This note summarizes the findings from the baseline survey for this impact evaluation, which was conducted between October 2013 and January 2014.
... See More + The baseline survey was conducted with girls interested in SOS, aged 12-15, who resided in the target communities, and whose guardians consented to the girl’s participation in SOS and the survey. In total, baseline data was collected from 2,884 girls and one guardian for each girl. These 2,884 girls form the ‘study sample.’ Half of these girls were then randomly selected to participate in the SOS program and became the ‘treatment group’, and the other half were kept as the ‘control group’. The extent to which our study results can reasonably represent the results one would expect for other girls in Greater Monrovia depends on how similar girls and households in the study sample are to a representative sample of Greater Monrovia. Analysis suggests that they are in fact quite similar.
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This note is intended to present the final status of implementation of the project. The project was approved in May 2015 and launched in Djibouti in June 2015 with support of the two counterparts namely the State Secretariat of Youth and Sports (SEJS) and the Djiboutian Agency for Social Development (ADDS).
... See More + The budget allocation is 363,000 dollars. Project implementation in the three selected regions (Djibouti Ville, Ali Sabieh and Obock) has gone very well and activities were completed on time. The project will close August 31, 2016. Disbursement has been steady and is expected to be completed fully as well. The response from young women and men, project beneficiaries, has been tremendously positive and motivating.
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Teenage pregnancies have potential negative consequences on the next generation. Children born to adolescent mothers are particularly at risk in terms of health, nutrition, cognitive and socio-emotional development.
... See More + Evidence shows that the early years especially the first 1,000 days are crucially important for lifetime health, learning, and productivity. Particularly for the most vulnerable children and families, early childhood development (ECD) is a high return investment. This policy brief presents evidence on the health, nutrition and overall development of children in Malawi with a focus on those born to adolescent mothers. Analysis of issues such as infant and child mortality, malnutrition, incidence of illness, healthcare seeking behaviors, protective practices, and late entry for school, pre-school experience and development are discussed.
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Decisions during youth have great long-term impacts on human development, which is key to poverty alleviation and economic development. During adolescence, two of the primary transitions are beginning a family and adopting a healthy lifestyle.
... See More + Youth face many choices and challenges around these key decisions, such as when to initiate sex, when to marry, when to have children, and whether to engage in risky behaviors – all of which affect their future health and future opportunities. Consequences of these early decisions can have long-lasting effects on adolescents and their communities, potentially increasing public health costs and depleting human capital. This note briefly presents program and policy approaches that have been implemented in different contexts for addressing these two key transition periods of youth: beginning a family and adopting a healthy lifestyle. It concludes by presenting a set of programmatic lessons and investment recommendations based on the global evidence.
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Decisions during youth have great long-term impacts on human development, which is key to poverty alleviation and economic development. During adolescence, two of the primary transitions are beginning a family and adopting a healthy lifestyle.
... See More + Youth face many choices and challenges around these key decisions, such as when to initiate sex, when to marry, when to have children, and whether to engage in risky behaviors- all of which affect their future health and future opportunities. Consequences of these early decisions can have long-lasting effects on adolescents and their communities, potentially increasing public health costs and depleting human capital. This policy brief discusses a situation analysis of adolescent girls in Malawi with respect to these transitions and highlights the challenges they face. Specifically, issues of reproductive health (fertility, maternal health, use of family planning), early marriage, use of family planning, nutrition and risky behaviors are analyzed and presented.
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Skills development offers a range of benefits to out-of-school adolescent girls and alleviates a key obstacle to youth employment in developing countries.
... See More + But do increased skills lead to delays in early marriage and pregnancy? Not always, according to the empirical evidence. Although the global evidence onskills training is growing and despite a theoretical basis for the relationship betweenskills, employment, and fertility, the documented impacts of skills interventions on sexual or reproductive health outcomes are still too limited to draw strong conclusions.The substantial heterogeneity of what constitutesa skills intervention contributes to the uncertainty. The strongest evidence is in support of holistic community-based programs that combine information on sexualand reproductive health with skills training and other financial and social assets in girl-only or girl-friendly settings. More research is needed to isolate the impacts of various program components and disentangle the causal pathways leading to delays in marriage and pregnancy.
