Innovative Financing for the Elimination of Harmful Practices: Child Marriage and Female Genital Mutilation

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In 2021, UNICEF commissioned a scoping exercise to understand promising innovative financing models that support gender equality and the empowerment of girls, which included diving into the existing marketplace and the use of various mechanisms by international and bilateral development partners and ultimately their potential to be utilized by UNICEF and its partners.

This paper explores three concurrent approaches that were identified as a result of the exercise: impact bonds, revolving funds, and endowment funds - which are short-to-medium-term mechanisms that could be utilized as an innovative financing mechanism to end harmful practices.