Courtesy of Saumya Khandelwal
Malala Fund has made measurable progress in our first five years — but with millions of girls still out of school, we know we must do more.
Malala Fund is proud to publish our five-year strategic plan to drive forward our fight for girls’ education. Inspired by our co-founders and the girls we serve, the plan is ambitious, creative and aimed at our vision — a world where every girl can choose her future.
“This strategic plan will tell you that Malala Fund was founded in 2013. In truth, it began much earlier. When the Taliban took over Swat Valley and banned girls’ education, my classmates and I made plans to start an organisation to fight for girls in our community,” said Malala Yousafzai in the plan’s foreword. “A lot has changed in my life since then, but my mission — to ensure no girl is denied her right to education — remains the same. And my plan to start an organisation for girls is no longer a daydream.”
In the last five years, Malala Fund has invested more than $17 million in programmatic grants and work in countries where girls face the greatest challenges to education — including Afghanistan, Brazil, India, Lebanon, Nigeria, Pakistan and Turkey. Our team has helped bring girls’ education to the forefront of the global agenda and secured substantial financial commitments to ensure more girls can go to school.
But current rates of progress indicate that we’re still 100 years away from education for all girls. We aim to accelerate that timeline by focusing our efforts on increasing national budgets for education, improving education quality and challenging social norms that hold girls back.
Operationalising this plan involves three main areas of work:
Developing a global network of education advocates: Malala Fund believes that local educators and advocates provide the greatest insight, innovation and energy needed to address barriers that keep girls out of school in their communities. We will significantly increase our investment in our network of education advocates by 2025 and expand in up to 10 new countries, at a rate of one to two countries per year.
Delivering tangible change in targeted geographies : Together, India, Nigeria and Pakistan are home to more than 40% of the world’s out-of-school girls. Malala Fund will build on our work in these countries by developing partnerships with state or provincial governments, local education advocates, wider civil society, business leaders and others to accelerate progress for girls’ education and demonstrate effective approaches to getting all girls in school and learning.
Amplifying girls’ voices and their advocacy efforts: Malala Fund believes that listening to the experiences of girls, amplifying their voices, giving them the tools to advocate for their own education, supporting their strategies for change and providing the resources they need to build their own movements is fundamental to achieving long-term goals in girls’ education. To help develop the next generation of advocates, Malala Fund will launch a new programme of grantmaking, training and movement-building focused on girls and young women.
In addition to these initiatives, Malala Fund commits to holding ourselves accountable by continuing to reevaluate our plan, measure our impact and share our findings.
Malala Fund has made measurable progress in our first five years — but with millions of girls still out of school, we know we must do more. By 2025, we want to see a substantial increase in well-educated girls in the countries where we work, improved and better-financed education systems and communities that offer girls equal opportunities to learn and actively support their ambitions.
For more information about Malala Fund's goals and the details of our approach, the full strategic plan is now available for download here.
