History

The Coalition for Adolescent Girls (CAG) was founded in 2005 by the United Nations Foundation and the Nike Foundation along with partners from the International Women’s Health Coalition (IWHC), International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), the Population Council, and EMpower to address adolescent girls’ need for support and their potential to change the world.  Since its inception, over 80 leading national and international organizations have come together, bringing fresh perspectives, diverse resources, and concrete solutions to address the challenges facing adolescent girls in the poorest communities around the world.

Consistent across the existence of the coalition has been a solid dedication to meeting the needs of adolescent girls. Coalition members are adolescent girl champions and experts, committed to supporting girls and helping them reach their potential to act as agents of change. The collective power of the CAG has helped to drive change in the international development field, elevating the profile of a population that was historically ignored, and influencing programming, policies, and investments to better support adolescent girls.

The Mission

The Coalition for Adolescent Girls drives new and improves existing programming, policies, and investments that will promote the rights and opportunities of adolescent girls.

Our Vision

The Coalition for Adolescent Girls envisions a world where adolescent girls are able to fully realize their rights, navigate challenges, and access opportunities during the transition from childhood to adulthood and beyond.

The Coalition seeks to ensure that adolescent girls can:

• Minimize their vulnerability to HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, violence, exploitation, and abuse;
• Obtain a quality education at the primary and secondary levels;
• Access safe, affordable, and comprehensive girl-friendly health services;
• Build and protect their economic assets and opportunities;
• Advocate for themselves and their communities;
• Count on and be counted by their communities, families, men, and boys as allies;
• Participate in decision-making processes that affect their lives, communities, and nations;
• Decide if, when, and whom they marry and if, when, and how many children to have;
• Understand and obtain legal rights.

Objectives

Effective Practices: To build capacity and increase organizational commitment of member and non-member organizations to design, implement, and evaluate evidence-based adolescent girl programming with a practice based learning agenda

Advocacy: To influence and inform donors, policy-makers, and other key decision-makers regarding programmatic, funding, and research priorities for adolescent girls

Announcements

Global Communities, a humanitarian assistance and sustainable development organization working with communities in more than 30 countries, today announced a new leadership role in the Coalition for Adolescent Girls (CAG) as Fiscal Sponsor.

“With Global Communities as our fiscal agent, the CAG will have the stability needed to continue activities that support our diverse group of members to push for meaningful adolescent girl engagement and representation so they are front and center in shaping services and policies that reflect their rights and needs” CAG Co-Chairs