Girls' education remains one of the most powerful drivers of sustainable development, yet millions of girls in developing regions continue to face significant barriers to accessing and completing quality university education. This paper examines how university alumni in Nigeria can serve as strategic catalysts for advancing girls' education through a narrative literature review synthesising peer-reviewed studies, institutional reports, and policy documents published between 2015 and 2026. The review reveals that alumni constitute a substantially underutilised but strategically positioned group capable of contributing through advocacy, mentorship, financial support, and institutional strengthening. These contributions are conceptualised through Bourdieu's (1986) theory of capital across four interrelated forms — social, cultural, financial, and symbolic — demonstrating how each strategy maps onto improved access, retention, and educational outcomes for girls. Critically, the review also exposes significant gaps: inconsistent evidence, weak institutionalisation of alumni-focused programmes, and a near-total absence of rigorous impact evaluation in the Nigerian context. By offering one of the first attempts to theorise alumni-driven girls'-education interventions in Nigeria through an explicit capital-theory lens, the paper contributes original scholarship to the field and proposes concrete pathways alongside a research agenda for institutionalising and evaluating alumni engagement as a sustainable development strategy.
Keywords: Alumni engagement; girls' education; gender equity; sustainable development; social capital; mentorship; Nigeria