The Malala Fund has announced a fresh investment of $1.7 million for nine Nigerian organisations as part of efforts to tackle the country’s high population of out-of-school girls.
The allocation forms part of a $4.8 million global funding package supporting 21 organisations across Brazil, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Tanzania.
According to a statement issued by the organisation, the new grants align with its 2025–2030 strategy, targeting regions with the highest numbers of girls excluded from formal education. The fund emphasised that 66 per cent of the resources will support young women-led groups—over three times its initial benchmark.
The nine Nigerian beneficiaries include:
Aid for Rural Education Access Initiative
Anti-Sexual Violence Lead Support Initiative
Black Girls’ Dream Initiative
BudgiT Foundation for the Promotion of Information in Nigeria
Centre for Advocacy, Transparency and Accountability Initiative
Isa Wali Empowerment Initiative
Participatory Communication for Gender Development Initiative
Teenage Education and Empowerment Network
Women, Children, Youth Health and Education Initiative
The Malala Fund noted that Nigeria and Pakistan together account for 15 per cent of the world’s out-of-school girls, making them priority countries for sustained interventions.
Under the new grants, the organisations will focus on boosting gender-responsive budgeting, enhancing transparency and citizen oversight, supporting school re-entry for pregnant and married girls, and deploying digital tools that track education spending and assess infrastructure gaps.
Chief Executive Officer Lena Alfi said the fund is investing in groups with deep community-level understanding of the barriers facing girls.
“With girls’ rights under pressure and resourcing slipping worldwide, the smartest investments we can make is in the young women and seasoned activists who know exactly how to defend them,” she said.
She added that the fund’s approach prioritises flexible, multi-year grants that partners can direct toward critical needs such as policy advocacy, budget transparency, safe-school initiatives and programmes that remove hidden schooling costs.
Co-founder Malala Yousafzai said the Nigeria-focused funding aims to ensure that married girls and young mothers have pathways to return to school and complete their secondary education.
“I am incredibly proud that most of the funding under our new strategy is going to organisations led by young women,” she said.
Yousafzai noted that the Malala Fund’s Education Champion Network continues to support civil society partners pushing for policy reforms and advancing girls’ education, particularly in regions affected by child marriage, conflict, discrimination and shrinking education budgets.
The organisation emphasised that the newly selected partners will play a pivotal role in addressing the needs of the 31 million out-of-school girls across the five target countries.
