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The head of the says its 鈥渘ew mantra鈥� is to help girls stay in school until they are 18.

UNFPA executive director聽Babatunde Osotimehin said ensuring girls get a full secondary education 鈥渋n every nook and cranny of the world鈥� will help to protect their rights and slow population growth.

Mr Osotimehin said girls and women have to be given the education and the access to services to make their own decisions on how many children to have.

During a visit to Jordan, he told the Associated Press that simply getting girls into primary school was not good enough to achieve this. He added: 鈥淲e know that primary education is not the solution we are looking for. What we are looking for is secondary education.

鈥淪o our new campaign and our new mantra is to make sure that in every nook and cranny of the world, we get girls to go to school and stay in school.鈥�

Mr Osotimehin added that聽鈥渁s we go into new sustainable development goals, we must up our game鈥�. He was referring to the 17 new for the next 15 years, which will be adopted by the United Nations in September.

Mr Osotimehin talks to a refugee child Picture: UNFPA

Education underpins all of the 17 SDGs 鈥� one of which is to achieve gender equality and empower all girls and women. On health, a child whose mother can read is 50% more likely to live past the age of five. On gender equality, one additional year of school can increase a woman鈥檚 earnings by up to 20%. On consumption, education raises the odds of people using energy and water more efficiently.

Around the world, millions of girls drop out of school due to external forces such as child marriage, child labour and discrimination. Ensuring girls stay in school lessens their chances of being forced into child and early marriage. Girls with no education are up to six times more likely to marry as children than girls who have received secondary education.

The UNFPA says on its website: 鈥淲hen a girl becomes pregnant, her life can change radically. Her education may end and her job prospects diminish. She becomes more vulnerable to poverty and exclusion, and her health often suffers. Complications from pregnancy and childbirth are a leading cause of death among adolescent girls.

鈥淎dolescent pregnancy is often not the result of a deliberate choice, but rather the absence of choices: It is a consequence of little or no access to school, information or health care.鈥�

Mr Osotimehin said earlier this year that one in three girls in the developing world is married before age 18 and that 225 million women have no access to modern contraception.

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