She Leads Ghana SUMMARY
In Ghana, girls and young women (GYW), particularly GYW from socially excluded and exploited groups, are denied the opportunity to voice their interests and to participate in decision-making processes. 
She Leads is a joint programme of Plan International Netherlands, Defence for Children - ECPAT the Netherlands (DCI-ECPAT), African Women’s Development and Communication Network (FEMNET), and Terre des Hommes the Netherlands. In Ghana, Plan International Ghana, DCI Ghana and FEMNET partners GenCed and WAN will implement the programme. They will bring together child and women’s rights organisations, and GYW-led groups with the aim to increase sustained influence of GYW on decision-making and the transformation of gender norms. Civil society partners are SONGTABA, CARD, RRIG and EWEF. The programme will cover the Ashanti, Central, Greater Accra, Northern, Upper West and Upper East regions. Girls and young women’s (GYW’s) rights to engage in public decision-making are enshrined in international agreements and national laws. In reality, however, GYW voices are excluded from the socio-political domain,  particularly those of GYW who experience intersecting forms of discrimination. 
GYW’s meaningful participation is obstructed by three interrelated factors. Firstly, discriminatory gender- and age-related social norms limit GYW’s rights to move freely, voice opinions and engage in public life. Secondly, GYW groups in civil society are under resourced and lack strong ties with more established CSOs. The latter are not always responsive to the specific needs and perspectives of GYW-led groups. Furthermore, the global phenomenon of shrinking civic space is affecting GYW-led organizations, making it even harder for them to express their opinions, assemble and associate. Groups that challenge the ruling gender ideology are increasingly being intimidated, threatened and exposed to violence. In conflict and humanitarian contexts, GYW actors risk additional security threats as easy targets of militarized and extremist forces. 
Thirdly, political institutions at local and national level are dominated by elites consisting of mainly male, elder leaders, with no interest in institutional reforms that would make decision-making processes more inclusive, transparent and accountable. Existing consultation mechanisms (such as youth parliaments and advisory bodies) are usually poorly resourced, dependent on donor support and functioning irregularly. She Leads envisions change in 3 domains of society: the social-cultural, civil society and institutional domain. In the social-cultural domain, partners engage traditional and religious leaders, forging coalitions of progressive actors who, due to their status and authority, will galvanize their constituencies to adopt more positive gender and age norms. Awareness raising and diffusion of new ideas through media and peer networks (including boys and young men) will challenge existing norms and expectations. Young female activists play an important role in this process, by inspiring other girls and breaking down negative stereotypes. 
In the civil society domain, the creation (consolidation) of safe spaces in which  GYW can meet, exchange, build their confidence, political consciousness and skills, is a major step towards increased self-organization. Another key condition is the increased capacity of (adult-led) CSOs to effectively support GYW collective action. Stronger collaboration between GYW groups, child and women’s rights networks will lead to a more enabling environment for GYW-led groups. A well connected and better resourced social movement for girls’ rights is able to promote a strong feminist counternarrative to the dominant patriarchal and ageist ideology. 
In the institutional domain, policy makers will develop greater  awareness and knowledge about GYW inclusion in decision-making. Stronger connections between progressive policy makers and political leaders working at different levels will result in a coalition of reform-minded champions. In addition, pressure exercised by regional and international  bodies will force national governments to take action and safeguard GYW’s rights to association and freedom of expression. Currently we are witnessing a rise in girls and young women’s activism and protest. The She Leads programme will partner with existing GYW-led groups and feminist organizations. Importantly, special efforts are made to support existing informal groups of girls and young women, for example girls clubs, associations, student groups and unregistered organizations, which have started to organize and mobilize but are often excluded from many funding mechanisms.

In Ghana, the programme builds directly on the experiences of the previous Girls Advocacy Alliance (2016-2020). 

FEMNET and DCI-ECPAT are network organisations, and will be working in all countries through selected members of their respective networks. Plan International will work through their country offices and with local
contracted organisations to implement projects under the overall She Leads programme. 

In Ghana, the consortium will continue its collaboration with the Dutch Embassy. Furthermore, She Leads will seek alignment and collaboration with other consortiums funded under the Strengthening Civil Society framework of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation. In particular, She Leads will seek alignment with the four other consortia funded under the Women’s Rights and Gender Equality (WRGE) theme of the Power of Voices funding mechanism and the consortia operating under the Power of Women funding mechanism. Within the population of girls and young women (between 14 till 24 years), the programme aims to strengthen the influence and participation of GYW who suffer most from (intersectional) discrimination and exclusion. These include:
•	GYW living in poor, remote rural areas and urban slums
•	GYW experiencing gender based violence (particularly girls who have married early)
•	GYW with disabilities
•	GYW who are out of school
•	Refugee and internally displaced GYW
•	GYW from sexual minority groups To facilitate the change process towards the She Leads’ strategic objective, consortium members and partners have opted to implement the following mix of strategies and actions: 

