Resources

This publication examines progress and persistent gaps in our efforts to achieve gender equality in and through education since the adoption of the Beijing Platform for Action 25 years ago. In 2018, 130 million girls worldwide were out of school, and only two out of three girls were enrolled in secondary education. The crisis related to the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to further widen these gaps and threatens to interrupt the education of more than 11 million girls.

This publication demonstrates the importance of adolescent girls' education for the advancement of the Beijing Platform for Action’s visionary agenda, and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.

It provides recommendations to fast-track investments and action on adolescent girls’ education during the 2021 Generation Equality Forum, and the related Action Coalitions aiming to accelerate progress for gender equality. It promotes intersectoral approaches and multi-stakeholder partnerships, and focuses on three ‘levers of action’: comprehensive sexuality education, the involvement of adolescent girls in science, technology, engineering and mathematics education, and the development of adolescent girls’ leadership. It shares adolescent girls’ own priorities and expectations, and their vision of what is needed for an equal future for us all.