, to ensure girls and women – in all their diversity – can exercise their rights and fulfil their potential. Change at this scale requires a movement of diverse stakeholders with a shared vision and acting together across sectors and at every level to transform gender norms.

Our role as a secretariat is threefold. 1) We are a central support and coordination body for the largest global civil society partnership working to end child marriage; 2) we represent and advocate for civil society on work to end child marriage, bringing girls and adolescents into decision-making spaces, and mobilising and influencing governments, donors and stakeholders at different levels to take gender-transformative action; and 3) we are an expert and trusted source for evidence and shared learning on child marriage, committed to the belief that our collective work will only be effective and sustainable if it is based on accurate evidence and the lived experience of girls and adolescents.

There are many highlights from what has been a busy year for the global Partnership. In Frenchspeaking West Africa, we supported civil society National Partnerships and coalitions in Burkina Faso and Niger to engage across sectors, share learnings and work collectively to address child marriage and girls’ education in an integrated way. We also supported young researchers to undertake individual investigations, positioning them as essential partners in generating evidence and understanding on child marriage.

In Uttar Pradesh, India, we worked with the state coalition to offer girls training in the design and implementation of social action projects to raise awareness, foster positive community attitudes, and gather support for girls’ education and services. Through this project, 2,100 adolescent girls identified and took collective action, increased their advocacy work, and inspired others in their communities to support them in transforming the gendered beliefs and practices that drive child marriage and limit girls’ opportunities.

5 UNICEF (2021) Towards ending child marriage: Global trends and profiles of progress.

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In Latin America and the Caribbean, where child marriage prevalence has remained stagnant over the past 25 years,[6] we undertook research with adolescent girls and member organisations, focusing on the links between care work and child marriage. We supported young representatives to define and bring our collective findings and recommendations into regional advocacy spaces, leading to their inclusion in the intergovernmental Buenos Aires Commitment.

At the global level, we provided technical input and collectively advocated for governments to support a new United Nations (UN) Resolution on Child, Early and Forced Marriage, which was adopted with broad consensus by 125 co-sponsors. Gains include a greater focus on the intersecting factors that put girls at risk, and progressive language on their sexual and reproductive rights, education and autonomy.

We also increased our outreach and engagement with researchers, practitioners, funders and policymakers through the Child Marriage Research to Action Network, holding our first ever online global research convening. In this, we brought together participants from around the world to explore the latest evidence – including from member organisations leading innovations in the Global South –, contributed to a diversified global evidence base, and strengthened coordination and action to end child marriage.

We also continued to respond to the evolving needs of the Partnership, and particularly civil society collectives working at the national and sub-national level. We streamlined our processes for making financial investments in Girls Not Brides National Partnerships and coalitions, and deepened technical support for them to drive change in their countries and communities.

I look forward to continuing this journey with our friends and partners around the world in 2023. Through our collective global efforts, I am confident we will get closer to the vision of ending child marriage in our generation!

Dr Faith Mwangi-Powell, Chief Executive Officer

6 Ibid.

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Reflections from the Chair of the Board of Trustees

As the Chair of the Board of Trustees of Girls Not Brides , I am delighted to introduce this comprehensive annual impact report, a document that does much to bring to life the important work that Girls Not Brides is doing and the changes that are happening across the world as a direct result of the global movement to end child marriage.

This report marks my first full year in office, and I continue to be struck by the approach that informs how Girls Not Brides understands and responds to an issue as complex and multi-layered as child marriage. The Girls Not Brides approach places those most affected – and those supporting them – at the centre.

With over 1,600 members in more than 100 countries, it is an approach that values partnership as the principal tool for supporting individuals, engaging communities and building an advocacy coalition to push for the legal changes, policy and financial commitments, and practical support that will make a real difference. It is an approach that has helped to build an effective, dynamic global movement to end child marriage and that will sustain this movement for as long as it is needed.

Our partners are the core business of Girls Not Brides and, as this report confirms, much of our work is aimed at leveraging the collective power of everyone – member organisations, National and State Partnerships and coalitions – to accelerate the momentum towards a world without child marriage. Under our new strategy we are moving even closer to Girls Not Brides member organisations: listening carefully and seeking to deliver the kind of support they need to effect real and lasting change.

At the same time, Girls Not Brides continues its advocacy and learning work: taking every opportunity to learn with, inform and galvanise the global movement to build a shared vision of a world without child marriage and to drive necessary change. Our approach to advocacy is firmly evidence-based and informed by the girls and women closest to the issue, including those who have been most marginalised.

Such work is fundamental to the mission of Girls Not Brides because it helps to create understanding around why ending child marriage and supporting married girls is so important; and why it is crucial to the health and wellbeing of millions of girls and their communities. In a world beset by competing demands for attention and resources, strong, evidence-based advocacy ensures that the issue of child marriage stays where it belongs: at the top of international, regional and national agendas.

This report has documented a solid record of impact. But the challenges are great and much remains to be done. Our broader operating environment continues to be unstable and ever-changing, demanding greater responsiveness and increased flexibility. Within Girls Not Brides , ongoing efforts to move closer to member organisations have borne fruit but must be accelerated. Our work to unify the movement and embed a culture of listening and learning must continue as new allies in the global movement to end child marriage come on board.

In closing I express my gratitude to Dr Faith Mwangi- Powell, CEO of Girls Not Brides , and her hardworking team, as well as to my fellow Trustees, for their support and guidance. The learning journey around an issue as multifaceted and complex as child marriage is an ongoing one for all of

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us. We can and must learn from each other – and of course with and from the girls we seek to support and champion, so they can exercise their rights and reach their full potential.

Dr Anne T. Gallagher AO, Chair of the Board of Trustees

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2022 impact at a glance

We have consolidated our collective engagement, experience and diversity

’ ’ - We have amplified girls and member organisations voices and collectively pushed for decision

makers to take action

We have facilitated shared learning, research uptake and evidence-based collective action

We have responded to the needs of the Partnership and promoted investment in grassroots organisations and their networks

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Introduction to the secretariat objectives

In 2022, Girls Not Brides began implementing its new Secretariat Strategy 2022-25 to accelerate change to end child marriage. Our work was organised around four objectives:

  1. Movement-building . Leverage the collective power of the global Partnership of member organisations, National and State Partnerships and coalitions for accelerated action to end child marriage.

  2. Influencing . Galvanise the wider global end child marriage movement to drive change nationally, regionally and globally.

  3. Learning . Leverage knowledge, learning and evidence to address child marriage across the movement.

  4. Secretariat at the service of the global Partnership. Continue to develop as a sustainable and values-based organisation at the service of the global Partnership.

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Progress against our secretariat objectives

Objective 1: Movement-building

Girls Not Brides is the largest partnership working together to end child marriage around the globe. Over 2022, we consolidated our collective engagement, experience and diversity.

Key evidence:

We intentionally focused on growing the movement in Latin America and the Caribbean – a region where progress on child marriage has been slowest – and have increased youth and women’s participation and championed their leadership. We worked with member organisations to share learnings, enhance capacity, connect diverse stakeholders, and catalyse collective action at all levels to ensure governments deliver on their commitments.

A new roadmap for our collective work

The collective work of Girls Not Brides member organisations is at the forefront of the movement to end child marriage around the world. Over the past decade the global prevalence of child marriage has decreased and millions of girls have enjoyed greater freedoms, opportunities and powers to decide and direct their own lives. However, progress has been uneven, with prevalence declining significantly in some areas and more slowly in others.[8]

Over the past five years, individuals and communities the world over have been severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, conflict, climate crisis and rising costs. In this context, we launched our refreshed Partnership Strategy 2022-25 in February 2022. This Strategy is the result of extensive consultation with Girls Not Brides member organisations and external stakeholders, and includes insights from over 300 individuals. It builds on the progress, lessons and shifts we have all experienced over the last five years to provide a roadmap for our collective work to 2025.

Partnership Strategy Goals

The Partnership Strategy is organised around six shared goals, designed to focus our work and maximise our impact. They see:

7 Number/percentage of member organisations in each category is based on how they self-identify in their membership application. Some identify as more than one category.

8 UNICEF (2021) Towards ending child marriage: Global trends and profiles of progress .

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The Partnership Strategy goals – and the overarching themes of gender-transformative approaches, meaningful youth engagement and child marriage as a multi-sectoral issue – guided the development of our renewed Secretariat Strategy, also launched at the beginning of 2022.

While implementing these strategies, we are also committed to continuously listening, learning and adapting to the needs of the Partnership, and to the emerging evidence. We also offer a platform that foregrounds the experiences of the Partnership and promotes shared learning and evidence uptake with diverse stakeholders, to maximise impact. More on this under Strategic Objective 3 on p. 31.

Gender-Transformative Approaches

Gender inequality is the root cause of child marriage. It, and the social norms and practices that it informs, means that girls and women are treated as second-class citizens, denied their human rights, and valued less because of their sex. To be successful and sustainable, work to end child marriage must push for gender-transformative social change that ensures girls and women – in all their diversity – can exercise their rights, and that achieves gender equality.

Supporting gender-transformative collective action at the sub-national and national level

Girls Not Brides National and State Partnerships and coalitions – as networks of organisations bringing together contextually relevant expertise, evidence and connections, and speaking with one voice – are uniquely positioned to influence and advocate for local and national governments to take action. The Girls Not Brides secretariat offers tailored technical assistance to these networks, based on their priority work areas and needs as defined by them – and as included in the refreshed Partnership Strategy – and supports them to connect and learn from each other and broader learning in the movement.

Child marriage is rooted in gender inequality and can only be effectively addressed with long-term structural change to rebalance power and promote girls’ rights and agency. Girls Not Brides is committed to working with member organisations – and particularly community-based organisations and youth activists – to take collective, gender-transformative actions and achieve change at scale.

Over 2022, Girls Not Brides and UNICEF worked with Girls Not Brides Mozambique and the Coalition of Civil Society to End Child Marriage in Nigeria (Nigeria Coalition) to advance their gendertransformative collective action and organisational practices. Through a series of workshops and using the Girls Not Brides self-assessment scorecard, network members critically reviewed their approaches to inclusiveness, youth and women’s leadership, engagement with other collectives, human rights framing, and advocacy to address the structural drivers of child marriage. They then positioned themselves on the Gender Integration Continuum, building a shared understanding and mapping collective gender-transformative actions that respond to their context.

As a result, these networks have improved the participation and leadership of women- and youthled organisations in their collective activities. They have begun implementing their collectively

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agreed gender-transformative actions, in some cases with funding through this project. The Nigeria Coalition is now a member of the national Technical Working Group on Ending Child Marriage, where they can push for girls’ and civil society voices to be heard and reflected in national policy, including the next National Strategy on Ending Child Marriage.

Moving forwards, the secretariat will continue to support these networks on their gendertransformative journeys, facilitating peer mentoring, learning sessions and review meetings, sharing opportunities for further training, and documenting models that address the root causes of child marriage at scale.

