In celebration of the International Day of the Girl (IDG) 2025, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Plan International will co-host the Girls Takeover: Ending Child, Early, and Forced Marriage in Asia and the Pacific. This flagship event amplifies girls’ voices and leadership in driving gender equality and ending harmful practices that affect their futures.

Through a symbolic “takeover” of leadership roles at ADB and a Girl Talks panel featuring youth advocates and gender equality champions, the event will highlight innovative approaches and partnerships to tackle child, early, and forced marriage (CEFM) across Asia and the Pacific. The celebration provides a platform for dialogue, learning, and inspiration, reaffirming ADB and Plan International’s shared commitment to empowering girls and advancing gender equality across the region.

Objectives

Building upon the global momentum of #GirlsTakeover, this ADB and Plan International collaboration for Girls Takeover IDG Celebration aims to:

• Build awareness of CEFM as a gender inequality issue in Asia and the Pacific through the voices of girl advocates

• Identify knowledge solutions and innovative models to tackle CEFM, including identifying opportunities to integrate a CEFM lens into ADB operations across sectors, through ESF standards, Gender Assessment and Action Plans, and Poverty and Social Analysis.

• Build understanding of CEFM as an issue in fragile and conflict affected situations (FCAS), aligned with differentiated approaches for FCAS in operations

• Provide a meaningful learning and development experience for Girl Advocates and girl participants

Target Participants

ADB staff, young people aged 18–24, Manila-based civil society organizations (CSOs) working on gender equality and gender-based violence, international organizations

Resource Speakers

Panelist 1: Indah Erniawati, S.Sos, MSP

Indah is an associate planner at the Ministry of National Development Planning of Indonesia with more than 15 years experiences in formulating high level policies on child protection, gender equality, and quality of family. She highly involved in developing the Indonesian National Strategy on Child Marriage Prevention that launched in 2020 and ensuring this issue becomes one of national priority agendas in the long term, mid-term, and annual planning documents. Having a master’s degree in social policy from the University of Melbourne has equipped her with strong analytical skills to reveal the problems and build the recommendation and innovation in improving the planning strategies. In terms of ensuring the implementation on preventing child marriage at national and regional level, she initiates collective actions and collaborations among line ministries, local governments, development partners and civil society.

Panelist 2: Jolly Nur Haque, Regional Head Programme and Influencing Plan International Asia and Pacific

Jolly is a development and humanitarian professional with over 15 years of experience in gender transformative programming focused on protection, gender equality and inclusion, sexual reproductive health rights, fund raising, institutional building of youth led groups and humanitarian action. She is currently the Regional Head of Program and Influencing for Plan International Asia Pacific Region, where she leads the gender transformative actions for the region so that children and young people especially girls can learn, lead, decide and thrive. Through innovative human centric programming and strong evidence-based advocacy, she is committed to advancing the rights and equitable opportunities for girls.

Throughout her career, Jolly has worked from community mobilization to leadership positions, gaining unique perspective and ground up experience on the challenges and opportunities for sustainable, inclusive development. Her direct experience in protracted crisis and emergency response provided her with right knowledge and skill sets to explore transboundary challenges and solutions affecting the lives of children, adolescent and young people in this rapidly changing socio-geo-political environment. Prior to joining in her current position, she had worked as the Director of Business, Partnership and Impact with Plan International Bangladesh and at different capacities in organizations like Strides Toronto, Canada, Oxfam, Christian Aid, Action on Disability and Development (ADD International) etc. Jolly’s passion and dedication to equality and equity is reflected in her personal and professional values and her ongoing work on empowering young people, girls and foster gender equality across Asia Pacific.
 

Panelist 3: Lilly Kolts BeSoer, Founder and Director, Voice for Change Papua New Guinea

Lilly is a women’s rights defender and advocate for the political, economic and social empowerment of women in her native Papua New Guinea. She hails from Jiwaka Province in the highlands of Papua New Guinea. Lilly is the founder and director for Voice for Change (VFC), a provincial NGO based and working in Jiwaka Province. Voice for Change focuses on ending violence against women and girls and building alliances with communities and provincial government in Jiwaka to advocate for safer communities and an end to all forms of violence.

Lilly has assisted in facilitating mediation among the parties in tribal conflicts and wars. In January 2012, she coordinated a peace reconciliation to resettle about 500 internally displaced families and helped set up a committee to address sorcery-related violence. Lilly is part of the newly established regional network of women’s human rights defenders and is part of the Pacific Women’s Network Against Violence Against Women. Lilly is also a member of the UN Women Asia Pacific Civil Society Advisory Group.

How to Register

bit.ly/adbcivilsociety or https://adb-org.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_qtorQY2pTeC780UmJTVHAw