WASHINGTON - s4story -- In response to mounting threats to girls' education around the world, Malala Fund today announced its ambition to award $50 million in grants through its 2025–2030 strategic plan. The new five-year strategy accelerates the organisation's investment in local leadership, policy reform and crisis response — a bold push to safeguard education rights amid rising conflict, climate shocks, backsliding of human rights and declining global aid.

"In times of crisis, girls' education is often the first to be deprioritised," said Lena Alfi, CEO of Malala Fund. "But we know it is one of the most powerful investments we can make — for peace, health, economic recovery and a more just future. This strategy is our commitment to act with urgency, clarity and conviction."

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Key components of the 2025–2030 strategy include:

• Multi-year grants: Up to $45 million in funding to civil society organisations in at least five countries, with 20% specifically directed to groups led by girls and young women.
• Rapid crisis response: Up to $5 million in flexible funding for frontline organisations responding to education disruptions caused by conflict, displacement or natural disasters.
• Strategic country focus: Deepened engagement to drive systemic change in Nigeria and Pakistan — which together account for nearly 15% of the world's out-of-school girls — and continued support in Brazil, Ethiopia and Tanzania.
• Global advocacy priorities: Advancing international recognition of gender apartheid as a crime against humanity, with a focus on Afghanistan, and pushing for reforms to global financial systems that limit public investment in education.
  
  

This announcement comes at a critical juncture. With just five years remaining to achieve the 2030 Sustainable Development Goal of universal secondary education, global progress is not only stagnating — in some places, it is reversing. Widening instability and recent cuts to international aid have placed millions of girls at increased risk of being pushed out of school.

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Malala Fund's new strategy is tailored for this moment. It responds directly to the compounding crises that threaten the education of adolescent girls — and reaffirms the organisation's mission to ensure all girls can access and complete 12 years of education.

Founded by Nobel Laureate Malala Yousafzai and her father Ziauddin, Malala Fund has spent the past decade championing education rights by investing in local leaders, advocating for systemic change and unlocking the resources needed to keep girls in school — and help them thrive.

Visit https://malala.org/news-and-voices/the-leaders-who-give-me-hope-and-how-our-new-strategy-backs-them.

For media inquiries or interview requests, please contact:
Julianna Longo
Senior Director of Strategic Communications, Malala Fund
press@malalafund.org