Also in Africa, we continued to build on our work with Girls Not Brides Kenya and the Tanzania Ending Child Marriage Network (TECMN) to address the linked issues of child marriage and female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) in the cross-border Kuria community. As in Mozambique and Nigeria, we employed gender-transformative approaches, youth engagement and collective action – this time community-based – as tools to achieve sustainable change.

This flagship project saw the creation of two youth working groups, with 133 youth activists trained to act as champions in their communities. Young people, together, built trust with different community stakeholders and worked with government structures to organise mentorship sessions in and beyond schools, and to create four child protection committees.

Girls Not Brides member organisations worked together to support ongoing discussions on the role of social norms in defining a community’s priorities and practices. They engaged with community religious and cultural leaders to examine the root causes of practices like child marriage and FGM/C, and held dialogues with youth and women’s groups to ensure change is inclusive of those who are most marginalised.

The project shows the power of youth and collective action to effect real change in communities, for example through using media to raise awareness of the impacts of child marriage and FGM/C. Girls Not Brides continues to work with member organisations to support young people and raise the issue of child marriage and FGM/C with decision-makers and in the Kuria community. In 2023, we will support the Kuria Youth Movement to End Child Marriage to scale up their work addressing child marriage through intercultural and intergenerational dialogues, community activism and budget advocacy.

Gender-transformative collective action is also a priority for our work in South Asia, which is home to nearly half of all girls married before the age of 18. With support from Oxfam GB, we launched a Gender Leadership Programme to build a network of self-aware gender leaders, who can then lead gender-transformative actions with and between their organisations to better address child marriage across India.

The first five-day residential module convened 27 participants from nine states to explore leadership styles and skills, undertake power and gender analyses, and conceptualise action projects through a gender lens. The diversity of participants – whose ages spanned 50 years and who came from three major religions – contributed to the richness of discussion and perspectives.

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The project will continue into 2023, but already participants have expressed an increased understanding and self-awareness around gender dynamics, knowledge of practical tools and a commitment to implementing change in their own lives, communities, organisations and work to end child marriage. Building on this process, Girls Not Brides will make seed investments for projects that incorporate learnings and use innovative gender-transformative approaches to end child marriage over the coming year.

Including girls, adolescents and youth in collective action

While the Gender Leadership Programme mostly focused on adults from civil society organisations, engaging adolescent girls in transformative collective action is also essential to our work. In Uttar Pradesh, India, we worked with the state coalition to offer girls training in the design and implementation of social action projects (SAPs) to raise awareness, foster positive community attitudes, and gather support for girls’ education and services. Following this training, 2,100 adolescent girl leaders and their peers implemented 100 SAPs, reaching 13,224 community members and local decision-makers in 28 districts.

The SAPs provided a platform for adolescent girls to enhance their leadership, planning, negotiation and implementation skills. They identified and took collective action, increased their advocacy work – and inspired other adolescent girls and youth workers in their communities to learn and advocate for their rights too. In this, the project shows the power of girls – acting together, in public spaces – to express their needs and solutions, and transform gendered beliefs and practices.

Girls Not Brides will continue to support the coalition in Uttar Pradesh to deliver leadership trainings with and for girls, and link them and girls to government services. This work is more important than ever, as girls are pushed out of school as families and communities struggle to cope with the ongoing repercussions of COVID-19 and rising costs in the state.

Another way to engage young people in gender-transformative action is through sports – particularly pertinent in a country like India, which has a long and rich sporting history from which girls and women have often been excluded. This was the context for our collaboration with Pro Sport Development in 2022, through which 61 youth workers from 49 different organisations learned to use sports to initiate dialogues around gender in rural areas of Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh.

Through this initiative, young participants strengthened their understanding of diverse gender identities, roles and stereotypes, and their skills in using sports to facilitate impactful dialogues around gender. They have already reported using their new skills to support girls to build relationships and discuss their goals, beyond marriage.

Strengthening the movement in Latin America and the Caribbean

Child marriage is also a persistent and complex issue in Latin America and the Caribbean. In this region it often takes the form of informal unions[9] and for this reason it is not widely recognised or prioritised for action. In fact, prevalence has remained stagnant over the past 25 years.[10] As

9 When speaking about Latin America and the Caribbean, we refer to child, early and forced marriage and unions in full to make these forms visible, in a region where it is often overlooked.

10 UNICEF (2021) Towards ending child marriage: Global trends and profiles of progress .

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elsewhere, though, the practice is rooted in gender inequality, and the best way to address it is through collective action to advance girls’ rights and agency.

In July, we launched the first National Partnership to address child, early and forced marriage and unions in the region – in Guatemala, where 30% of girls and adolescents marry or enter a union before the age of 18. The National Partnership is made up of 21 civil society organisations and four individual girl and adolescent rights activists – all members of the Mesa a Favor de las Niñas y Adolescents (La Mesa Niña). These organisations have worked together to advance girls’ rights for ten years. Formally becoming a National Partnership reinforces their commitment to addressing child, early and forced marriage and unions as part of their work to ensure all girls and adolescents in Guatemala are free to make choices about their lives and bodies.

The launch itself was one step on the movement-building journey in Guatemala. It provided an opportunity to raise the profile of the issue: 26 media representatives attended the press conference and 47 key stakeholders joined the forum to hear directly from civil society organisations, adolescent girls and youth working to address child, early and forced marriage and unions in the country. It also provided a springboard for a meeting with the Embassy of Sweden and an opportunity to discuss funding for the partnership.

Girls Not Brides continues to work with La Mesa Niña on developing a collective workplan to raise awareness of the issue around the presidential elections in 2023. Implementation will also be supported by a financial investment from Girls Not Brides .

Movement-building is a long-term project requiring responsiveness and flexibility in approach, as well as time to build consensus and gain momentum. In the Dominican Republic, we continued to offer technical assistance to a group of organisations financed by the Girls First Fund, exploring opportunities and challenges to forming a national coalition to address child, early and forced marriage and unions.

Through two workshops, they recognised the value of collective work, but also the need to define a common goal and approach, and the internal coordination mechanisms needed to deliver on these.

Moving forwards, Girls Not Brides will continue to offer broad support to member organisations in the country, and will work with them to monitor the effect of national policy on child, early and forced marriage and unions.

Reconnecting with member organisations after COVID-19 travel restrictions

The impacts of COVID-19 have been felt across the globe with travel restrictions preventing inperson gatherings for many months. In 2022, we began reconnecting with many member organisations, bringing collectives together again to discuss and plan their shared work.

In Nepal, we held a convening of Girls Not Brides Nepal to reconnect and re-energise their collective work, share the latest learning and evidence, and discuss strategies to address child marriage in the country. Together, the National Partnership developed an action plan to guide their work and establish a capacity enhancement strategy for its members, leaving the workshop with strengthened connections, a shared vision and a plan to achieve it.

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People aged 16-40 account for 41% of the total population of Nepal,[11] but a lack of meaningful youth engagement in the past has limited their participation in vital discussions on topics like child marriage. So, Girls Not Brides Nepal – in partnership with Restless Development Nepal – held a National Youth Consultation on youth leadership to ensure they are recognised as active participants in the national movement to end child marriage.

Building on a 2021 scoping study, the National Youth Consultation brought together 30 youth participants from seven provinces to share their lived experiences, analyse the drivers of child marriage in their contexts, discuss solutions and co-design a youth engagement strategy. As a result of this interprovincial, intersectoral and intergenerational dialogue, the group developed a Charter to guide their advocacy. This Charter was supported by national-level guest representatives, and shared with the Ministry of Women, Children and Senior Citizens, and other stakeholders.

Impact in practice: Collective action and joint advocacy on child marriage and education in Frenchspeaking West Africa

Child marriage and a lack of educational opportunities for girls are both rooted in gender inequality. Lack of access to education – or early school leaving – pushes many girls into marriage, as they lack other opportunities. Equally, married girls often leave school due to practical barriers to access, including care responsibilities (see more on care in the Impact in Practice on p. 29).

Keeping girls in school is one of the best ways to prevent child marriage. Education is also a powerful path to gender equality, as it can strengthen girls’ skills, knowledge and power to challenge discriminatory norms. This year, Girls Not Brides intensified its cross-sectoral work to ensure child marriage and girls’ education are addressed in an integrated way. Our work in French-speaking West Africa, discussed below, is one example of this.

Cross-sectoral work to address child marriage and girls’ education in West and Central Africa

Despite recent progress, gender inequality in education in West and Central Africa remains the highest in the world, with 28 million girls lacking access to education.[12] The region also has the highest child marriage prevalence in the world – with 37% of girls married before the age of 18.[13] Successfully addressing these issues means working collectively, across sectors with education coalitions and young people to promote a better understanding of child marriage and how young people can be effective agents of change.

Responding to requests from member organisations in French-speaking West Africa for more targeted support, we began working at scale in the region for the first time in 2022. With financial support from Education Out Loud, we worked with the Burkina Faso National Partnership (Coalition Nationale Contre le Mariage des Enfants au Burkina Faso) and the Niger coalition (Plateforme vers la fin du marriage des enfants au Niger) to address the links between child marriage and education in the region.

11 UNFPA (2022) For young people, by young people .

12 Gender Equality and Inclusive Education Task Team, 2017, Promoting girls’ right to learn in West and Central Africa , Save the Children and the Regional Coordination Group on SDG4 in West and Central Africa; referenced in ’ Girls Not Brides (2022) Child marriage and girls education in West and Central Africa: Literature review .

13 UNICEF (2022) Child marriage in West and Central Africa: A statistical overview and reflections on ending the practice .

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We supported the coalitions to share learning and strengthen their collective advocacy for the implementation of laws, policies and programmes which promote gender equality, improve girls’ access and retention in quality education, and contribute to ending child marriage.

Enhancing the capacity of civil society collectives

Working together, we created a platform for members of the education and end child marriage coalitions to come together to share their experiences, learn from one another, and form a better understanding of the overlapping ecosystems of change in their respective countries, and beyond.

Through face-to-face and online sessions and bespoke mentoring – on topics including safeguarding, financial management skills, resource mobilisation and budget advocacy – 169 participants received training to ensure they can work effectively as a collective and feel confident providing peer-support to other organisations.

By facilitating effective cross-sector engagement and capacity enhancement, we have contributed to these coalitions’ strengthened collaboration; to recognition of the benefits of working together and strategically across the region; and to the co-creation and implementation of joint advocacy plans.

Engaging youth as agents of change

Girls Not Brides is also committed to supporting young people’s leadership in the movement to end child marriage in West and Central Africa. Building on the youth activism training carried out in 2021, we launched a youth-led research project this year, supporting young people from Burkina Faso and Niger to draw on their diverse experiences and intimate knowledge of their community contexts to design and carry out their own research.

Through this project, participants developed their research and analysis skills, built a better understanding of the complexities of addressing child marriage, and contributed meaningfully to the local, national, regional and global body of evidence on child marriage and education.

Alongside the partnership and coalition convenings, this project also contributed to young people being increasingly recognised as leading agents of change in the movement to end child marriage in the region, as evidenced by them being nominated to share their experiences.

