The Cost of Reaching the Most Disadvantaged Girls

The Population Council was inspired to write this report due to "the rising interest in investing in the [economically] poorest girls in the [economically] poorest communities as a vital strategy for interrupting intergenerational poverty, promoting positive health (maternal, child, HIV reduction), and achieving fertility goals. Strong justice and equity dimensions are also associated with this interest in adolescent girls." The report analyses five programmatic partnerships between the Population Council and government and civil society actors in economically poor countries, measuring for impact as well as cost, and is intended to provide assistance to programmatic officers, technically involved donors, and policy analysts in making programme and policy decisions on investments in adolescent girls by providing an understanding of the appropriate expectations and frameworks through which to consider the costs of "girl programmes" (working with girls ages 7-24 years old).

The report's authors suggest that investing specifically in girls (rather than in "youth") is in itself a critical strategy that can provide girls with assets that will last a lifetime and improve girls' ability to protect themselves from harm. These assets include: gathering spaces, friendship, financial literacy and education, and reproductive health knowledge, as well as others (life skills, savings accounts). They also say "work with adolescent girls generates an intergenerational process…the programmes have the potential to create a longer-term social infrastructure at the community level through which girls can:

• Establish their identify;
• Know and claim their rights;
• Aggregate demand;
• Create access and ways to capture existing private and public resources;
• Evolve new development content and more relevant messages; and
• Synergise existing investments (given that there are such strong linkages between health, social, and economic needs)."

There are several communication-related strategies that can help programme planners to identify and focus on the most vulnerable girls. Mapping techniques can help identify high concentrations of disadvantaged girls. Another is speaking directly to girls and incorporating their opinions in situation analyses, as well as engaging and building their skills and involving them in the design of programmes. The analyses also mention the creation of single-sex programme opportunities as key to improving participation by girls. Other participation strategies include:

• Develop local girl leaders as mentors and role models for younger adolescents;
• Assure access to girls-only spaces (safe haven from trauma, stress, violence, and abuse, where girls can develop friendship networks, learn about their rights, and become leaders); 
• Promote participation that helps girls develop self-confidence and skills;
• Involve families and communities so they help support and create opportunities for girls' empowerment;
• Work on boys' and men's attitudes through education to overcome biased-gender socialisation; and
• Involve governments to use gender-responsive budgeting.

The document provides details of the following Population Council programmes: Biruh Tesfa (Bright Future) Program in Ethiopia; Ishraq (Sunrise) Program in rural upper Egypt; Safe and Smart Savings Products for Vulnerable Adolescent Girls in Kenya and Uganda; Abriendo Oportunidades in Guatemala; and Siyakha Nentsha (Building with Young People) programme in South Africa.

Programmes studied have included the following:

• Life skills training;
• Financial literacy training;
• Health training;
• Career skills training;
• Recreation for girls; and
• Mentoring for girls by women and girls.

The report closes with suggested opportunities to further understanding and learning, including the collection of data on the impact of girl platform programmes on "direct beneficiaries completing primary, secondary, and tertiary education, delaying age of marriage and first child, employment, and income, etc. The economic benefits of such impacts on girls, communities, and national GDP [gross domestic product] can also be estimated, and cost-benefit analyses can be conducted to more accurately measure the cost-effectiveness of such programs."