Giving Compass' Take:

• The U.K.'s Department for International Development flagship program aimed at educating marginalized girls, the Girls’ Education Challenge, will receive an additional £187 million for a second phase.

• How can this money make the most significant impact? How can private philanthropy work with public funding to increase impact? 

• Learn about the progress Afghanistan has seen for girls' education. 

The United Kingdom has revealed details of its plans to expand an innovative funding stream to help keep marginalized girls in lower-income countries in school.

During the G-7 Summit in Canada, U.K. Secretary of State for International Development Penny Mordaunt announced an additional £187 million ($250.3 million) in funding for a second phase of the Girls’ Education Challenge. This flagship Department for International Development program launched in 2012 aims to get at least 1.5 million out-of-school girls into education and keep them in school.

This comes on top of two earlier funding announcements for the second phase of GEC, bringing the total pot up to £500 million for projects in 18 countries across Africa and Asia until 2025. In April, the U.K. said it would allocate £212 million for GEC to work with almost one million girls in Commonwealth countries, and in 2016, the department announced £100 million for the program. The money pledged last Friday will target girls in Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Zimbabwe, Nepal, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Over 260 million children, more than half of whom are girls, are currently not in school, according to UNESCO’s latest estimates.

Read the full article about the Girls’ Education Challenge by Sophie Edwards at Devex International Development.