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Objective 2: Influencing

With the intensifying impacts of climate crises, conflict, COVID-19 and rising costs of living being felt the world over, our work to raise awareness and push for accelerated action to end child marriage and advance girls’ rights and agency is more urgent than ever.

Key evidence

The secretariat plays a key role in amplifying girls’ and member organisations’ voices, and in mobilising the global Partnership around a clear, unified and practical vision for change. Together, we have pushed for decision-makers to increase and implement their political and financial commitments, with a focus on multi-sectoral responses and gender-transformative structural change.

Bringing girls’ and adolescents’ voices into advocacy spaces

Years of collective advocacy have moved the dial towards intergenerational solidarity. Girls Not Brides has played a powerful part in opening spaces and offering technical and financial support for young people to represent themselves in national, regional and global arena – work we continued in 2022.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, Girls Not Brides worked with other youth and feminist organisations to organise a virtual Regional Youth Forum in preparation for the Regional Conference on Population and Development held in June. During the Forum, we supported youth activists to reflect on the issues that affect them most and to prepare a joint statement, which now acts as a tool for collective youth advocacy in the region. The same team came together again in September to organise another youth forum, ahead of the Regional Conference on Women (see more in the Impact in Practice on p. 29).

In July, Girls Not Brides partnered with the UNICEF West and Central Africa Regional Office to support representatives from Children’s Dignity Forum – including the coordinator of the Tanzania Ending Child Marriage Network – to join more than 350 other youth delegates at the 10th Africa Conference on Sexual Health and Rights. While there, they shared, learned and networked with governments, activists, UN Agencies, donors, religious leaders and changemakers from across the continent. They came away even more convinced of the need for greater, more sustainable, flexible and participatory funding for youth movements – a theme which was also picked up by young activists speaking at side events of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in September.

As part of our engagement at UNGA in New York, we worked with the Ford Foundation to organise a side event to discuss transformative change in a fast-paced world. This provided a unique space for young women activists, practitioners and advocates to bring their priorities – including girls’ education, sexual and reproductive health and rights, funding for grassroots and youth-led organisations, and for partnerships – in front of diverse stakeholders, including funders and

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government officials. We tied their insights together with the other issues being discussed at UNGA – including through a blog with our three key takeaways for the movement to end child marriage – keeping youth and member voices at the core of our own ongoing, collective, cross-sectoral advocacy.

Advocating with and for the girls who have been most marginalised

Around UNGA, we also offered technical inputs into the new Resolution on Child, Early and Forced Marriage, adopted by the UNGA Third Committee with broad support from 125 co-sponsors in November 2022. Key gains include the focus on the multiple and intersecting factors that put girls at risk – particularly adolescent girls and girls from other marginalised groups. The new resolution also uses more progressive language on girls’ sexual and reproductive rights, education and autonomy.

Civil society organisations – including Girls Not Brides member organisations – played a key role in calling on governments to support the Resolution, and we will continue to work with them to maintain international pressure on Member States to implement their commitments, including through our template letter.

Many factors can intersect to put girls and adolescents at greater risk of child marriage, including their gender, age, race, ethnicity, sexuality and class. In Latin America and the Caribbean, the continuing marginalisation and stigmatisation of Indigenous communities puts girls and adolescents at greater risk, masks the structural causes of child marriage, and makes it difficult to propose solutions beyond prohibitive laws.

In response to this situation, we joined up with the Foro Internacional de Mujeres Indígenas and the Enlace Continental de Mujeres Indígenas de las Américas to organise a side event at the 21st Session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNFPII). This was a first-time partnership with Indigenous women and youth organisations, specifically intended to raise child marriage as an issue that Indigenous communities have solutions to.

Through the event, we supported Indigenous adolescents, youth and women to compile five recommendations for community-led, urgent action. The president of the UNPFII acknowledged the importance of addressing the issue and supported these recommendations being presented to Member States.

Collective advocacy has tangible impacts at the national level

The impact of many organisations advocating together around a clear, practical vision for change is more powerful than any one organisation can have alone. That is why we base our collective advocacy on the insights and priorities shared by member organisations, building consensus and gaining momentum in the process. In March 2022, the Government of Guatemala began a legal initiative that would have limited girls’, women’s and LGBTQIA+ people’s rights, including their access to sexual and reproductive health – including abortion – and comprehensive sexuality education.

In response, Girls Not Brides worked closely with La Mesa Niña to issue a joint statement calling for that law not to be passed. Through this initiative – the first time Girls Not Brides issued a statement on a national human rights issue in the region – we strengthened our solidarity with national and locally-led feminist and human rights organisations, demonstrated our standing on the issues

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related to child marriage and girls’ and women’s rights, and contributed to the international pressure which ultimately led to the law being vetoed by the President.

We will continue to work with La Mesa Niña to make sure this law is not revived during the 2023 presidential campaign, and to ensure girls’ and adolescents’ voices are heard. We will also work with La Mesa Niña on a girls and adolescents network, to support young people to bring key policy issues before presidential candidates, and to hold them to account.

An important learning and strategy coming out of partnership and coalition spaces in South Asia centres on creating spaces for dialogue with and between young people: supporting them to identify shared priorities and present these directly to government. One example of this is our collective advocacy around the minimum age of marriage in India, which was set to increase from 18 to 21 years for girls. We supported 95 civil society organisations and 2,500 young people to share their perspectives, and compile and present their joint demands to government.

Young people did not want to focus on the age of marriage, which they saw as a way to criminalise consensual relationships and reduce girls’ and adolescents’ right to choose – particularly when they cross caste and religious lines. Instead, they were concerned with access to quality education, safe and decent employment, comprehensive sexuality education and the right to participate in the decisions that affect them. Sustained collective advocacy, and submissions to the Parliamentary Committee reviewing the law, has gained global media attention and – so far – kept the law from being changed.

Leading the way in ethical communications

Cutting across all our work to amplify girls’ voices is our commitment to communicating responsibly around child marriage. This means following a storytelling process that centres contributor needs and preferences, so they find it to be a source of power. To facilitate this, we launched our newly designed ethical communications guidelines in September, alongside the 15 practical and printable tools needed to deliver on them. We then focused on embedding these tools in our own practices – with participatory training for the whole secretariat – and promoting shared learning and uptake across the Partnership, and beyond.

The dedicated learning series session on ethical communications was designed with contributions from Girls Not Brides member organisations and a survivor of child marriage - to give an overview of the principles and tools included in the guidelines, and to illustrate the real-life impact the communications process can have for girls, adolescents and young women. The session also included a participatory element, where attendees worked through a scenario tailored to their context.

We also co-led a session at the Bond Communications Working Group, where we shared experiences with communicators working across the international development and humanitarian sectors, so contributing to broader change towards contributor-led, decolonised storytelling. The guidelines and tools have now been downloaded over 780 times in English, French and Spanish, indicating that they are being widely referenced and implemented.

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Amplifying girls’ and member voices for a positive vision of change

This year, we used our digital channels to share the work being done to end child marriage, how it affects girls’ lives and what challenges we still face as a movement. In sharing these stories, we have kept member organisations and partners engaged and motivated, and have ensured that decisionmakers, governments and donors can see the impact of investing in civil society organisations and partnerships working with girls to build a better future for us all.

Over 2022, we published 24 stories – including girl- and member-led insights, expertise and personal stories – on our website. The website was viewed over 1.2 million times, and stories accounted for almost 16,000 of these. This year, stories focused on gender-transformative approaches, youth activism, intersectionality, humanitarian contexts, and collective action and advocacy to end child marriage.

The most visited story was I do not: How Nepalese girls are breaking free from child marriage, an indepth story about Kavita,[14] a young woman from rural Nepal who built up her confidence through a children’s club organised by the Janaki Women’s Awareness Society, and persuaded her parents to turn down an offer of marriage while she was still at school. Other blogs included Changing the pattern: How tailoring is helping young refugees say “no” to child marriage and How to support girls and adolescents’ power in Latin America and the Caribbean.

We also shared information, stories, events and discussions on child marriage, and the work being done to end it, across our social media channels. Through this, we encouraged broad audiences and key stakeholders – including member organisations and donors – to join the conversation and to take action. Over 2022, our social media audience across established channels in English grew by 6.6% to a combined total of over 240,000.

Email remains a core part of our work to reach member organisations and supporters with tailormade information and opportunities. Our broad offer to member organisations includes a monthly summary of fundraising opportunities, and ad hoc emails sharing new resources, advocacy alerts, and event invites and follow ups synthesising key takeaways. All our channels have engagement rates well above sector benchmarks, indicating that our communications are both well-targeted and engaging, and that the latest evidence is being taken up by our audiences.

We launched a newly-designed monthly email for supporters in December, which provides a curated snapshot of the latest girl- and member-led stories, evidence, news and opportunities for stakeholders including donors, policymakers, journalists and civil society. By engaging regularly with this group, we have encouraged the integration of child marriage into work beyond our Partnership, building a more holistic, multisectoral approach to girls’ rights.

Responsible reporting on child marriage

The media is very important for raising awareness and public pressure to end child marriage at the national, regional and global level. We work with member organisations to proactively pitch stories and respond to media requests that cover the issue in an ethical and solutions-focused way, where those affected can tell their stories safely and in their own words. This builds on our approach of

14 Kavita is a pseudonym.

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promoting personal stories that illustrate the impact of, and solutions to, child marriage, and avoid sensationalist reporting of the issue.

In 2022, we brokered working relationships between journalists at the BBC World Service and BBC Africa and member organisations, shining a light on the work done by civil society organisations to address child marriage. Womba-Wuta Wanki from Generation Alive in Zambia joined Mabel van Oranje and Mary Robinson for a broadcast in the high-profile BBC World Service How to Be a Former President series. They shared insights on how to build a movement from the ground up, taking collective action, getting the issue on the international agenda, securing funding and engaging with diverse stakeholders at every level.

Girls Not Brides’ Head of Africa Engagement, Nerida Nthamburi, represented the Partnership in an interview with BBC Africa, sharing insights on how to engage with young people and their communities to end child marriage. Girls Not Brides CEO, Dr Faith Mwangi Powell, also spoke on the TEDx podcast Climate Curious, where she highlighted the links between child marriage and the deepening crises caused by climate change – an area of focus for our cross-sectoral work.

We also contributed to pieces at Inside Philanthropy, focusing on funding for the movement to end child marriage, and the Chandler Foundation, for a piece on systems change and why complex practices like child marriage cannot be solved by single-issue interventions.

This coverage raised the national and international profile of child marriage, putting pressure on governments to fulfil their commitments to end child marriage and guarantee girls’ rights, even as they address the interconnecting crises of climate change, COVID-19, conflict and rising costs. It also presented Girls Not Brides member organisations, girls and young women as experts on the issue, adding weight to our advocacy for them to be included in decision-making spaces at every level, and for greater and more flexible funding to be made available to those working in partnership at the grassroots level.