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Adolescence is a time of transitions that foster both challenges and opportunities. Indeed, choices made during adolescence not only have immediate consequences but also greatly influence the economic opportunities, health outcomes, and skill sets attained later in life, and yet it is the same period when social norms create pathways largely defined by gender.
... See More + Poverty and ethnic minority status can further magnify gender discrepancies for youth worldwide, as reductions in household spending on education, health care, and nutrition are often more likely to affect adolescent girls than boys. In Malawi, adolescents make up 24 of the total population, a substantial proportion that is expected to become higher than neighboring countries if current trends continue. The high prevalence of child marriage and teenage pregnancy among Malawian girls greatly contributes to the high fertility and population growth trends, and is also closely interrelated with a range of economic and socio-cultural determinants that perpetuate a vicious cycle for the poorest and most vulnerable girls and have costly consequences for them and for the nation as a whole. In order to initiate the potential for a demographic dividend, Malawi will need to initiate a demographic transition. Reducing child marriage and teenage pregnancy can significantly contribute to the fertility declines needed to accelerate this demographic transition and would lead to better life outcomes for adolescent girls and better opportunities for the next generation. Accordingly, this series of policy briefs focuses on four key areas of interventions (or pillars) as follows: (i) maintaining girls in school; (ii) equipping out-of-school girls with skills; and (iii) beginning a family and supporting girls to adopt healthy lifestyles; and (iv) addressing the child development needs of children born to teenage mothers.
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International evidence indicates that keeping girls in school positively impacts their life trajectory and benefits the well-being of the next generation.
... See More + Malawi has made progress in increasing overall enrollment rates, but additional effort is still needed to ensure that adolescent girls stay in school and complete a quality education. Starting in the upper grades of primary school, adolescent girls are more likely to drop out of school than their male counterparts with pregnancy, early marriage, and school fees frequently cited as the main reasons. One of the key challenges in Malawi will be to both focus on girls before they reach puberty and ensure that they get the support they need to complete primary school and successfully transition to secondary school. Meanwhile, adolescent boys will also need support and guidance to invest in their own education and to value the education of their female peers as a way to build stronger families and communities and break the inter-generational cycle of poverty. The Government of Malawi will need to assess the effectiveness and sustainability of its policy and programs, including those by partners, to scale and consolidate accordingly in order to avoid a scattered approach.
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Adolescence is a time of transitions that foster both challenges and opportunities. Indeed, choices made during adolescence not only have immediate consequences but also greatly influence the economic opportunities, health outcomes, and skill sets attained later in life, and yet it is the same period when social norms create pathways largely defined by gender.
... See More + Poverty and ethnic minority status can further magnify gender discrepancies for youth worldwide, as reductions in household spending on education, health care, and nutrition are often more likely to affect adolescent girls than boys. In Malawi, adolescents make up 24 of the total population, a substantial proportion that is expected to become higher than neighboring countries if current trends continue. The high prevalence of child marriage and teenage pregnancy among Malawian girls greatly contributes to the high fertility and population growth trends, and is also closely interrelated with a range of economic and socio-cultural determinants that perpetuate a vicious cycle for the poorest and most vulnerable girls and have costly consequences for them and for the nation as a whole. In order to initiate the potential for a demographic dividend, Malawi will need to initiate a demographic transition. Reducing child marriage and teenage pregnancy can significantly contribute to the fertility declines needed to accelerate this demographic transition and would lead to better life outcomes for adolescent girls and better opportunities for the next generation. Accordingly, this series of policy briefs focuses on four key areas of interventions (or pillars) as follows: (i) maintaining girls in school; (ii) equipping out-of-school girls with skills; and (iii) beginning a family and supporting girls to adopt healthy lifestyles; and (iv) addressing the child development needs of children born to teenage mothers.
