Keeping Girls in School Act
Bill: S.2276 | Sponsor: Sen. Shaheen, Jeanne (D-NH)
Policy area: International Affairs

Summary:
Keeping Girls in School Act
This bill authorizes the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to enter into agreements to address social, cultural, health, and other barriers that adolescent girls face in accessing quality secondary education.
The USAID shall seek to ensure that such activities meet various requirements related to monitoring and evaluating outcomes, collecting data, and using specified indicators and methodologies for international basic education.
The Department of State shall periodically update and report to Congress a publicly available U.S. global strategy to empower adolescent girls, and the USAID shall periodically report to Congress on the activities initiated under this bill and efforts to monitor and evaluate such activities.

To support empowerment, economic security, and educational 
  opportunities for adolescent girls around the world, and for other 
                               purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; TABLE OF CONTENTS.

    (a) Short Title.--This Act may be cited as the ``Keeping Girls in 
School Act''.
    (b) Table of Contents.--The table of contents for this Act is as 
follows:

Sec. 1. Short title; table of contents.
Sec. 2. Appropriate congressional committees defined.
Sec. 3. Findings.
Sec. 4. Sense of Congress.
Sec. 5. Secondary education for adolescent girls.
Sec. 6. Global strategy requirement.
Sec. 7. Transparency and reporting to Congress.

SEC. 2. APPROPRIATE CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES DEFINED.

    In this Act, the term ``appropriate congressional committees'' 
means--
            (1) the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Committee on 
        Appropriations of the House of Representatives; and
            (2) the Committee on Foreign Relations and the Committee on 
        Appropriations of the Senate.

SEC. 3. FINDINGS.

    Congress finds the following:
            (1) Adolescence is a critical period in a girl's life, when 
        significant physical, emotional, and social changes shape her 
        future.
            (2) Adolescent girls are particularly vulnerable to HIV/
        AIDS, child, early and forced marriage, and other forms of 
        violence which are detrimental to their futures, as evidenced 
        by the following statistics:
                    (A) Each year, 380,000 adolescent girls and young 
                women become newly infected with HIV, more than 1,000 
                every day, and comprise the fastest-growing demographic 
                for new infections in sub-Saharan Africa.
                    (B) Each year, 12,000,000 adolescent girls around 
                the world are married before their 18th birthday, and 
                more than 650,000,000 women alive today were married as 
                children.
                    (C) Child marriages often interrupt schooling, 
                limit opportunities, and impact the physical, 
                psychological and social well-being of such girls. 
                Significant levels of lockdown-related disruption and 
                economic crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic could lead 
                to at least 4,000,000 more girls married before the age 
                of 18 in the next two years.
                    (D) One-quarter to one-half of girls in developing 
                countries become mothers before the age of 18, and 
                girls under 15 are five times more likely to die during 
                childbirth than women in their 20s. As many as 
                1,000,000 girls across sub-Saharan Africa may be 
                blocked from returning to school due to pregnancy 
                during COVID-19 school closures.
            (3) Before the pandemic, approximately 130,000,000 girls 
        around the world were not in school, and millions more failing 
        to acquire basic reading, writing, and numeracy skills. With 
        COVID-19 school closures affecting nearly 91 percent of the 
        world's student population, over 743,000,000 girls have had 
        their education disrupted and will face tremendous barriers to 
        returning to school when it is safe.
            (4) Girls between the ages of 10 and 19 are three times 
        more likely than boys to be kept out of school, particularly in 
        countries affected by conflict.
            (5) Due to discriminatory gender norms and expectations, 
        disparities in access to safe and quality education manifest 
        early in a girl's life and continue to become more pronounced 
        throughout adolescence.
            (6) Girls living with disabilities are less likely to start 
        school and transition to secondary school than boys living with 
        disabilities and other children, and just 1 percent of women 
        with disabilities are literate globally.
            (7) While two-thirds of all countries have achieved gender 
        parity in primary education, only 40 percent have achieved 
        gender parity in secondary education.
            (8) Adolescent girls who remain in school are more likely 
        to live longer, marry later, and have healthier children.
            (9) Investing in holistic programming that ensures all 
        girls complete secondary education could lift gross domestic 
        product (GDP) in developing economies by an average of 10 
        percent and every $1 spent on such programming would generate a 
        $2.80 return--equivalent to billions of dollars in extra GDP.
            (10) Children born to women who completed secondary 
        schooling or higher have 17.5 percent reduced odds of being off 
        track for healthy development.
            (11) Since July 2015, more than 100 public-private 
        partnerships have been formed between the United States 
        Government and external partners to support innovative and 
        community-led solutions in targeted countries, including Malawi 
        and Tanzania, to ensure adolescent girls receive a quality 
        education.
            (12) The United States Global Strategy to Empower 
        Adolescent Girls, published in March 2016, has brought together 
        the Department of State, the United States Agency for 
        International Development, the Peace Corps, and the Millennium 
        Challenge Corporation, as well as other agencies and programs 
        such as the President's Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief 
        (PEPFAR), to address the range of challenges preventing 
        adolescent girls from attaining an inclusive and equitable 
        quality education leading to relevant learning outcomes.
            (13) Adopted in 2015, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable 
        Development renews the commitment to creating a world where all 
        girls are healthy and protected, learning and have a fair 
        chance to succeed. This agenda also states that empowering 
        girls will require scaling up investments in holistic 
        programming models to end gender-based violence, child 
        marriage, and female genital mutilation (FGM) and adolescent 
        girls' education and skills are essential to address gender 
        divides, particularly in secondary school.
            (14) PEPFAR, through its DREAMS (Determined, Resilient, 
        Empowered, AIDS-free, Mentored, and Safe) Initiative, has 
        worked to address a number of the specific barriers to 
        education that adolescent girls face.