Impact in practice: Evidence-based and member-led advocacy to integrate care and child marriage into the regional agenda in Latin America and the Caribbean

When girls marry or enter a union, they often take on additional domestic responsibilities; this limits their freedom, opportunities and access to education. Understanding these experiences – including caregiving – is a significant factor in ensuring our work engages and responds to the needs of the girls who have been most marginalised, including those who are married or in a union.

This area has been largely overlooked in research and advocacy on child marriage, which is why we focused on this issue in Latin America and the Caribbean this year, undertaking original research with adolescent girls and member organisations, and bringing them into regional advocacy spaces to directly share their experiences and solutions with decision-makers.

Original research on care and child marriage in Latin America and the Caribbean

In Latin America and the Caribbean, 21% of girls marry or enter a union before they turn 18, and 4% before they turn 15.[15] Despite prevalence above the global average, the issue is largely overlooked

15 UNICEF (2022) Child marriage database

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in the region, as are the gendered norms that drive the practice and impact on the lives of girls and adolescents after they are married or in a union, including the gendered distribution of care work.

In 2022, the Girls Not Brides secretariat worked with 60 member organisations in Latin America and the Caribbean to develop and implement a multidimensional strategy to advocate for the integration of care and child, early and forced marriage and unions into regional commitments. To support this, we worked with 20 member organisations and 24 adolescent girls and young women to develop a brief on the links between care and child, early and forced marriage and unions in the region.

This brief outlines the gender disparity in the distribution of care work in the general population, and highlights another clear pattern: girls and adolescents in marriages or unions take on even greater care responsibilities than their unmarried peers. This limits their access to quality education, while also impacting negatively on their economic independence, physical and mental health, and their ability to participate in social and political life. In the brief, we outline recommendations for governments, UN agencies and civil society organisations to guide their work in addressing this gendered inequality. To effectively support girls who are married or in a union, governments must recognise their role as caregivers and adopt public policies that respond to their needs. This includes access to comprehensive health care, particularly sexual and reproductive health services; quality education that covers comprehensive sexuality education and promotes the continued education of married girls and adolescent mothers; and recreational opportunities.

We supported uptake of this brief and its recommendations with evidence-based advocacy messages, shared over social media, that highlight the voices and experiences of girls and member organisations.

Collective advocacy to integrate care and child marriage into the regional agenda

Engaging with adolescent girls and member organisations to produce the brief on care and child, early and forced marriage and unions put us in a strong position to undertake collective advocacy at the regional level, putting their experiences, needs and solutions at the centre of multistakeholder discussions and government commitments.

To this end, we organised an official side event at the XV Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean – with an expert panel almost entirely comprised of young women – and sponsored eight member organisations to engage at the conference.

At the side event, we presented the brief, shared information and called for comprehensive responses to child marriage that build on the expertise of adolescent girls and young women. As a result, child, early and forced marriage and unions is now included in the conference’s youth declaration, feminist declaration and the intergovernmental Buenos Aires Commitment, which saw governments commit to implementing comprehensive multi-sectoral measures to address all forms of violence and discrimination against women, including child, early and forced marriage and unions.

This was the first time Girl Not Brides promoted an official side event made up almost exclusively of young women in a strategic advocacy space. Co-creating a strong, clear, evidence-based advocacy position with member organisations was key to integrating child, early and forced marriage and

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unions into the regional agenda. This success is even more notable given the historic lack of attention given to the link between care work and child, early and forced marriage and unions.

Moving forwards, we will build on these successes, taking collective action and supporting adolescent girls and young women to engage in regional advocacy spaces to push for action on this issue.

Objective 3: Learning

One of our key roles as a secretariat is to facilitate knowledge exchange amongst member organisations and with practitioners, researchers, policymakers and donors to ensure they can access and use the latest evidence and resources.

Key evidence

This year, we built global understanding of how child marriage links to other human rights issues and what works to end it, promoting evidence-based collective action. As a result, we are in a stronger position to collectively advocate for investment and support that will effectively prevent child marriage and support married girls.

Working with member organisations to generate and share evidence

This year, we facilitated and supported opportunities for members to exchange learning with each other and key stakeholders at the national and regional level. India is home to the largest number of girls and women who are married before the age of 18 in the world: 223 million, with over 1.5 million more girls and adolescents affected every year.[16] Despite their numbers, girls and young women who are already married, separated, divorced or widowed (ever-married girls) are largely neglected by child marriage research, policy and programming. Transforming opportunities for all girls means learning more about their lives after marriage, and making the issues they face more visible.

In 2022, we teamed up with American Jewish World Service (AJWS) and Girls Not Brides member Vikalp Sansthan to organise a first-of-its-kind national convening of 40 grassroots practitioners from seven states of India. The convening was a space for these practitioners to share information around the issues that affect ever-married adolescent girls, share strategies and learnings around what works to engage with them, and identify areas for further exploration.

It also resulted in grassroots organisations recognising the need to work with this demographic, a process which will continue through a newly-formed community of practice. A report of the

16 UNFPA-UNICEF Global Programme to End Child Marriage (2020) Country profile: India.

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convening’s findings will also act as an advocacy tool for those seeking greater attention and funding for work with ever-married girls.

Part of our role as the secretariat of a global Partnership is to bring these national-level findings to regional and global audiences – something we did with Vikalp Sansthan during the CRANK global convening (see Impact in Practice on p. 33).

Building on national-level work in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, we convened the East Africa Learning Summit on Ending Child Marriage to strengthen intra-regional learning and coordination among member organisations and partners working to end child marriage and FGM/C. The Summit provided an opportunity for Girls Not Brides Kenya, Girls Not Brides Uganda and the Tanzania Ending Child Marriage Coalition to come together with experts, leaders and known civil society advocates in person for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Through the Summit, these collectives tracked progress in advancing girls’ rights across the region, identified challenges, and enhanced their joint advocacy and evidence-generation skills. They also explored ways to hold governments accountable for their commitments, by ensuring agreement over clear implementation plans for existing laws and policies. They developed collective country work plans - based on practical, evidence-driven actions, which they will take forwards over the coming years.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, we convened three webinars to address the links between child marriage and three issues prioritised by member organisations in the region: comprehensive sexuality education, girls’ and adolescents’ bodily autonomy, and transformative community leadership. Each session was co-created with ten member organisations who took the lead in sharing their programmes and recommendations.

Through this initiative, we worked closely with civil society organisations to contextualise global evidence and advocacy to the region and, in turn, strengthen the global evidence base with regional and cross-regional insights - work we will continue into 2023.

Strengthening the global evidence base

We produced and shared 17 learning resources in multiple languages over 2022, including seven in collaboration with Girls Not Brides member organisations and partners. These briefs, case studies, literature reviews, guidelines, trainings and tools summarise the latest data, evidence and learning on specific topics, pairing it with actionable recommendations and practical tools in a format that is accessible and usable for broad audiences. They also reflect the expertise and experiences of member organisations, strengthening the global evidence base and making a case for increased funding for civil society organisations and research on what works to end child marriage.

Resources published this year include briefs on child marriage and intersectionality; girls’ education (updated in September); CEFMU and care and the Guatemala national context; case studies and analysis of gender and sexuality from Latin America and the Caribbean; a conceptual framework and donor brief on girls’ sexuality; a guide for civil society organisations using the law to end child marriage in India; newly designed ethical communications guidelines and tools; and a youth training module and storytelling toolkit. We registered over 20,000 downloads from our Resource Centre over 2022, a strong indication that evidence is reaching and being taken up by our audiences.

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Taking this evidence off the page and into practice has been a priority for us over 2022, with an approach that combines targeted and broad communications across our digital channels, and online and in-person live learning with diverse stakeholders.

Responding to member organisations’ request for live learning spaces, we launched a learning series on what works to end child marriage in June 2022. The series of five sessions covered topics prioritised by member organisations, including cash transfers, the latest trends and evidence, supporting married girls, ethical communications, and gender-transformative collective action. By convening diverse stakeholders, the series promoted cross-sectoral learning and cross-regional comparison; contributed to a strengthened global evidence base which responds to context; and brought member organisations and their work to the attention of a global audience of donors, researchers, policymakers and other practitioners.

Through the Child Marriage Research to Action Network (the CRANK) – a joint initiative with the UNFPA-UNICEF Global Programme to End Child Marriage – we continued to provide a unique platform for a better coordinated and harmonised global research agenda on child marriage and to encourage research uptake by policymakers and practitioners. Find out more about the CRANK in the Impact in Practice story on p. 33.

Impact in practice: Coordinating and promoting uptake of global child marriage research and evidence

The CRANK is a core part of our objective to ensure a coordinated and equitable global research agenda, which in turn feeds into accelerated action to end child marriage. This means convening diverse stakeholders, sharing the latest child marriage priority topics and evidence, and facilitating research uptake through tailor-made communications materials.

In 2022, we increased our outreach and engagement with researchers, practitioners, funders and policymakers from around the world. Following targeted promotion, the CRANK membership grew by 66% to 469 individuals, who now receive regular communications sharing events and the latest evidence and learning products. Email engagement is well above sector benchmarks, suggesting that this information is being taken up and used by this diverse audience.

Quarterly research meetings spotlighting latest evidence

We continued with our series of online quarterly research meetings this year, providing a space for researchers, practitioners, funders and policymakers to access and learn from the latest evidence on priority topics. These included girls’ sexuality, preventing child marriage at scale, and supporting the most marginalised girls, and were supported by a Research Spotlight on successful multisectoral and multilevel approaches to address child marriage. We have also produced a further Research Spotlight on how to reach the most marginalised girls, due for publication in early 2023.

Over 270 people attended the quarterly research meetings, and 87% of those responding to the feedback survey said they would use the evidence presented in their work. The initiative has improved collaboration and coordination across the field of child marriage evidence, research uptake and funding, and contributed to more targeted policy interventions and improved child marriage programme outcomes.

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Beyond the live event, we also ensured broader reach and uptake by distilling the latest evidence into accessible formats and by sharing meeting resources – including key takeaways, notes, recordings, presentations and reports – across our communications channels.

Strengthening coordination of the global research agenda

This year, we also organised our first online global research convening, bringing together 246 participants from around the world over three days to strengthen coordination and action to end child marriage. The convening was organised around three key topics: learning from the latest evidence, effective partnership, and the child marriage research funding landscape.

As part of our commitment to bringing researchers and practitioners from the Global South into discussions on child marriage research, evidence and funding, each day included space for speakers to share their key takeaways and learnings from their work, so facilitating the uptake of more diverse and contextualised evidence, including from locations and populations who have been largely overlooked in child marriage research to date.

During the global research convening, we launched the new CRANK online research tracker, a central part of our work to support and advance research coordination. Through the tracker, users can search for the latest child marriage research across themes and geographies, with search pages in English, French and Spanish. Since launching the tracker, we have recorded more than twice the usual number of research submissions, demonstrating the usefulness of the tool. We will deepen this use over 2023, ensuring the tracker becomes the go-to place for sharing and accessing the latest child marriage research and evidence.

