Malala Fund Responds To Rollbacks On Girls' Rights With New $50 Million Strategy

Forbes

30-04-2025

Malala Yousafzai visits Dabab, Kenya on her birthday in 2016.
Since 2013, the Malala Fund has distributed $65 million through more than 400 grants across 27 countries. Now, as gender equality and girls' rights backslide around the world, the fund announced last week that it is accelerating its impact and committing to distribute another $50 million over the next five years.
Founded by Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai and her father, Ziauddin Yousafzai, the Malala Fund's mission is to ensure all girls can access and complete 12 years of education. At present, more than 122 million girls around the world are out of school—a number that Malala Fund CEO Lena Alfi fears will only grow in the wake of multiple crises still unfolding today.
"In Afghanistan, girls are banned outright from schools past grade six," says Alfi. 'In Sub-Saharan Africa, numbers are climbing as governments walk away from their promises. The [research] hasn't caught up, but when there are conflicts in places like Gaza, where schools aren't operational, you can assume girls aren't in school.'
The magnitude of the problem sparked a new strategic plan for the fund and what Alfi describes as a bold restructuring, one that's prioritizing grantmaking more than ever before.
'We're committing anywhere from 45 to 50% of our budget to grantmaking to moving money directly into the hands of education leaders in the countries where we work,' says Alfi. 'That's a pretty significant shift and it's really putting the trust in our partners—and the resources in their hands—to be able to advocate for the changes that they are trying to make in their communities.'
The fund's existing grantee portfolio reflects a broad range of issue areas and strategies. In Afghanistan, one grantee group is delivering offline education and advocating for girls' right to learn under Taliban restrictions. In Nigeria, another is advocating for delayed marriage for girls' education. In Pakistan, a think tank is driving policy advocacy on education finance, gender equity and public sector reform.
Sehrish Farooq, the Sindh Provincial Head for Malala Fund partner Idara-e-Taleem-o-Agahi (ITA), ... More joins a classroom of girls in Karachi | 2025
The new grant funding announcement comes at a time when the landscape of foreign aid is seeing seismic changes. In the U.S., the Trump administration has frozen billions in foreign aid assistance and cut 90% of the U.S. Agency for International Development's foreign aid contracts as part of a larger plan to cut international development spending down by $60 billion. The U.K., another global leader in foreign aid, announced in February that it would cut its aid budget from 0.5% of gross national income to 0.3%.
Organizations dedicated to girls' education in the global south are already feeling the strain.
"There are a lot more partners who need funding and support," says Alfi. 'We see our grantmaking commitment as more important than ever because we can, at least, move money into places where it isn't flowing anymore.'
Recent crises have deepened the need, but the issue goes back much further. Even before the Trump administration's cuts, women's and girls' organizations were receiving less than 2% of all charitable giving in the U.S.
Across the globe, failing to uphold a girl's right to education has measurable ripple effects across entire communities. Child marriage rates rise, health outcomes worsen, women disappear from the workforce and economies weaken. According to the World Bank, when girls cannot complete secondary school, the global economy misses out on $15-30 trillion in productivity earnings each year.
One of the aims of the Malala Fund's grantmaking expansion is to reach more grassroots organizations that are closest to the girls who need the most support. Additionally, it is reserving at least 20% of its total grant funding for groups led by girls and young women.
"We've come across really incredible girls with brilliant ideas and smaller initiatives that they want to scale," says Alfi. 'We really want to ensure that part of our grantmaking is investing in them."
Malala Yousafzai visits Malala Fund partner Ana Paula and young women from Indigenous communities on ... More her trip to Brazil in May 2023
As an advocacy-forward organization that focuses less on specific services and more on broader societal change, Alfi says the fund specifically seeks to back groups that are challenging systems and pushing for reforms on the ground. Currently, the fund is focusing the majority of its grantmaking work across six focus countries where girls face the biggest education barriers: Afghanistan, Brazil, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Tanzania.
Recognizing the possibility of unforeseen crises—new global health emergencies, conflicts, natural disasters, regime changes and policy shifts—the fund is reserving $5 million for crisis response wherever the need arises. Despite the fast-moving nature of existing disasters—Gaza, for instance, is a key emergency focus area at the moment—Alfi says her time with the fund has shown that there are always people ready and willing to step up.
"In the U.S., we are dealing with a massive phase of uncertainty," says Alfi. But, she continues, "The partners that we work with, the countries that we work with, deal with uncertainty all the time. They're not afraid. They don't back down. They don't quiet down. It's on us to now, more than ever, take the lead of our grantees and our girls."