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This study looks at how a community event—adolescent womens economic and social empowerment -- and a family factor -- sibling sex composition—interact in shaping gender differences in preferences for competition.
... See More + To do so, a lab-in-the-field experiment is conducted using competitive games layered over the randomized rollout of a community program that empowered adolescent girls in Uganda. In contrast with the literature, the study finds no gender differences in competitiveness among adolescents, on average. It also finds no evidence of differences in competitiveness between girls in treatment and control communities, on average. However, in line with the literature, in control communities the study finds that boys surrounded by sisters are less competitive. Strikingly, this pattern is reversed in treatment communities, where boys surrounded by (empowered) sisters are more competitive.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS7699 JUN 07, 2016
This review focuses specifically on Intimate partner violence (IPV) against women, as opposed to Violence against women and girls (VAWG) more broadly, for several reasons.
... See More + Partner violence is the most prevalent form of violence against women globally: a woman is at the greatest risk for suffering violence in her own home by someone she knows. A recent systematic review found that most of effective evaluations and programs on VAWG have been directed to IPV. This paper emphasizes results of these and other primary prevention programs, not because secondary and tertiary prevention programs are ineffective, but because primary prevention programs allow for macro-level programming that targets root causes of violence, such as harmful gender norms, to create generations of men, women, boys, and girls who not only no longer accept violence, but also feel empowered to eliminate it. To conclude, this methodological annex outlines the steps involved in adapting to new settings a community-based intervention to prevent intimate partner violence. While the precise nature of these steps will vary depending on the setting in which they are applied, the core ethical and effectiveness considerations here should remain true regardless of location. The authors hope that this note will help programmers worldwide to successfully transform community norms and prevent intimate partner violence.
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Working Paper AUS16688 MAY 24, 2016
Contreras-Urbina, Manuel; Heilman, Brian; Von Au,Anne Kathrin; Hill, Amber; Puerto Gómez, Margarita; Zelaya, Jennifer; Arango,Diana JimenaDisclosed
This report presents statistical data on : population; poverty and inequality; income and growth; jobs; health; education; infrastructure and amenities; and recent growth and fiscal performance.
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This report presents tabular data on: population; poverty and inequality; income and growth; jobs; health; education; infrastructure and amenities; and recent growth and fiscal performance.
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This report presents tabular data on: population; poverty and inequality; income and growth; jobs; health; education; infrastructure and amenities; and recent growth and fiscal performance.
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This report presents tabular data on: population; poverty and inequality; income and growth; jobs; health; education; infrastructure and amenities; and recent growth and fiscal performance.
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The trade at a glance tables for Chhattisgarh provide a snapshot of key aspects of population, poverty and inequality, income and growth, jobs, health, education, infrastructure and amenities, and recent growth and fiscal performance.
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The trade at a glance tables for Uttar Pradesh provide a snapshot of key aspects of population, poverty and inequality, income and growth, jobs, health, education, infrastructure and amenities, and recent growth and fiscal performance.
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The trade at a glance tables for Rajasthan provide a snapshot of key aspects of population, poverty and inequality, income and growth, jobs, health, education, infrastructure and amenities, and recent growth and fiscal performance.
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This series of policy briefs focuses on four key areas for action (or pillars): pillar one. Keeping girls in school; pillar two. Equipping out-of-school girls with skills; pillar three.
... See More + Beginning a family and adopting a healthy lifestyle; and pillar four. Addressing the early childhood development needs of children born to teenage mothers. The first three pillars focus on delaying marriage and pregnancy and ensuring that adolescent girls have a healthy pregnancy if they do become pregnant. The fourth pillar focuses on the specific needs of children born to teenage mothers as a way to promote better opportunities for the next generation, while allowing teenage mothers to engage in further education or skill-building opportunities. Under each of the four pillars, the series includes two policy briefs: one that documents the current situation and trends in Malawi and one that summarizes the global evidence on what has worked to promote positive impacts in this particular area.
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