Objective 4: The secretariat at the service of the global Partnership

As a resource and support to the global movement to end child marriage, the Girls Not Brides secretariat is as concerned with how we work, as much as with what we do. We are committed to ensuring the secretariat responds to the diversity of member organisations, is effective, and continually learns and evolves.

Key evidence

In 2022 – after two years of consultations with Girls Not Brides member organisations, National and State Partnerships partners and donors – we launched and began implementing our ambitious Secretariat Strategy 2022-25. Strategic Objectives 1, 2 and 3 (Movement-building, Influencing and Learning) represent the “what” of our ambitions for change. Strategic Objective 4 represents the “how” – outlining a roadmap for organisational redesign to support our work for future years.

Rebalancing power and resources

Our fundamental vision is to rebalance power and resources within our activities and organisational structure, ensuring we are reflective of – and well placed to serve – the global Partnership. This includes increasing the representation and leadership of our teams based in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as diversifying our Board.

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We increased the proportion of team members based outside of the United Kingdom (UK), recruiting eight team members in Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean. We will continue to rebalance our global presence in 2023, and beyond, as positions become vacant and new roles are created. In addition to our key hubs - Nairobi, Mexico City and New Delhi - we now have team members located in Nigeria, Senegal and Uganda.

Key to our organisational redesign is providing deeper support for national and sub-national change through investing in Girls Not Brides National and State Partnerships. We believe supporting civil society coalitions to act and advocate together will accelerate action to end child marriage, and that we are uniquely placed to do this. In 2022, we revised our policies to streamline processes for making financial investments in Girls Not Brides National Partnerships and coalitions, and will roll out these investments in 2023.

Upholding good governance

In early 2022, we conducted a review of our Articles of Association and updated these to reflect our growth as an organisation and to streamline Board functions. We launched two Board subcommittees – the Finance and Policy Committee and the Fundraising Donor Relations Committee – to ensure efficiency at the whole Board level, and to create strategic spaces for operational advice and support.

We have a diverse Board with representatives from Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America and the Caribbean. In 2022, the Board undertook training to improve their understanding of Trustee responsibilities under the UK Charity Commission. We conducted a governance review to ensure our alignment with the Charity Code of Governance and organisational effectiveness. Two Board members stepped down in 2022 and we have used the opportunity to conduct a skills audit to help identify priorities for new Board recruitment in 2023.

Aligned with our commitment to ensuring equity and fairness in what we and in how we do it, we began a process of reviewing and streamlining our internal policies. We have adopted a new global pay policy, which makes salary scales more equitable and transparent, with benchmarking against similar organisations. We will continue our work into 2023 to formalise and roll out this process across our global team.

Putting girls at the centre of our safeguarding work

Girls Not Brides is committed to ensuring that the needs, interests and safety of girls are at the centre of our approach and any work we support. In 2022, we continued to offer safeguarding trainings and workshops for member organisations, National and State Partnerships, and team members. We have revised our recruitment and induction processes to ensure safeguarding questions are included in all interviews, and new team members complete a mandatory online safeguarding course and induction training.

We have developed our Safeguarding Standards for member organisations, and 16 member organisations accessed tailored project-based safeguarding reviews and training in 2022. As a result, our membership is better equipped to understand the safeguarding implications specific to initiatives that seek to end child marriage.

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Embedding our commitment to diversity, inclusion and equity

Diversity, inclusion and equity are central to our core principles and values. These are represented in creating a diverse workforce, leadership and Board. We aim to achieve this by advocating fairness, collaboration, respect and transparency in our organisational decision-making, and by establishing fair policies and procedures that are consistently applied. We respect and value people’s differences and we proactively seek to create a culture where people feel comfortable to be themselves, and have a sense of belonging.

In 2021, Girls Not Brides formalised a Diversity, Inclusion, Voices and Equity committee (DIVEs), consisting of team members from across the organisation. Our DIVEs committee plays an important role in ensuring that the changes we need to make to achieve this are championed across the organisation, and provide a check-and-balance function to the secretariat, supporting accountability around issues relevant to anti-racism, diversity, inclusion and equity.

In 2022, DIVEs worked closely on recruitment to increase the number of roles based in Africa, Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean; to improve our gender diversity; to introduce targeted positions that attract more team members under the age of 24; and to include more non-native English speakers in the team. DIVEs also conducted an analysis of our workplace diversity to identify key priorities and recommendations for 2023, and beyond.

Our Language Committee continued to examine the interconnected relationship between language and power, working to ensure our organisational language reflects our work, values and relationships, and the diversity of the end child marriage movement. The Language Committee draws on an intersectional approach to promote discussion, learning and awareness across our global team. We continued to share these experiences with organisations beyond the movement to end child marriage – including through the Bond network – to support their work to decolonise their relationships and communications.

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PLANS FOR THE FUTURE

In 2022, we started the implementation phase of our strategic plan, which was approved in December 2021. The vision for the strategy is to deepen our work and revitalise the secretariat’s approach to leveraging the movement we galvanised. The strategy reinforces the leadership and collective power of Girls Not Brides member organisations to influence a wide range of actors in the movement at all levels and strengthen our collective learning about what works to end child marriage. Underpinned by three strategic pillars - movement building , influencing, and learning - the strategy offers a strong framework for change. 2022 was our transition year and our successes in 2022 have created a great foundation for our work in 2023. With a focus on three regions - Africa , Asia and Latin America and Caribbean - our work is driven by these pillars and informs our global advocacy, influencing, communication and learning.

Placing increased emphasis on supporting Girls Not Brides National and State Partnerships and coalitions to lead national movements, and growing our presence and leadership at the regional level to deliver our vision, in 2023 and beyond we will continue to accelerate all our efforts for change, across the three regions as follows.

In Africa, our focus is to build the capacity of sub-county, sub-national, and national stakeholders to end child marriage; to unlock the potential of a wide range of partners working to end child marriage and encourage them to increase efforts and collaboration; to demonstrate that accelerated change at scale is possible; and to increase use of evidence-based data for advocacy and impact to end child marriage.

We will continue to focus on two sub-regions: West and Central Africa (WACA) and Eastern and Southern Africa (EASA). Under this framing we will, in 2023-2025, focus on seven priority countries: Burkina Faso, Niger, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Nigeria and Uganda . The choice of these countries is based on different strategic opportunities. For example, Burkina Faso and Niger (Francophone West Africa) are in a region with the highest prevalence and burden rates of child marriage, which is also highly unstable and prone to humanitarian crises, as seen in the last few decades. The latest UNICEF data shows that if efforts are not accelerated in the region, it will become the region with the highest child marriage rates in the world. In Kenya and Tanzania, there is a strategic opportunity given the high prevalence of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), and its links to child marriage.

Our work in these focus countries will include co-creation of long-term strategies in Uganda, Nigeria, Kenya and Mozambique. Disbursement of financial investments (grants) to coalitions will help to strengthen the national movements to end child marriage, and technical support and funding of the movement will foster strong collective action for change. We will work to transform discriminatory social norms, particularly for underserved populations, informed by better contextual understanding of privilege and power. This includes support for married, separated, widowed and divorced girls, and more work with boys and men, traditional and religious leaders and youth networks. We will support the movement to end child marriage in these countries to adopt multi-sectoral interventions to include ending FGM, education, livelihoods, sexual and reproductive health and rights and employment. These are important areas of focus in building the economic and political agency of girls and catalysing norms change at scale.

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GIRLS NOT BRIDES: THE GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP TO END CHILD MARRIAGE

TRUSTEES’ ANNUAL REPORT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2022

In Mozambique - one of the countries with the highest prevalence of child marriage, globally - we will, over the next three years, support movement strengthening and funding to scale up collective action to address child marriage. This will be through advocacy and monitoring of the implementation of policies adopted by the government on ending child marriage; and improving sectoral engagement with key areas such as health, sexual and reproductive health and rights, education, and humanitarian sectors. We will also support our members to partner with aid agencies providing emergency relief to populations affected by the climate crisis and support social norms change interventions, including gender equality programming and work with traditional leaders.

One of our strongest national movements is in Uganda, where a 100-member strong partnership of organisations is working to end child marriage. We see a strategic opportunity to strengthen collective action through funding the movement to end child marriage here, increasing and scaling up interventions at the sub-national level, especially in areas with the highest prevalence of child marriage within the country. This includes interventions on social norms change; integrating ending child marriage interventions within the humanitarian sector through partnering with UNHCR Uganda; and advocacy for the adoption of comprehensive sexuality education as part of the national school curriculum. We will also support the movement to leverage opportunities with the government for the implementation of laws and policies, such as the recently developed National Strategy to End Child Marriage and Teenage Pregnancy. We will leverage the power of the movement to increase learning and evidence to accelerate impact on ending child marriage, and support member organisations in Uganda’s capacity to influence media narratives and run evidence-based campaigns to influence the public perception on child marriage.

Beyond the support for individual countries, we will also strengthen collective action to end child marriage through movement-building, at both at national and sub-national levels, and by increasing the influence of national civil society organisations through access to decision-makers.

In addition, we will work to strengthen multi-sectoral interventions toward girls’ empowerment, particularly the strategic collaboration between coalitions working to end child marriage and coalitions working on education to influence education policies to benefit girls and delay child marriage. This will expand to other countries in the West and Central Africa region including Benin, Togo, Mali, Cote d’Ivoire, Mali, and Senegal. We also continue to support linkages to other sectors, including child marriage and the humanitarian sector.

We will support social norms change that advances learning and amplify social norms interventions that work. This includes supporting member organisations’ work with religious and traditional leaders, supporting collective, active participation of young people within decision-making spaces, and supporting interventions on girls’ and young women’s empowerment.

In Asia, we will focus on India (Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh) and Nepal, where we will build and strengthen coalitions and partnerships in 2023, and beyond. This will include disbursement of financial investment (grants) to National and State Partnerships and coalitions; supporting the influencing agenda through regional convenings of members to discuss what works to end child marriage in Asia; and the implementation of a gender leadership programme for senior management team from member organisations. It will also be important to broaden the discourse on child marriage to go beyond legal responses and highlight positive strategies across the Theory of Change to empower girls so that they can exercise choice and agency.

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GIRLS NOT BRIDES: THE GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP TO END CHILD MARRIAGE

TRUSTEES’ ANNUAL REPORT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2022

In Latin America and Caribbean, our work will focus on positioning child marriage as a matter of social justice and accountability at the regional and national levels. We will strengthen the regional movement to deploy a holistic and progressive approach, showcasing regional youth-led initiatives to acknowledge them as key stakeholders for change, and develop a regional youth engagement strategy. We will also amplify our outreach to Central and South America (South American Coalition Network Summit). We will focus on Guatemala as the first country with a National Partnership and continue the investment in Mexico and the Dominican Republic through specific advocacy moments aimed at creating a collective movement.

