Research Strategy for Phase II: The UNFPA–UNICEF Global Programme to End Child Marriage

Building on global research priorities, and achievements and gaps in learning in Phase I, the UNFPA-UNICEF Global Programme to End Child Marriage has developed a research strategy for Phase II and beyond to improve, unify and amplify its contribution to evidence on child marriage both nationally and globally. The strategy aims to ensure that quality evidence can inform national and subnational policies and programmes, and improve their effectiveness in preventing child marriage and supporting married girls in scalable, sustainable, rights-based and gender transformative ways. The strategy also supports the Global Programme’s aims of making enhanced contributions to the global knowledge base as a global good. Finally, the strategy supports improved accountability for results in the Global Programme, particularly at the outcome and impact levels.

The research strategy is part of a comprehensive learning approach that integrates programming, monitoring, evaluation, and quantitative and qualitative research. It defines new learning objectives and research priorities for Phase II. It also describes how planning of research is integral to the programme, by using all stages of the programme cycle as learning points for strategic programme design, reorientation, implementation (and course correction as needed), evaluation and learning. It offers a series of tools to facilitate reflection on current and future research to ensure that it is designed, focused and implemented to build the evidence base on which interventions work, why they work, and how they work, in diverse contexts and for various subpopulations.