Adolescent Girls' Empowerment Program

  • R Research Project/Report/Study

I Inactive

Key Information

The Council implemented and rigorously evaluated the Adolescent Girls Empowerment Program (AGEP), which was designed to build the health, social and economic assets of vulnerable girls in Zambia. AGEP reached more than 11,000 girls in rural and urban locations in the country from 2013 to 2016 and was rigorously monitored and evaluated to understand what type of girls’ empowerment interventions work in Zambia, for whom, and at what cost. Using a cluster randomized controlled trial, this research assessed the effectiveness of four approaches: “Safe space” girls’ clubs (SS-only), which included health and financial education and life skills training during weekly girls group meetings led by young women mentors from the community; “Safe spaces” + health service vouchers (SS+HV), entitling girls to health services provided by public and private facilities in the community; “Safe spaces” + health vouchers + girl-friendly individual savings accounts (SS+HV+SA), developed in partnership with a Zambian financial institution; and a control site in which girls received none of the above interventions. Participating community areas were randomly assigned to one of four study arms to determine cause and effect between program treatment and outcomes.


Lead Implementing Organization(s)

Location(s)

Sub-Saharan Africa

Zambia

Government Affiliation

Government-affiliated program

Years

2011 - 2018

Partner(s)

YWCA Zambia, Making Cents International, National Savings and Credit Bank of Zambia

Ministry Affiliation

Zambia Ministry of Health

COVID-19 Response

Unknown

Geographic Scope

National

Meets gender-transformative education criteria from the TES  

Unknown

Areas of Work Back to Top

Education areas

Attainment

  • Primary completion
  • Primary to secondary transition
  • Secondary completion

Other skills

  • Financial literacy
  • Life skills/sexuality education
  • Rights/empowerment education

Skills

  • Literacy
  • Numeracy

Cross-cutting areas

  • Adolescent pregnancy/childbearing
  • Early/child marriage
  • Economic/livelihoods (including savings/financial inclusion, etc.)
  • Empowerment
  • HIV and STIs
  • Violence (at home, in relationships)

Program participants

Target Audience(s)

Girls (both in school and out of school), Youth

Age

10 - 19

School Enrolment Status

Some in school

School Level

  • Lower primary
  • Upper primary
  • Lower secondary
  • Upper secondary

Other populations reached

  • Youth

Participants include

Not applicable or unknown

Program Approaches Back to Top

Life skills education

  • Comprehensive sexuality education (CSE)
  • Gender, rights and power
  • Sexual and reproductive health (including puberty education)

Mentoring/psychosocial support

  • Adult (non-teacher) mentors

Program Goals Back to Top

Education goals

  • Increased primary school completion
  • Increased progression to secondary school
  • Increased secondary school completion

Cross-cutting goals

  • Improved financial literacy and savings
  • Increased knowledge of HIV, puberty, and sexual and reproductive health
  • More equitable gender attitudes and norms
  • Reduced adolescent pregnancy/childbearing
  • Reduced child marriage
  • Reduced intimate partner violence
  • Reduced STI/HIV/AIDS

Additional Information Back to Top

Primary Contact

Karen Austrian
Population Council
Senior Associate
kaustrian@popcouncil.org