Our regional and national work will also inform our global advocacy, influencing and learning agenda. We will continue to engage in global policy spaces such as Human Rights Council and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) summit, and to work with other development sectors and donors on unlocking resources and ensuring policies are in place which create an enabling environment for ending child marriage. We are strengthening our learning through a learning series - the Child Marriage Research to Action Network (the CRANK) - so that we continue to be a ‘go to’ place for learning on ending child marriage, offering technical information, data and evidence on what is needed to end child marriage.

Organisationally, we will advance a Girls Not Brides with a fundamental vision and ambition to build our global leadership with oversight, good governance and authority in Africa, Asia, Latin America and London. This includes a rebalancing of power to best support us in amplifying the regional voices of our global partnership to achieve our strategic outcomes. As a global partnership, it is critical we maintain our global footprint while building our regional presence. To achieve this, we will apply a model to support the ongoing implementation plan and allow us to make choices that will also influence employee behaviour and organisational culture. In 2022, we completed the first phase of this process which entailed defining our change map and developing the operating model that will underpin the change we seek. In 2023 - 2024 we will begin phase two, which will focus on governance, organisational polices and systems to support this shift.

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GIRLS NOT BRIDES: THE GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP TO END CHILD MARRIAGE

TRUSTEES’ ANNUAL REPORT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2022

FINANCIAL REVIEW

Income

In 2022, Girls Not Brides’ income was £4,084,817 (2021: £3,430,088), of largely unrestricted income. Funding from private foundations formed the majority of the unrestricted income, with other funding from government grants. Restricted income was 12% of the total income.

In 2022, the work of Girls Not Brides was made possible through the generous support of many, including:

Expenditure

Expenditure on charitable activities in the year was £3,374,500 (2021: £3,727,893). This was lower than planned, largely due to staff vacancies, as well as the continued disruption from the COVID-19 pandemic on the delivery of Girls Not Brides’ work. Staff costs were £486,808 lower than in 2021, due to vacancies across a number of teams throughout 2022.

The underspend impacted both restricted and unrestricted funding, and so we are carrying forward £54,046 of restricted funding and £3,667,913 of unrestricted funding into 2023.

Reserves policy

The Board aims to build up a reserve equivalent to six months of committed costs and three months of planned but uncommitted costs as unrestricted free reserves, based on budget projections. The aim of this policy is to ensure that Girls Not Brides meets all its obligations and contractual liabilities,

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GIRLS NOT BRIDES: THE GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP TO END CHILD MARRIAGE

TRUSTEES’ ANNUAL REPORT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2022

and continues to operate smoothly, in case of income shortfalls or unexpected expenditures. This target amounts to c.£1.8m at 31 December 2022. Each year the Board reviews the level of reserves and the risks the reserves are held to mitigate against to ensure that the reserves kept are sufficient, but not excessive.

As of 31 December 2022, unrestricted free reserves were £3,637,690 (2021: £2,730,608), which is above our reserves range. We intend to spend down this balance in 2023 to bring us in line with our reserves policy; in 2023 our budgeted expenditure is higher than our budgeted income. At the end of 2023, we are budgeting to hold some unrestricted free reserves in excess of our reserves policy, however these relate to mid-year 2023 to mid-year 2024 grants, planned to be spent in early 2024.

Exemptions from disclosure

This report has been prepared in accordance with the small companies’ regime under the Companies Act 2006.

This report was approved by the Board on 8 June 2023 and signed on its behalf by

……………………………………………………….

Dr Anne T. Gallagher AO, Chair of the Board of Trustees

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INDEPENDENT AUDITOR’S REPORT

TO THE MEMBERS OF GIRLS NOT BRIDES: THE GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP TO END CHILD MARRIAGE

Opinion

We have audited the financial statements of Girls Not Brides (the ‘charitable company’) for the year ended 31 December 2022 which comprise the statement of financial activities, balance sheet, statement of cash flows and notes to the financial statements, including significant accounting policies. The financial reporting framework that has been applied in their preparation is applicable law and United Kingdom Accounting Standards, including FRS 102 The Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice).

In our opinion, the financial statements:

Basis for opinion

We conducted our audit in accordance with International Standards on Auditing (UK) (ISAs (UK)) and applicable law. Our responsibilities under those standards are further described in the Auditor’s responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements section of our report. We are independent of the charitable company in accordance with the ethical requirements that are relevant to our audit of the financial statements in the UK, including the FRC’s Ethical Standard and we have fulfilled our other ethical responsibilities in accordance with these requirements. We believe that the audit evidence we have obtained is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for our opinion.

Conclusions relating to going concern

In auditing the financial statements, we have concluded that the trustees' use of the going concern basis of accounting in the preparation of the financial statements is appropriate.

Based on the work we have performed, we have not identified any material uncertainties relating to events or conditions that, individually or collectively, may cast significant doubt on Girls Not Brides' ability to continue as a going concern for a period of at least twelve months from when the financial statements are authorised for issue.

Our responsibilities and the responsibilities of the trustees with respect to going concern are described in the relevant sections of this report.

Other Information

The other information comprises the information included in the trustees’ annual report other than the financial statements and our auditor’s report thereon. The trustees are responsible for the other information contained within the annual report. Our opinion on the financial statements does not cover the other information and, except to the extent otherwise explicitly stated in our report, we do

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INDEPENDENT AUDITOR’S REPORT

TO THE MEMBERS OF GIRLS NOT BRIDES: THE GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP TO END CHILD MARRIAGE

not express any form of assurance conclusion thereon. Our responsibility is to read the other information and, in doing so, consider whether the other information is materially inconsistent with the financial statements or our knowledge obtained in the course of the audit, or otherwise appears to be materially misstated. If we identify such material inconsistencies or apparent material misstatements, we are required to determine whether this gives rise to a material misstatement in the financial statements themselves. If, based on the work we have performed, we conclude that there is a material misstatement of this other information, we are required to report that fact.

We have nothing to report in this regard.

Opinions on other matters prescribed by the Companies Act 2006

In our opinion, based on the work undertaken in the course of the audit:

Matters on which we are required to report by exception

In the light of the knowledge and understanding of the charitable company and its environment obtained in the course of the audit, we have not identified material misstatements in the trustees’ annual report. We have nothing to report in respect of the following matters in relation to which the Companies Act 2006 requires us to report to you if, in our opinion:

Responsibilities of trustees

As explained more fully in the statement of trustees’ responsibilities set out in the trustees’ annual report, the trustees (who are also the directors of the charitable company for the purposes of company law) are responsible for the preparation of the financial statements and for being satisfied that they give a true and fair view, and for such internal control as the trustees determine is necessary to enable the preparation of financial statements that are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error.

In preparing the financial statements, the trustees are responsible for assessing the charitable company’s ability to continue as a going concern, disclosing, as applicable, matters related to going

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INDEPENDENT AUDITOR’S REPORT

TO THE MEMBERS OF

GIRLS NOT BRIDES: THE GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP TO END CHILD MARRIAGE

concern and using the going concern basis of accounting unless the trustees either intend to liquidate the charitable company or to cease operations, or have no realistic alternative but to do so.

Auditor’s responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements

Our objectives are to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements as a whole are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error, and to issue an auditor’s report that includes our opinion. Reasonable assurance is a high level of assurance but is not a guarantee that an audit conducted in accordance with ISAs (UK) will always detect a material misstatement when it exists. Misstatements can arise from fraud or error and are considered material if, individually or in the aggregate, they could reasonably be expected to influence the economic decisions of users taken on the basis of these financial statements.

Irregularities, including fraud, are instances of non-compliance with laws and regulations. We design procedures in line with our responsibilities, outlined above, to detect material misstatements in respect of irregularities, including fraud. The extent to which our procedures are capable of detecting irregularities, including fraud are set out below.

Capability of the audit in detecting irregularities

In identifying and assessing risks of material misstatement in respect of irregularities, including fraud and non-compliance with laws and regulations, our procedures included the following:

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INDEPENDENT AUDITOR’S REPORT

TO THE MEMBERS OF GIRLS NOT BRIDES: THE GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP TO END CHILD MARRIAGE

Because of the inherent limitations of an audit, there is a risk that we will not detect all irregularities, including those leading to a material misstatement in the financial statements or non-compliance with regulation. This risk increases the more that compliance with a law or regulation is removed from the events and transactions reflected in the financial statements, as we will be less likely to become aware of instances of non-compliance. The risk is also greater regarding irregularities occurring due to fraud rather than error, as fraud involves intentional concealment, forgery, collusion, omission or misrepresentation.

A further description of our responsibilities is available on the Financial Reporting Council’s website at: www.frc.org.uk/auditorsresponsibilities. This description forms part of our auditor’s report.

Use of our report

This report is made solely to the charitable company's members as a body, in accordance with Chapter 3 of Part 16 of the Companies Act 2006. Our audit work has been undertaken so that we might state to the charitable company's members those matters we are required to state to them in an auditor’s report and for no other purpose. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we do not accept or assume responsibility to anyone other than the charitable company and the charitable company's members as a body, for our audit work, for this report, or for the opinions we have formed.

Noelia Serrano (Senior statutory auditor)

22 June 2023

for and on behalf of Sayer Vincent LLP, Statutory Auditor Invicta House, 108-114 Golden Lane, LONDON, EC1Y 0TL

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GIRLS NOT BRIDES: THE GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP TO END CHILD MARRIAGE

Statement of financial activities (incorporating an income and expenditure account)

For the year ended 31 December 2022

Unrestricted
Note
£
Income from:
2
3,614,934
5,010
3,619,944
3a
254,428
3a
1,248,654
3a
1,248,654
2,751,736
5
868,208
2,799,705
3,667,913
Total funds carried forward
Total funds brought forward
Net income / (expenditure) for the year
Raising funds
Total expenditure
Charitable activities
Promotion of equality and human rights
Prevention and relief of poverty
Donations (grants)
Investments
Total income
Expenditure on:		 Unrestricted
Note
£
Income from:
2
3,614,934
5,010
3,619,944
3a
254,428
3a
1,248,654
3a
1,248,654
2,751,736
5
868,208
2,799,705
3,667,913
Total funds carried forward
Total funds brought forward
Net income / (expenditure) for the year
Raising funds
Total expenditure
Charitable activities
Promotion of equality and human rights
Prevention and relief of poverty
Donations (grants)
Investments
Total income
Expenditure on:		 Restricted
£
464,873
-		 2022
Total
£
4,079,807
5,010
4,084,817
257,045
1,558,728
1,558,728
3,374,500
710,317
3,011,642
3,721,959		 Unrestricted
£
2,675,965
261		 Restricted
£
753,862
-		 2021
Total
£
3,429,827
261
3,619,944 464,873 2,676,226 753,862 3,430,088
254,428
1,248,654
1,248,654		 2,617
310,074
310,074		 169,661
1,765,249
1,016,217		 5,596
602,722
168,448		 175,257
2,367,971
1,184,665
2,751,736 622,765 2,951,128 776,765 3,727,893
868,208
2,799,705		 (157,891)
211,937		 (274,902)
3,074,607		 (22,903)
234,840		 (297,805)
3,309,447
3,667,913 54,046 2,799,705 211,937 3,011,642

All of the above results are derived from continuing activities. There were no other recognised gains or losses other than those stated above. Movements in funds are disclosed in Note 15a to the financial statements.

