The United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative (UNGEI)

Established in 2000, the United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative is a multi-stakeholder partnership committed to improving the quality and availability of girls’ education and contributing to the empowerment of girls and women through transformative education.

UNGEI harnesses the collaborative advantage of partnership by:

• Linking work at multiple levels – global, regional and country;
• Bringing a gender lens and gender analysis tools to the education sector and other related sectors;
• Articulating a common voice and building a united advocacy and communications’ platform to advance the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals and the Education 2030 Framework For Action;

Towards this end, UNGEI collaborates with key education partners, including Global Partnership for Education, to produce strategic tools such as the UNGEI-GPE Gender-Responsive Education Sector Planning Guidance, a tool aimed at assisting country-level planners and practitioners to integrate gender issues into the sector planning process.

To strengthen efforts to monitor the global education goals with a focus on trends in gender equality and education, UNGEI supports the Global Education Monitoring Report (GEMR), and the annual publication of the Global Education Monitoring Report: Gender Review.

UNGEI is committed to promoting evidence building and the sharing of effective programming strategies in girls’ education and gender equality. In 2016, UNGEI released findings from a 3-year initiative, the Good Practice Fund, shedding light on valuable tools, strategies, and interventions in girls’ education and gender equality.

UNGEI gives particular attention to efforts to ensure that schools remain safe and supportive places for learning. UNGEI is proud to co-host with UNESCO, the Global Working Group to End School-Related Gender-Based Violence (SRGBV), which brings together over 40 organizations for joint advocacy, research, and standard setting. In 2016, UNGEI also launched the Government of Canada funded project, ‘Education Unions Take Action to end SRGBV’ in partnership with Gender at Work and Education International. The project supports 10 education unions in Sub-Saharan Africa to engage union members to combat gender-based violence in and around schools.

If you would like to learn more about the work of UNGEI and girls’ education, access UNGEI and partner publications and resources, you can do so via the UNGEI website. You can also follow us on social media on our twitter handle @UNGEI or find us on facebook.

For partnerships and collaboration inquiries contact nfyles@unicef.org.