Zambia Adopts Rain Barrel Communication Designed Strategy to End Child Marriage

We are pleased to learn that the advocacy and communication strategy our team designed to support efforts to end child marriage in Zambia has been endorsed by the Ministry of Gender. According to the country office of UNICEF in Zambia, which commissioned the consultancy, the strategy document will guide national social and behavior change communication-related activities going forward.

Government officials have scheduled a meeting with ministries and civil society organizations participating in the Consortium on Ending Child Marriage at which stakeholders will agree on the key priorities for implementing the strategy.

Ending child marriage is a priority in Zambia. Thirty-one per cent of women aged 20-24 have been married before the age of 18. Led by the Ministry of Gender, an inter-ministerial and broad-based coalition of traditional authorities, religious groups, civil society organizations, communities and the media was established in 2016 to develop the National Strategy on Ending Child Marriage in Zambia for 2016 – 2021. The goal of the National Strategy is to reduce child marriage by 40 per cent by 2021 – down to 12 per cent – and then to end the practice completely by 2030.

Rain Barrel's team of experts for the project was made up of Teresa Stuart (team leader), Andrew Carlson (Monitoring and Evaluation) and Chola Mutoni (National Consultant). Kudos and gratitude to them, to UNICEF, government, civil society and community members who joined forces to design the strategy.

For more information about the project, see our March Flow article.