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GIRLS NOT BRIDES: THE GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP TO END CHILD MARRIAGE

Balance sheet

Balance sheet Balance sheet
As at 31 December 2022 Company no. 8570751
Note
£
Fixed assets:
10
Current assets:
11
181,205
4,020,855
4,202,060
Liabilities:
12
(510,324)
14a
Total unrestricted funds
Net assets
Debtors
Restricted income funds
The funds of the charity:
Creditors: amounts falling due within one year
Net current assets
Cash at bank and in hand
Tangible assets
Total charity funds		 2022
£
30,223
30,223
3,691,736
3,721,959
54,046
3,667,913
3,721,959		 £
149,938
3,440,110		 2021
£
69,097
69,097
2,942,545
4,202,060
(510,324)		 3,590,048
(647,503)
3,011,642
211,937
2,799,705
3,011,642

Approved by the trustees on 8 June 2023 and signed on their behalf by

Dr Anne T. Gallagher, AO Trustee

47

GIRLS NOT BRIDES: THE GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP TO END CHILD MARRIAGE

Statement of cash flows

For the year ended 31 December 2022
Note
Cash flows from operating activities
Net income / (expenditure) for the reporting period
(as per the statement of financial activities)
Depreciation charges
10
(Increase) / decrease in debtors
11
Decrease in creditors
12
Net cash provided by / (used in) operating activities
Payments for property and equipment
Analysis of cash and cash equivalents and of net debt
Current accounts
Deposit accounts
Total cash and cash equivalents
Net cash used in investing activities
Cash flows from investing activities
Cash and cash equivalents at the beginning of the
year
Cash and cash equivalents at the end of the year
Change in cash and cash equivalents in the year		 £
£
710,317
46,328
(31,267)
(137,179)
588,199
(7,454)
(7,454)
580,745
3,440,110
4,020,855
At 1 January
2022
Cash flows
£
£
856,474
125,735
2,583,636
455,010
3,440,110
580,745
2022		 £
£
(297,805)
53,471
59,873
(408,206)
(592,667)
(17,170)
(17,170)
(609,837)
4,049,947
3,440,110
Other non-
cash
changes
At 31
December
2022
£
£
-
982,209
-
3,038,646
-
4,020,855
2021
588,199
(7,454)		 (592,667)
(17,170)
At 1 January
2022
£
856,474
2,583,636		 Other non-
cash
changes
£
-
-
580,745
3,440,110		 (609,837)
4,049,947
4,020,855 3,440,110
Cash flows
£
125,735
455,010		 At 31
December
2022
£
982,209
3,038,646
3,440,110 580,745 - 4,020,855

48

GIRLS NOT BRIDES: THE GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP TO END CHILD MARRIAGE

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 December 2022

1 Accounting policies

a) Statutory information

Girls Not Brides is a charitable company limited by guarantee and is incorporated in England and Wales (company number: 8570751; charity number: 1154230).

The registered office address is Seventh Floor, 65 Leadenhall Street, London EC3A 2AD.

b) Basis of preparation

Assets and liabilities are initially recognised at historical cost or transaction value unless otherwise stated in the relevant accounting policy or note.

The financial statements have been prepared in accordance with Accounting and Reporting by Charities: Statement of Recommended Practice applicable to charities preparing their accounts in accordance with the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland Charities SORP (FRS 102) including update bulletin 2, the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102), the Charities Act 2011 and Companies Act 2016.

c) Public benefit entity

The charity meets the definition of a public benefit entity under FRS 102.

d) Presentational and functional currencies

The accounts are presented in sterling. The functional currencies of the charity are sterling, US dollar and euro. The accounts are presented in sterling since that is the currency in which the charity conducts most of its activities. No amounts have been rounded.

e) Going concern

There are no material uncertainties that cast significant doubt upon the charity’s ability to continue as a going concern.

f) Income

Income is included in the Statement of financial activities when the charity is entitled to the income and the amount can be quantified with reasonable accuracy. The following specific policies are applied to particular categories of income:

g) Fund accounting

Unrestricted funds are available for use at the discretion of the Trustees in furtherance of the general objects of the charity. Restricted funds are only for use of the purposes prescribed by the donors.

Designated funds are unrestricted funds earmarked by the Trustees for particular purposes.

49

GIRLS NOT BRIDES: THE GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP TO END CHILD MARRIAGE

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 December 2022

1 Accounting policies (continued)

h) Expenditure and irrecoverable VAT

Expenditure is recognised on an accruals basis as a liability is incurred. Expenditure includes any VAT that cannot be fully recovered, and is reported as part of the expenditure to which it relates:

i) Operating leases

Rentals payable under operating leases are charged in the income and expenditure account on a straight line basis over the lease term.

j) Tangible fixed assets

Tangible fixed assets are capitalised at cost and are depreciated over their useful economic lives.

Depreciation is provided at rates calculated to write down the cost of each asset to its estimated residual value over its expected useful life. The depreciation rates in use are as follows:

Fixed assets with a value less than £1,000 are not capitalised.

k) Debtors

Trade and other debtors are recognised at the settlement amount due after any trade discount offered. Prepayments are valued at the amount prepaid net of any trade discounts due.

l) Cash at bank and in hand

Cash and cash equivalents comprise cash in hand and call deposits, and other short-term highly liquid investments that are readily convertible to a known amount of cash and are subject to an insignificant risk of change in value.

m) Creditors and provisions

Trade creditors are obligations to pay for goods or services that have been acquired in the ordinary course of business from suppliers. Accounts payable are classified as current liabilities if the charitable company does not have an unconditional right, at the end of the reporting period, to defer settlement of the creditor for at least 12 months after the reporting date. If there is an unconditional right to defer settlement for at least 12 months after the reporting date, they are presented as non-current liabilities.

Trade creditors are recognised at the transaction price.

50

GIRLS NOT BRIDES: THE GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP TO END CHILD MARRIAGE

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 December 2022

1 Accounting policies (continued)

Provisions are recognised when the company has an obligation at the reporting date as a result of a past event, it is probable that the company will be required to settle that obligation and a reliable estimate can be made of the amount of the obligation.

n) Pensions

The company operates a defined contribution scheme for the benefit of its employees. The costs of contributions are charged to the Statement of financial activities in the year in which they are payable.

o) Foreign currencies

Transactions in foreign currencies are recorded at the rate as at the date of the transaction. Monetary assets and liabilities are re-translated at the rate of exchange ruling at the balance sheet date. Any differences are taken to the Statement of financial activities.

2 Income from donations (grants)

Government grants
Other grants and donations		 Unrestricted
£
1,255,497
2,359,437		 £
-
464,873
Restricted		 2022
Total
£
1,255,497
2,824,311		 Unrestricted
£
1,638,243
1,037,722		 £
-
753,862
Restricted		 2021
Total
£
1,638,243
1,791,585
3,614,934 464,873 4,079,807 2,675,965 753,862 3,429,827

51

GIRLS NOT BRIDES: THE GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP TO END CHILD MARRIAGE

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 December 2022

3a Analysis of expenditure (current year)

Staff costs (Note 6)
Premises costs (rent, utilities)
Travel and workshops / meetings
Consultancy
Grants (Note 4)
Professional fees
IT and communications
Office and other
Support costs
Governance costs
Total expenditure 2022
Total expenditure 2021		 Raising
funds
£
163,986
-
4,284
34,830
-
-
-
37
203,137
51,581
2,327
257,045
175,257		 Charitable activities Charitable activities Governance
costs
£
-
-
11,621
11,300
-
14,700
-
1,032
38,654
-
(38,654)
-
-		 Support
costs
£
412,177
174,514
35,575
103,191
510
19,449
103,032
8,420
856,868
(856,868)
-
-
-		 2022
Total
2021
Total
£
£
1,457,583
1,944,391
183,563
138,537
184,078
38,019
802,151
745,771
405,754
352,642
34,149
78,101
139,039
182,485
168,183
247,948
3,374,500
3,727,893
-
-
-
-
3,374,500
3,727,893
Human
rights
£
440,710
4,524
66,299
326,415
202,622
-
18,004
79,347
1,137,921
402,643
18,163
1,558,728
2,367,971		 Relief of
poverty
£
440,710
4,524
66,299
326,415
202,622
-
18,004
79,347
1,137,921
402,643
18,163
1,558,728
1,184,665

52

GIRLS NOT BRIDES: THE GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP TO END CHILD MARRIAGE

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 December 2022

3b Analysis of expenditure (prior year)

Staff costs (Note 6)
Premises costs (rent, utilities)
Travel and workshops / meetings
Consultancy
Grants
Professional fees
IT and communications
Office and other
Support costs
Governance costs
Total expenditure 2021		 Raising
funds
£
114,689
-
-
3,792
-
-
-
3,509
121,990
50,966
2,301
175,257		 Charitable activities Charitable activities Governance
costs
£
-
-
576
33,717
-
13,620
-
1,041
48,954
-
(48,954)
-		 Support
costs
2021
Total
£
£
596,491
1,944,391
133,565
138,537
34
38,019
42,353
745,771
-
352,642
64,481
78,101
116,271
182,485
130,894
247,948
1,084,089
3,727,893
(1,084,089)
-
-
-
-
3,727,893
Human
rights
£
858,513
2,486
26,223
490,187
334,398
-
38,398
77,879
1,828,083
516,562
23,326
2,367,971		 Relief of
poverty
£
374,699
2,486
11,187
175,721
18,244
-
27,815
34,625
644,777
516,562
23,326
1,184,665

53

GIRLS NOT BRIDES: THE GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP TO END CHILD MARRIAGE

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 December 2022

4 Grant making

Grant making
Associação Moçambicana Desenvolvimento da Família, Mozambique
Plan International USA
Women Deliver
Children's Dignity Forum, Tanzania
Msichana Empowerment Kuria, Kenya
Voix de Femmes, Burkina Faso
SongES Niger
At the end of the year
Cost
Joy for Children Uganda
Child and Youth Protection Foundation, Nigeria
Other small grants		 Grants to
institutions
£
80,000
58,252
41,987
35,122
31,018
23,654
15,739
5,677
-
114,305		 2022
£
80,000
58,252
41,987
35,122
31,018
23,654
15,739
5,677
-
114,305		 2021
£
5,817
29,745
-
44,243
-
-
50,189
50,189
66,588
105,872
405,754 405,754 352,642

During the year Girls Not Brides paid a grant to Joy for Children Uganda totalling £80,000 from unrestricted funding.

During the year Girls Not Brides paid grants to SongES Niger totalling £58,252 from restricted funding.

During the year Girls Not Brides paid a grant to Women Deliver totalling £41,987 from restricted funding.

During the year Girls Not Brides paid grants to Voix De Femmes totalling £35,122 from restricted funding.

During the year Girls Not Brides paid a grant to Associação Moçambicana Desenvolvimento da Família totalling £31,018 from restricted funding.

