Malala Fund has unveiled a new $4.8 million funding package to support 21 organisations working to advance girls’ education across Pakistan, Nigeria, Brazil, Ethiopia and Tanzania. The announcement, made on 19 November 2025, aligns with the organisation’s 2025–2030 strategy and directs 66% of the funding, approximately $3.17 million, to young women-led groups, a figure more than three times its original target.
The grants form the latest expansion of the Malala Fund’s Education Champion Network (ECN), which backs civil society organisations addressing systemic challenges that prevent girls from attending school. The new cohort will focus on threats ranging from child marriage and conflict to racial and gender discrimination and shrinking education budgets in regions where 31 million girls remain out of school.
“I am incredibly proud that most of the funding we are awarding under our new strategy is going to organizations led by young women,” said Malala Yousafzai, Co-Founder and Executive Chair of Malala Fund. “From reducing the cost of books and transport for girls in rural Pakistan to ensuring married girls and young mothers in Nigeria can complete secondary school, our partners are leading the fight for girls to learn, even under the toughest circumstances.”
Lena Alfi, CEO of Malala Fund, said: “Our partners are closest to the challenges holding girls back and are delivering bold, practical, systemic solutions so girls can get the education they deserve. With girls’ rights under pressure and resourcing slipping worldwide, the smartest investment we can make is in the young women and seasoned activists who know exactly how to defend them.”
The organisation emphasised its continued focus on flexible, multi-year grants, allowing partners to allocate resources where they are most urgently needed — from advocacy and budget transparency to safe-school initiatives, re-entry pathways for young mothers and removal of hidden school costs.
The newly funded organisations will carry out initiatives tailored to the needs of each country. In Nigeria, programmes will include strengthening gender-responsive budgeting, developing digital tools to track education spending and supporting school re-entry for married and pregnant girls. In Pakistan, partners will work to eliminate hidden school costs, restore flood-damaged facilities and increase the number of female teachers. Meanwhile, organisations in Brazil will address menstrual poverty, advance gender- and race-responsive education policies and support girls’ leadership in advocacy.
In Ethiopia, partners will push for national adoption of the Safe Schools Declaration and expand violence-prevention measures, psychosocial support and safe spaces in conflict-affected communities. In Tanzania, grantees will focus on re-entry policies for young mothers, strengthening gender-based violence reporting, and advocating legal reforms to set the minimum marriage age at 18 without exceptions.
The Malala Fund noted that Nigeria and Pakistan alone account for 15% of all out-of-school girls globally, highlighting the scale of the challenge. It said targeted, locally led action remains essential to tackling persistent barriers to girls’ education.