1.	Funding and resourcing of girl-led/young feminist organising, collective action and activism: building upon experiences of FEMNET and Plan International, we will co-design, test and adapt flexible, grant-making mechanisms with and for girl-led groups fitting their needs and characteristics. Flexible, core funding will be combined with capacity support actions addressing GYW-led group’s (advocacy) priorities and with protective measures to generate safe spaces for girls’ political empowerment. Contractual partnerships with GYW-led organisations will be established, a tailor-made and youth-led/-friendly approach to capacity strengthening is used to avoid NGO-isation. Special attention is paid to support GYW’s engagement in governance and leadership positions. 
2.	For data-driven and evidence-based advocacy & research at global level, She Leads will partner with Equal Measures 2030 and GYW to compile and share relevant data about gender equality and progress toward the SDGs for GYW in each She Leads country, leveraging and adapting its tools such as the SDG Gender Index and the Gender Advocates Data hub. These data tools will also directly feed into our monitoring and evaluation through our results framework. It will highlight data on GYW leadership and participation, and expose gaps that hinder understanding, political will and action on these issues. Additionally, countries in collaboration with EM2030 will invest in strengthening capacities of GYW & (feminist) CSOs to generate data and evidence, how to understand and use data visualization and how to communicate or campaign with data. 
3.	She Leads will catalyse the growth and strength of social movements and collective action to tackle gender inequality, exclusion and injustice towards GYW in all their diversity. The meaningful inclusion of GYW in membership and leadership of (inter)national networks and movements will be key in all countries to accelerate and push for GYW agency, support positive and progressive social and gender norms and system change. Change cannot happen if these movements are not inclusive of GYW that are from marginalized groups. We will create linkages with GYW and existing networks She Leads organisations are members of; we tap, learn and act on the experience of FEMNET member associations in movement building and -leading. Moverover, besides creating new groups of girl activists and advocates, She Leads engages with existing autonomous GYW-led groups, organisations and networks, and treats them as partners rather than beneficiaries. Next to linking GYW-led groups to each other and to broader civil society networks, She Leads also aims to connect women’s rights organisations and child rights organisations to each other as well as to GYW-led groups. This contributes to a broad social  movement of diverse CSOs and CBOs aiming to empower and support the leadership and agency of GYW.
4.	In different countries and on a global level, She Leads adopts a media influencing and advocacy strategy. Spreading feminist GYW-led stories and demands for social and gender norms change via traditional (TV, Radio) and new media (socials) we target the whole community. (Online) campaigns will be designed to share positive and feminist narratives on GYW from marginalized/minority groups. Apart from influencing via media, several country networks will also invest in influencing and strengthening the capacities of these media to adopt a positive, gender-transformative, and inclusive language and attitude. She Leads acknowledges the powerful position these stakeholders play to create systemic change for gender equality.
5.	Advocate for girls’ access to regional and international institutions and human rights mechanisms. She Leads will advocate and facilitate space for GYW to engage and contribute to international accountability processes and human rights mechanisms. She Leads partners will share expertise and use its partners’ networks to bring local/national issues to regional/international fora.
6.	Capacity-strengthening support and joint learning between CSOs, girl-led groups, young feminist organisations: In She Leads, each organisation adds value. Capacity strengthening takes place from organisation-to-organisation, country-to-country, region-to-region, local to global and global to local; capacity strengthening will be needs-based and takes various shapes rather than a top-down approach. The COVID-19 situation accelerates and improves our way of working online. It will support innovative ways of online learning, online movement building and digital platforms for exchange and sharing e.g. podcasts, Medium blogposts, WhatsApp & Telegram, Facebook communities. She Leads contributes to a lasting transformative effect on engagement of GYW in decision-making. The following strategies will be implemented to ensure that achieved results are sustainable: 

1.	Strengthening and resourcing GYW-led organizations: investing in the resource base of GYW-led organizations will help them access other funding in the future. 
2.	Support social movements: social movements can accelerate lasting change in societies’ structures and norms. She Leads will bring together child-rights and feminist organisations and GYW-led groups to push collectively for transformative change in gender norms, and for institutional reform. 
3.	Engaging boys & men, parents, and traditional and religious leaders: these actors are crucial allies to ensure structural change and permanent effects when it comes to norms change. Because of their status and their role in socialisation processes, these actors promote structural change in societies. 
4.	Engaging media: She Leads will use media as a tool to amplify GYWs voices, and will target media as a powerful agent of change. Opening space for GYW’s voices and leadership in the media will ultimately influence broader communities, and has lasting effects beyond the programme.
5.	Organizational capacity strengthening of CSO’s: investments in advocacy capacity, building relationships with decision-makers, strengthening fundraising skills will have a lasting effect on their influencing work beyond She Leads. 
6.	Linking local, national, regional and global: She Leads is implemented at different levels that are strategically interconnected. Interventions and results in one domain trigger change in other domains, and changes at local, national, regional and international levels are connected and influence each other.