Marked each year on March 8th, International Women’s Day 2026 is a global moment to celebrate the achievements of women and girls, while recognising the urgent need to accelerate progress towards gender equality. This year’s theme “Balance the Scales” calls for action to address the systemic barriers that continue to hold women back and to invest in solutions that create lasting change.
At The King’s Trust International, this means working alongside experienced partners and local communities across 19 countries to understand these challenges first-hand and to design programmes that enable young women to learn, earn and lead.
Why Gender Equality Still Matters
Despite progress, systemic and often hidden barriers continue to hold young women back. Today, 1 in 4 adolescent girls are not in education, employment or training; compared to 1 in 10 boys.
Here’s what we see behind these figures:
- Gender stereotypes prevent girls from accessing and completing education
- Cultural expectations discourage girls from speaking up or pursuing leadership roles
- Unpaid care and domestic responsibilities restrict mobility and access to work
- Harmful practices such as child marriage, FGM and sexual abuse impact girls’ physical and mental health
These barriers are deeply interconnected and require targeted, intentional approaches to address them.
Our Gender-responsive Approach
We recognise that gender inequality is complex, shaped by social norms, economic realities and cultural contexts that vary across the regions we work in. Our gender-responsive approach reflects this, tailoring programmes to meet the specific needs of young women in each community, while also engaging men, families and wider society to drive lasting change.
This means not only increasing access for young women but creating the conditions in which they can thrive. Across our programmes, we work to enrol more young women, design inclusive and relevant content, and equip them with the skills needed for independence and long-term success. At the same time, we partner with gender-focused organisations and actively promote more supportive attitudes within communities, helping to shift perceptions around what women and girls can achieve.
Across our global network, this approach is already driving meaningful change:
Providing Girls with Positive Role Models in Pakistan
In Pakistan, our Achieve programme, delivered with our partner Pakistan Alliance for Girls Education (PAGE), is rooted in the belief that education alone is not enough, girls also need the confidence, exposure and support to imagine new possibilities for their futures.
Through a holistic and community-led approach, the programme engages parents, teachers and local leaders to build support for girls’ education and participation, create ownership within communities and helps shift perceptions about what girls can achieve.
As PAGE’s Executive Director Fajer Rabia Pasha explains, this includes “raising awareness on importance of girls’ education, empowering mothers, in addition to training our teachers on quality of education, we also train them on gender responsive education, inclusion and mental health support.
We seek to continue supporting the girls particularly at adolescent level, where the dropout rate is the highest and girls are at risk of early age marriages. Through initiatives like Achieve we are really helping girls build their confidence and preparing them to deal with real life challenges.”
A key element of Achieve is exposure visits to partner employers, such as Zindigi powered by JS Bank, where girls meet women working in different industries and gain first-hand insight into potential career paths. These experiences help girls see what is possible and begin to dream bigger about their futures.
Meeting Local Needs with Targeted Interventions in India
In India, Project Lehar, delivered with our longstanding partner the Aga Khan Foundation, provides targeted support for girls and young women across Bihar and Uttar Pradesh in Northern India.
In communities where early marriage and school dropout remain prevalent, Lehar provides the tools to break the cycle, offering vocational training, business and life skills, and access to self-employment opportunities through exposure visits and small start-up grants.
A standout feature of the programme is the community challenge, a practical, team-based project where girls design and lead their own awareness campaigns to inform and advocate for change within their own communities on issues like maternal nutrition and domestic violence.
By addressing both practical and social barriers, Project Lehar enables young women not only to improve their own lives, but to influence the environments around them.
Breaking Stereotypes and Opening New Pathways in Jordan and Nigeria
Across our programmes, we are actively challenging perceptions about the roles women can play, particularly in sectors where they have traditionally been under-represented.
Initiatives such as Tariqi in Jordan and Get Into in Nigeria are opening doors for young women into fields like AI & Robotics and Renewable Energy, equipping them with the technical skills and confidence to succeed in emerging industries.
In the below interview, International Programmes Manager for Nigeria, Damilola Sotuminu, highlights how our work is tailored to local realities. For example, programmes are designed to remove barriers for people with caregiving responsibilities by providing support and adjustments for participants with children and creating safe spaces for nursing mothers, while also working with employers to challenge stereotypes around women’s roles and capabilities in the workplace.
By combining skills development with mindset change, these programmes are helping to create more inclusive pathways into the future of work.
Creating Safe, Supportive Environments for Success
Creating opportunity is only one part of the solution, ensuring that young women feel safe, supported and able to participate fully is equally essential. Without this foundation, many of the barriers they face, from discrimination to safety concerns, remain unchanged.
That’s why safe, inclusive environments are embedded across all our programmes. We work closely with local partners to understand the specific risks and challenges young women face in each context, and to design delivery that responds to these realities, whether that means creating female-only spaces, adapting programme structures to support those with caregiving responsibilities or ensuring access to trusted mentors and support networks.
Underpinning all our work is a strong safeguarding framework, with partners trained to uphold high standards of protection and wellbeing. This ensures that every young woman we support can engage with confidence. Because when girls are supported to participate fully in education, in work, and in shaping their futures the impact extends far beyond the individual, contributing to stronger communities, more inclusive economies and a more equal world.