SEC. 4. SENSE OF CONGRESS.

    It is the sense of Congress that--
            (1) every child, regardless of place of birth, deserves an 
        equal opportunity to access quality education;
            (2) the United States has been a global leader in efforts 
        to expand and improve access to quality basic education for 
        all, particularly marginalized and vulnerable populations, 
        including women and girls;
            (3) gains with respect to girls' secondary education and 
        empowerment have been proven to correlate strongly with 
        progress in gender equality and women's rights, a stated 
        priority of United States foreign policy and national security;
            (4) achieving gender parity in both access to and quality 
        of educational opportunity contributes significantly to 
        economic growth and development, thereby lowering the risk for 
        violence and instability; and
            (5) education is a lifesaving humanitarian intervention 
        that protects the lives, futures, and well-being of girls.

SEC. 5. SECONDARY EDUCATION FOR ADOLESCENT GIRLS.

    (a) Authority.--The Administrator of the United States Agency for 
International Development shall enter into agreements, including 
agreements across sectors, to address the barriers described in 
subsection (b) that adolescent girls face in accessing a quality 
secondary education in countries where adolescent girls are 
significantly more likely to drop out of school than boys. Such 
activities shall--
            (1) seek to support the needs of adolescent girls 
        holistically to achieve positive life and learning outcomes;
            (2) use existing United States Government strategies and 
        frameworks relevant to international basic education and gender 
        equality to--
                    (A) integrate new technologies, digital learning 
                enhancements and multi-sectoral approaches to girl's 
                education such as distance learning and accelerated 
                education for out-of-school youth;
                    (B) apply evidence-based approaches;
                    (C) promote inclusive, equitable and sustainable 
                educational achievement; and
                    (D) support a responsible transition to education 
                systems that are sustainably financed by domestic 
                governments; and
            (3) ensure that schools provide safe and quality 
        educational opportunities and create empowering environments, 
        so that girls can enroll in and regularly attend school, 
        successfully transition from primary to secondary school, and 
        eventually graduate having achieved learning outcomes and 
        positioned to make healthy transitions into adulthood.
    (b) Specific Barriers.--The barriers described in this subsection 
are--
            (1) harmful social and cultural norms;
            (2) lack of safety at school or traveling to school and 
        online, including harassment and other forms of physical, 
        sexual, or psychological violence;
            (3) child, early, and forced marriage;
            (4) female genital mutilation;
            (5) distance from a secondary school;
            (6) cost of secondary schooling, including fees, clothing, 
        and supplies;
            (7) inadequate sanitation facilities and products available 
        at secondary schools;
            (8) prioritization of boys' secondary education;
            (9) poor nutrition;
            (10) early pregnancy and motherhood;
            (11) HIV infection;
            (12) disability;
            (13) discrimination based on religious or ethnic identity;
            (14) heavy workload due to household tasks or care burdens; 
        and
            (15) inequitable access to digital resources.
    (c) Coordination and Oversight.--
            (1) In general.--The United States Agency for International 
        Development Senior Coordinator for International Basic 
        Education Assistance, in coordination with the United States 
        Agency for International Development Senior Coordinator for 
        Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment and the Ambassador-at-
        Large for Global Women's Issues at the Department of State, 
        shall be responsible for the oversight and coordination of all 
        activities of the United States Government carried out under 
        this section.
            (2) Development of agreements.--In the development of 
        agreements described in subsection (a), the Senior Coordinator 
        for Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment and the Senior 
        Coordinator for International Basic Education Assistance at the 
