A/HRC/35/5 research into the drivers of child marriage in high-prevalence communities, as well as the triggers that have led some communities to abandon the practice. Policies and strategies must be designed with the participation of different sectors, including health, education, justice, social affairs and child protection, and of women, girls, their families, communities and religious leaders. This is essential to ensure that policies are contextualized and respond to the needs of women and girls in specific communities, and that there is the ownership necessary to ensure their implementation. 21. While the involvement of one particular minister — often for gender or education — to coordinate work across sectors has had limited impact, interministerial bodies set up with the ability to influence all ministerial departments have appeared to achieve better results. In Zambia, a body composed of ministers and chief executive officers coordinated the development of a comprehensive national plan that was then transformed into targeted interventions for each ministry. Ensuring adequate financial resources for the strategies was also highlighted as a serious challenge. Channelling the resources to reach the grass-roots communities and the groups concerned should be looked at as a priority, especially when rural and remote areas and poor urban settings are the most affected. 22. In different contexts, utilizing specific strategic entry points to address child marriage has been important in overcoming societal resistance to challenge the practice. For example, framing policies around the need to address obstetric fistula, ensure access to education, promote adolescent health, eliminate maternal mortality or tackle domestic violence have been used as opportunities to advance discussions on the elimination of child and forced marriage. 23. In terms of content, experts stressed the importance of strategies that are rightsbased and address the root causes of child marriage, focusing on girls’ and women’s empowerment. While not all interventions need to be labelled specifically as addressing child and forced marriage, it is important to have clarity on the elements that successful strategies should encompass. Girls’ access to quality education, in particular secondary education, is a key component. One expert recommended that education should be compulsory up to 18 years of age. National policies on education should address child marriage, which often represents one of the main obstacles for girls. Also, schools should be made safe spaces for girls, which is currently not the case in many contexts. Access to comprehensive sexuality education and youth-friendly sexual and reproductive health services have been found to be a critical component of successful strategies to address child marriage and protect the rights of girls in the context of marriage. Ensuring that once girls complete education they have employment opportunities is another key element of successful policies. Programmes such as cash transfers were considered successful, although they should be monitored to ensure that they have the intended impact in upholding women’s and girls’ rights, as research indicates this is not always the case. Policies and plans must further encompass efforts to challenge stereotypes and perceptions about the roles of girls in societies, as well as social norms about, inter alia, girls’ sexuality and pregnancy outside marriage. 24. Experience shows that policies and plans need to include specific measures to reach the most marginalized girls and women. Programmes providing girls with smartphones, through which they can have easy access to information on available services, were found to be successful. The need for a greater focus on girls around the age of puberty was stressed to be essential for effective prevention strategies. 25. The need to work with and through civil society, as well as directly with girls, was repeatedly raised. Civil society actors, especially at the grass-roots level, have close ties within communities and possess particular expertise for moving discussions forward. The potential of peer-to-peer education and information is immense. The use of social media by girls to raise awareness about and stand-up against child marriage can be a powerful game changer. Investing at the grass-roots level in community youth movements and amplifying girls’ voices was indicated as one of the most effective and underfunded strategies to bring about change. The need to scale-up existing initiatives in this regard was underlined. 26. Promoting accountability for the implementation of strategies to address child and forced marriage should be a priority, including through regular data collection to monitor 5