During the year Girls Not Brides paid a grant to Child and Youth Protection Foundation totalling £23,654 from restricted funding.

During the year Girls Not Brides paid a grant to Msichana Empowerment Kuria totalling £15,739 from restricted funding.

During the year Girls Not Brides paid a grant to Children's Dignity Forum totalling £5,677 from restricted funding.

During the year Girls Not Brides made a number small grants to member organisations, with an average value of approximately £7,000.

54

GIRLS NOT BRIDES: THE GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP TO END CHILD MARRIAGE

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 December 2022

5 Net income / (expenditure) for the year

This is stated after charging:

This is stated after charging:
2022 2021
£ £
Depreciation 46,328 53,471
Operating lease rentals payable:
Property 109,590 76,241
Auditor's remuneration (excluding VAT):
Audit 12,000 9,100
Other services 5,280 5,545
Foreign exchange gains 107,355 728

55

GIRLS NOT BRIDES: THE GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP TO END CHILD MARRIAGE

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 December 2022

Staff costs were as follows:

Staff costs were as follows:
Salaries and wages
Redundancy and termination costs
Social security costs
Employer’s contribution to defined contribution pension schemes
Other forms of employee benefits (medical, life and travel insurance)
Relocation		 2022
£
1,178,043
-
137,802
116,024
25,714
-		 2021
£
1,471,926
78,185
186,977
156,843
48,711
1,750
1,457,583 1,944,391

Girls Not Brides makes contributions to a defined contribution scheme. The amount of contributions due to the scheme at the year ended 31 December was £nil. (2021: £nil).

Retirement benefits were accruing to no Trustees in 2022 (2021: 1). In 2021 retirements benefits were accruing under a money purchase pension scheme, to Mabel van Oranje, Chair of Trustees, however that Trustee left Girls Not Brides during 2021.

The number of employees whose remuneration for the year fell within the following bands was:

2022 2021
No. No.
£60,001 - £70,000 1 2
£70,001 - £80,000 2 1
£80,001 - £90,000 - -
£90,001 - £100,000 - -
£100,001 - £110,000 - -
£110,001 - £120,000 - -
£120,001 - £130,000 1 1

The total employee benefits (including pension contributions and employer's national insurance) of the key management personnel were £364,635 (2021: £389,784). In 2022 the Chief Executive Officer and the three directors were responsible for planning, directing and controlling the activities of the charity.

In 2022, no trustees received remuneration or pension contributions from Girls Not Brides . In 2021, Mabel van Oranje, Chair of Trustees until September 2021, received remuneration of £62,126, as permitted by the charitable company’s Articles of Association. In 2021, the charitable company also paid pension contributions of £5,810 and reimbursed or paid on her behalf travelling, accommodation and office expenses of £2,487.

In 2022 Girls Not Brides paid £12,751 (2021: £2,487) on behalf of the Trustees for expenses related to travel, accomodation, meals and training. The majority of the cost, being £11,724 related to a Board of Trustees retreat in London in December 2022. Payments to Trustees are permitted by the Charity’s Articles of Association.

56

GIRLS NOT BRIDES: THE GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP TO END CHILD MARRIAGE

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 December 2022

7 Staff numbers

The average number of employees (head count based on number of staff employed) during the year was 24 (2021: 32).

The average monthly number of employees during the year was:
Policy and Advocacy Team
Communications Team
Finance and Operations Team
The Executive
Learning and Partnership Team
Africa Team		 2022
No.
2
4
8
7
2
1		 2021
No.
4
5
8
9
5
1
24 32

8 Related party transactions

Related party transactions: during the year there were no related party transactions.

9 Taxation

The charity is exempt from corporation tax as all its income is charitable and is applied for charitable purposes.

10 Tangible fixed assets

Tangible fixed assets
Cost
At the end of the year
At the start of the year
Additions in year
Disposals in year
Eliminated on disposal
Net book value
At the end of the year
At the start of the year
Charge for the year
Depreciation
At the start of the year
At the end of the year		 Short
leasehold
improvements
£
106,514
-
-		 Computer &
software
£
119,534
7,454
(16,367)		 Furniture &
equipment
£
61,256
-
(3,381)		 Total
£
287,304
7,454
(19,748)
106,514 110,621 57,875 275,010
75,770
20,458
-		 92,918
17,247
(16,367)		 49,519
8,623
(3,381)		 218,207
46,328
(19,748)
96,228 93,798 54,761 244,787
10,286 16,823 3,114 30,223
30,744 26,616 11,737 69,097

All of the above assets are used for charitable purposes.

57

GIRLS NOT BRIDES: THE GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP TO END CHILD MARRIAGE

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 December 2022

11
12
Other debtors
Other creditors
Deferred income (Note 13)
Trade creditors
Debtors
Taxation and social security
Grants payable
Creditors: amounts falling due within one year
Prepayments		 2022
£
88,508
92,697		 2021
£
81,873
68,064
181,205 149,938
2022
£
62,898
41,626
68,777
254,365
82,659		 2021
£
153,326
46,041
-
297,859
150,277
510,324 647,503

13 Deferred income

Movements in deferred income during the year are as follows:

Balance at the beginning of the year
Amount released to income in the year
Amount deferred in the year
Balance at the end of the year		 2022
£
150,277
(67,619)
-		 2021
£
250,000
(250,000)
150,277
82,659 150,277

Deferred income represents grants received where the donor has specified this is to fund 2023 expenditure. This will be released to income in the 2023 accounts

58

GIRLS NOT BRIDES: THE GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP TO END CHILD MARRIAGE

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 December 2022

14a Analysis of net assets between funds (current year)

14b
15a
At 1 January
2022
£
81,099
71,047
59,791
UNFPA
-
UNICEF
-
Packard Foundation
-
Total restricted funds
211,937
General funds
2,799,705
3,011,642
Analysis of net assets between funds (prior year)
Tangible fixed assets
Net current assets
Net assets at 31 December 2022
Restricted funds:
Net assets at 31 December 2021
Tangible fixed assets
Net current assets
Total funds
Movements in funds (current year)
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Players of People's Postcode Lottery
Education Out Loud		 14b
15a
At 1 January
2022
£
81,099
71,047
59,791
UNFPA
-
UNICEF
-
Packard Foundation
-
Total restricted funds
211,937
General funds
2,799,705
3,011,642
Analysis of net assets between funds (prior year)
Tangible fixed assets
Net current assets
Net assets at 31 December 2022
Restricted funds:
Net assets at 31 December 2021
Tangible fixed assets
Net current assets
Total funds
Movements in funds (current year)
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Players of People's Postcode Lottery
Education Out Loud		 Income &
gains
£
-
-
301,396
75,285
48,426
39,766		 General
unrestricted
£
30,223
3,637,690		 Restricted
£
-
54,046		 Total funds
£
30,223
3,691,736
3,667,913 54,046 3,721,959
General
unrestricted
£
69,097
2,730,608		 Restricted
£
-
211,937		 Total funds
£
69,097
2,942,545
2,799,705 211,937 3,011,642
Expenditure
& losses
£
(81,099)
(71,047)
(303,765)
(75,285)
(77,588)
(13,980)		 Transfers
£
-
-
-
-
-
-		 At 31
December
2022
£
-
-
57,421.54
-
(29,162)
25,786
211,937 464,873 (622,765) - 54,046
2,799,705 3,619,944 (2,751,736) - 3,667,913
3,011,642 4,084,817 (3,374,500) - 3,721,959

The narrative to explain the purpose of each fund is given at the foot of the note below.

59

GIRLS NOT BRIDES: THE GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP TO END CHILD MARRIAGE

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 December 2022

15b Movements in funds (prior year)

Movements in funds (prior year)
Total restricted funds
General funds
Total funds
Ignite Philanthropy
Education Out Loud
Plan International, Inc
Players of People's Postcode Lottery
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Restricted funds:
Skoll Foundation
UNFPA		 At 1 January
2021
£
7,466
-
199,407
16,347
-
11,620
-		 Income &
gains
£
-
29,143
144,998
250,000
274,981
-
54,741		 Expenditure
& losses
£
(7,466)
(29,143)
(263,306)
(195,300)
(215,190)
(11,620)
(54,741)		 Transfers
£
-
-
-
-
-
-
-		 At 31
December
2021
£
-
-
81,099
71,047
59,791
-
-
234,840 753,862 (776,765) - 211,937
3,074,607 2,676,226 (2,951,128) - 2,799,705
3,309,447 3,430,088 (3,727,893) - 3,011,642

Purposes of restricted funds

In 2020, Girls Not Brides received a grant of $499,976 (£389,951) from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for supporting evidence for advocacy in the child marriage movement. £190,544 was expensed in 2020, and £199,407 was expensed in 2021. In 2021 Girls Not Brides received an additional grant of $199,846 (£144,998) from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to provide project support to the Adolescent Girls Investment Plan (AGIP). £63,899 was expensed in 2021, and £81,099 was expensed in 2022.

In 2019, Girls Not Brides received a grant of £250,000 from the players of the People's Postcode Lottery for accelerating progress to end child marriage in Uganda. £233,653 was expensed in 2020, and £16,347 was expensed in 2021. In 2020 Girls Not Brides received a second grant of £250,000 from the players of the People's Postcode Lottery for accelerating progress to end child marriage in Kenya and Tanzania. £178,953 was expensed in 2021 and £71,047 was expensed in 2022.

In 2021, Girls Not Brides received a grant of $378,624 (£274,981) from Education Out Loud for strengthening collective action to end child marriage, keep girls in school and advance gender equality in West Africa. In 2022 a further $374,646 (£301,396) was received. £215,190 was expensed in 2021 and £303,765 was expensed in 2022. £57,421 is carried forward into 2023.

In 2022 UNFPA awarded Girls Not Brides a grant of £75,285 for the Child Marriage Action to Research Network. The grant was fully expensed in 2022.

In 2021, UNICEF awarded Girls Not Brides a grant of $99,960 for capacity building in national civil society organisations to analyse and address causes of gender inequality, to be paid in tranches on receipt of quarterly reports. $58,266 (£48,426) was received in 2022 and the balance will be paid in 2023. £77,588 was expensed in 2022; this creates a deficit in the donor account due to a difference in accounting for sub-grants between the Girls Not Brides statutory accounts and the UNICEF quarterly reports. This deficit will be cleared in 2023 when the grant activites are completed and reported on, and the remaining balance is paid.

In 2022 Girls Not Brides received a grant of $50,000 (£39,766) from the Packard Foundation. £13,980 was expensed in 2022 and the balance of £25,786 is carried forward into 2023.

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GIRLS NOT BRIDES: THE GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP TO END CHILD MARRIAGE

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 December 2022

16 Operating lease commitments payable as a lessee

Total amount payable in respect of non-cancellable operating leases:

Total amount payable in respect of non-cancellable operating leases:
Less than one year
One to two years
Two to five years		 2022
£
148,932
223,188
59,981		 2021
£
127,673
148,932
283,169
432,101 559,774

61