Pre-pandemic influences on Kenyan girls\u27 transitions to adulthood during COVID-19

COVID-19 containment measures have left adolescent girls in Nairobi, Kenya vulnerable to negative educational, economic, and secondary health outcomes that threaten their safe transitions into adulthood. In June 2020, the Population Council conducted phone-based surveys with 856 girls aged between 10 and 19 in 5 informal settlements who had been surveyed prior to COVID-19 as part of five longitudinal studies. We performed bivariate and multivariable logistic regression analyses to assess the relationship between COVID-19 outcomes and potential protective or risk factors. We found that younger girls are experiencing high levels of food insecurity and difficulty learning from home during school closures, while many older girls face the immediate risk of dropping out of school permanently and have been forgoing needed health services

Impacts of multisectoral cash plus programs on marriage and fertility after 4 years in pastoralist Kenya: A randomized trial

Purpose: Early marriage has multiple drivers including cultural and social norms alongside lack of educational and economic opportunities. This complexity may explain why few programs have demonstrated marriage delays and suggests multisectoral interventions are necessary. This study examined a 2-year multisectoral program designed to delay marriage in a marginalized setting. Methods: The study used a prospective 80-cluster randomized trial following up 2,147 girls aged 11–14 years from 2015 to 2019. Interventions included community dialogs about inequitable gender norms (violence prevention), a conditional cash transfer (education), weekly group meetings with health and life skills training (health), and financial literacy training (wealth creation). Villages were randomized to one of four study arms: (1) violence prevention only (V-only); (2) violence prevention and education (VE); (3) VE and health (VEH); or (4) all four interventions (VEHW). We used analysis of covariance to estimate intent-to-treat impacts of each study arm with an education component, as well as a pooled study arm combining the VE, VEH, and VEHW arms, in reference to V-only, 2 years after the intervention ended, when girls were 15–18 years old. Results: There were small but insignificant reductions on primary outcomes in unadjusted analyses that were larger and significant in adjusted analyses. Effects were particularly large for girls not in school at baseline—the pooled study arm reduced marriage by 18.0 and pregnancy by 15.6 percentage points, a relative reduction of 34% and 43%, respectively. Discussion: The article demonstrates the potential for multisectoral interventions with education components to delay early marriage in an impoverished, socially conservative, pastoral setting