Girls' Advocacy Alliance Kenya SUMMARY 
The Girls Advocacy Alliance Kenya is part of a broader initiative by Plan International Netherlands, Defence for Children – ECPAT Netherlands and Terre des Hommes Netherlands to promote equal rights and opportunities for girls and young women, reduce poverty and stimulate inclusive economic growth. Particular emphasis is being placed on improving policies and practices for the elimination of violence against girls and women and ending their economic exclusion.

In Kenya, the Girls Advocacy Alliance is implemented by Plan Kenya and Terre des Hommes. Since January 2016,  lobby and advocacy activities are being implemented in two districts – Kisumu County and Nairobi – and run until 2020. The Alliance works together with adolescent girls and young women in targeting key decision makers, leaders and communities to eliminate child trafficking, commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) and child marriage, and contributes to decent work. Child trafficking is mainly for purposes of child labour (mainly domestic, farm labour, and increasingly in mine and oil fields - though not in direct extraction of the minerals and oil, especially with the big mining and oil drilling companies) and sexual exploitation. According to US State Department Trafficking In Person’s Report (2015), Kenya is a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children trafficked for the purposes of forced labour and sexual exploitation. Trafficking in Kenya can be divided into two domains, internal/domestic and international trafficking. According to National Crime Research Centre 2015 Human Trafficking report, most of the victims in domestic trafficking are sourced from rural areas and majority of those trafficked out of the country are sourced from urban areas (especially, low income areas and informal settlements), with girls forming the majority. Every year, about 14 million adolescent and teen girls are married, almost always forced into the arrangement by their parents. In developing countries, one in three girls is married by age 18; and one in nine by age 15. According to the latest UNFPA reports, one out of four girls are married before their 18th birthday in Kenya. In 2009, about 26% of the women aged 20-24 were married/in union before age of 18 years. Data shows very slow decline since 2003 (25%). Victims of these three forms of GBV selected by the Alliance in Kenya are mostly adolescent girls and young women from poor backgrounds in rural areas and urban informal settlements. These girls also have limited access to education opportunities and majority have had only primary level education (if at all, since some drop out of school before getting to the final grade of primary education). There is evidence that the gender gap in access to education is not closing. The Theory of Change for the Girls Advocacy Programme in Kenya follows four interrelated paths. 

Three of these lead to legislation, understanding, adherence and monitoring of public and private policies and practices regarding violence against girls and young women and their economic empowerment. Each focuses on a specific type of actor: (1) government officials at national, state, province, district and community level, and representatives of customary systems; (2) private sector actors; and (3) girls’ and women’s organisations and other CSOs and CSO networks with enhanced organisational and advocacy capacity. 

The fourth path leads to the abandonment of social norms and practices that discriminate against gender and to the change of deeply rooted and widely upheld beliefs that negatively affect policy makers, local government officials, local courts and/or service providers’ willingness to adopt and implement gender equality policies. The main actors are community, traditional and religious leaders and other key opinion leaders. 

Each of the paths will entail three levels of change: agenda setting, policy setting and, ultimately, changes in practices. The Girls Advocacy Programme builds on the outcomes realised, lessons learned and relationships built up by the three alliance organisations during various programmes. 

The Girl Power Programme focused on the political and economic empowerment of girls and young women, making them better protected against sexual and other forms of gender-based violence and improving their access to secondary education. The Girls Advocacy Programme will build on the thematic and strategic expertise and experience that was gained during the Girl Power Programme, including partnering, networking and lobbying and advocacy. The end beneficiaries of the Girls Advocacy Programme of Plan in Kenya will be girls and young women (up to the age of 24) in Kisumu county and Nairobi. The programme focuses on four strategic goals.
1.	Public support for the elimination of gender-based violence and the economic exclusion of girls and young women, will be increased.
2.	The influence of civil society organisations and networks (particularly girls’ and young women’s organisations) on governmental and corporate/private-sector actors to eliminate gender-based violence and the economic exclusion of girls and young women, will be increased. 
3.	The policies and practices of corporate/private-sector actors that support the elimination of gender-based violence and economic exclusion, will be improved.
4.	Legislation and public policies, as well as improved practices of governmental actors, that support the prevention of gender-based violence and economic exclusion, will be effectively implemented.

The programme embraces two main strategies. 
The first of these involves strengthening CSOs and networks (particularly girls’ and young women’s organisations). This will make them better able to influence government and private-sector actors to eliminate gender-based violence and the economic exclusion of girls and young women.
 
The second of these strategies entails policy influencing for increased public support, improved policies and practices of private-sector actors, as well as for the effective implementation of legislation and public policies and the improvement of practices of governmental actors that support the prevention and elimination of gender-based violence and economic exclusion. Specific strategies for policy influencing are lobby, advocacy (including media campaigns and ICT), research and linking & networking. The changes that will be instigated by the Girls Advocacy Programme in Kenya will be sustainable. The main strategies of the programme, which are capacity development and policy influencing, will both underscore sustainability. Institutional sustainability will be ensured by the programme’s focus on capacity strengthening of all local partner organisations. This will be based on carrying out assessments of individual organisational capacity and then annual assessments of the progress on custom developed capacity-strengthening plans. The financial sustainability of the programme’s outcomes and, more notably, the processes of change it will initiate, will depend on the financial and organisational sustainability of local partner organisations after the life of the programme. These aspects will receive plenty of attention during the capacity-strengthening trajectories that will be developed and rolled out with all local partner organisations. Inclusivity is an important principle of the programme and this will also be embedded in the capacity-development activities.