Fund the Whole Girl: Beyond Education Access to Agency and Leadership
Getting a girl into school matters enormously. But access to education is not the same as having the power, opportunity, and support to shape what happens next.
A girl can be enrolled in school and still face barriers to her health, safety, economic opportunity, voice, and ability to make decisions about her own future.
So what would it mean to invest in the whole girl?
This session will look beyond education access to the wider ecosystem that enables girls to develop agency and become leaders. That means connecting conversations that are too often separated: education and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), mentorship and leadership development, community support and public policy, and the funding decisions that determine which organizations can sustain this work.
The focus will be on Africa’s girls, while drawing on perspectives from African and non-African women leaders working across these interconnected systems.
The conversation will also ask what needs to change around the girl herself. What role do families and communities play? How can education systems support agency rather than simply attendance and academic attainment? What happens when locally led organizations have the trust and relationships required to support girls but lack the flexible, sustained financing to do so? And how can governments, philanthropy, and civil society work together without fragmenting a girl’s life into separate programs and funding streams?
At its heart is a simple proposition: if we want girls not merely to learn but to exercise agency and lead, we have to invest accordingly.
Fund the whole girl. Strengthen the organizations closest to her. Build systems that enable her to lead.
What to expect
An intimate conversation opened by three women leaders bringing complementary perspectives from community-led and adolescent-girl programming, SRHR, mentorship and leadership development, and education systems, policy, and advocacy.
Their experiences will provide a starting point rather than the entirety of the session. Participants will be invited into the conversation to compare what they are seeing, challenge assumptions, and examine what governments, funders, practitioners, and civil society could do differently.
Expect an honest exchange about what it takes to move from individual programs toward an ecosystem capable of supporting girls across different stages and dimensions of their lives, with a particular focus on practical opportunities for funding, policy, partnership, and implementation.
Who this is for
This session is for funders, policymakers, practitioners, locally led organizations, advocates, and others working across girls’ education, gender equality, SRHR, youth development, leadership, and philanthropy, particularly those interested in moving resources and decision-making closer to the organizations and communities working directly with girls.
What you will get out of it
A broader understanding of what girls need beyond access to education
Practical perspectives connecting education, SRHR, mentorship, agency, and leadership
Insight into the role locally led organizations play in supporting the whole ecosystem around a girl
Ideas for how funding, policy, and partnerships could better support girls’ long-term agency and opportunity
Connections across sectors that too often approach different parts of a girl’s life separately