As policymakers and development partners search for scalable solutions to child marriage and school dropout, the Centre for Girls’ Education (CGE) is contributing through programme delivery and knowledge products that clarify what works, at what cost, and under what conditions.

Development Diaries reports that new evidence from large-scale programmes in northern Nigeria and the Republic of Niger shows that when adolescent girls are supported through integrated interventions that combine education, life skills, and community engagement, the likelihood of early marriage drops significantly while school participation increases.

This evidence was revealed at a webinar titled ‘Investing in Girls’ Choices: Baseline Insights on Delaying Marriage and First Birth in Niger and Nigeria’, which was co-hosted by the CGE and Care USA.

The session brought together Gates Foundation programme officers, university researchers from Washington, Oxford, and UC San Diego, and government partners across the two countries. Although the occasion was the presentation of baseline data from Kaduna, Nigeria, and Zinder, Niger, the framing throughout was broader.

In one study, marriage rates stood at 86 percent among girls outside the programme but dropped to 21 percent among participants.

Even at the baseline, the signals are clear. In Kaduna, girls now report an average ideal marriage age of about 18.7 years, up from 16.7 in earlier cohorts, and nine in ten say they would choose to attend school if given the opportunity. Yet the system continues to fail them, as fewer than half of girls who have ever attended school can read or write.

In Niger, the reality is even more urgent, with child marriage rates as high as 87 percent, a median marriage age of around 15.5 years, and literacy levels still below a quarter among surveyed girls.

So the issue is no longer a lack of evidence but what happens after the evidence, because if the numbers are telling us that integrated programmes can delay marriage and improve outcomes at scale, then every girl who is still married at 15 or 16 is a reminder of a system that has chosen not to act fast enough.

This is where responsibility becomes impossible to ignore. The Federal Ministry of Education cannot continue to run a system where girls are enrolled but not learning because when fewer than half of girls who have attended school can read or write, it is quality, not access, that is failing.

So the ministry must prioritise foundational learning reforms, scale academic catch-up programmes, and ensure that schools are places where girls actually gain skills, not just attendance records.

As for the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs, it must move beyond policy advocacy and drive national coordination on delaying child marriage, ensuring that proven models like safe spaces and life skills programmes are not treated as pilot projects but embedded into national frameworks.

For their part, state governments, particularly in northern Nigeria, must commit real budgets to scaling these interventions, rather than waiting for donors to carry the burden.

The Ministry of Finance and Budget and National Planning must also step in, because this is not just a social issue. Evidence shows that when governments invest in girls’ education and delay marriage, they unlock economic gains, reduce maternal deaths, and strengthen long-term development outcomes.

At the community level, traditional and religious leaders cannot sit on the fence. The evidence shows that they are central to shaping decisions around marriage and education. Their influence must now be used deliberately to shift norms, not reinforce them.

Therefore, programmes that engage fathers, imams, and community chiefs must be scaled, because the data is clear that girls do not make these decisions alone.

As for everyday citizens, they also have a role to play. Parents must demand schools that teach, not just enroll., while communities must question why girls are still being pulled out of school when evidence shows the benefits of keeping them in.

What this moment demands is urgency through a coordinated shift from evidence to action, because every year spent debating what we already know is another year in which millions of girls are married too early, leave school too soon, and lose choices they should never have been denied.