        United States Agency for International Development shall 
        consult with representatives across Federal departments and 
        agencies implementing the global strategy described in section 
        6.
            (3) Coordination with other strategies.--Activities carried 
        out under this section shall also be carried out in 
        coordination with--
                    (A) the United States Global Strategy to Empower 
                Adolescent Girls described in section 6; and
                    (B) the United States Government Strategy on 
                International Basic Education, including its objective 
                to expand access to quality basic education for all, 
                particularly marginalized and vulnerable populations.
    (d) Acceptance of Solicitations for Awards.--The Administrator of 
the United States Agency for International Development shall seek to 
accept solicitations for awards, pursuant to the authority in 
subsection (a), to conduct activities under this section beginning not 
later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act.
    (e) Monitoring and Evaluation.--The Administrator of the United 
States Agency for International Development shall seek to ensure that 
activities carried out under this section--
            (1) employ rigorous monitoring and evaluation methodologies 
        to ensure that such activities demonstrably close the gap in 
        gender parity for secondary education and improve the quality 
        of education offered to adolescent girls;
            (2) disaggregate all data collected and reported by age, 
        gender, marital and motherhood status, disability, and 
        urbanity, to the extent practicable and appropriate; and
            (3) use, to the extent possible, indicators and 
        methodologies identified by the Interagency Working Group for 
        the Strategy on International Basic Education.

SEC. 6. GLOBAL STRATEGY REQUIREMENT.

    (a) In General.--Not later than 180 days after the date of the 
enactment of this Act, and every 5 years thereafter for not less than 
10 years, the Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women's Issues at the 
Department of State, in consultation with the Senior Coordinator for 
Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment and the Senior Coordinator for 
International Basic Education Assistance at the United States Agency 
for International Development, shall--
            (1) review and update a United States global strategy to 
        empower adolescent girls, which includes a focus on girl's 
        access to quality, inclusive secondary education, and 
        subsequent agency implementation plans;
            (2) provide a meaningful opportunity for review and civil 
        society consultation on the strategy and agency implementation 
        plans; and
            (3) submit the updated strategy to the appropriate 
        congressional committees.
    (b) Consultation Required.--In reviewing and updating the strategy 
and implementation plans under subsection (a), the Ambassador-at-Large 
for Global Women's Issues, the Senior Coordinator for Gender Equality 
and Women's Empowerment, and the Senior Coordinator for International 
Basic Education Assistance shall consult with--
            (1) the heads of relevant Federal departments and agencies 
        (or their designees);
            (2) the appropriate congressional committees; and
            (3) representatives of United States civil society and 
        multilateral organizations with demonstrated experience and 
        expertise in empowering adolescent girls and promoting gender 
        equality, including local civil society organizations, faith-
        based organizations, and program participants where possible.

SEC. 7. TRANSPARENCY AND REPORTING TO CONGRESS.

    (a) In General.--Not later than 1 year after the date of the 
enactment of this Act, and biennially thereafter for 10 years until 
each activity initiated pursuant to the authorities under this Act has 
concluded, the Administrator of the United States Agency for 
International Development, in coordination with the Secretary of State, 
shall submit to the appropriate congressional committees a report 
describing--
            (1) the activities initiated under the authorities provided 
        in this Act; and
            (2) the manner and extent to which such activities are 
        monitored and evaluated, in accordance with section 5(e).
    (b) Availability.--The report required by subsection (a) shall be 
made available on a text-based, searchable, and publicly available 
website of the United States Agency for International Development.
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