Start With a Girl: A New Agenda for Global Health

Examines how social factors shape the health issues adolescent girls face in developing countries. Calls for a health agenda for girls, including focused HIV prevention and maternal health advocacy; elimination of child marriage; and secondary education

What about adolescent girls? Implementation insights from a new evidence review on ‘safe space-style’ community-based girls’ groups

This blog is based on an article published in Global Health: Science and Practice, Close to Home: Evidence on the Impact of Community-Based Girl Groups

Making the Most of Mentors: Recruitment, Training, and Support of Mentors for Adolescent Girl Programming—Toolkit

Mentors are an important part of many effective programs for girls, yet little information is available about the practical aspects of developing and supporting a successful mentor cadre. This toolkit pulls together lessons, tips, and insights that can be adapted and used to find, train, monitor, support, and evaluate mentors. The information is based on materials from programs for adolescent girls implemented by the Population Council. The resources are applicable to program planners, mentor supervisors, and mentors. All resources may be adapted to local contexts

Impact of community-based girl groups

Programs increasingly use community-based girl groups (CBGGs) to address risks and empower adolescent girls, but evidence on their impact is not always accessible to decision makers. A closer look at 30 CBGG programs in low- and middle-income countries found that CBGGs had the greatest reported success in improving health and gender attitudes and beliefs, while their effect on health behavior and status is mixed. Program implementers should consider CBGGs as a way to facilitate girls’ empowerment, with complementary measures to engage community members and to promote enabling environments for greater program impact. Increased interest and investment in CBGGs should be supported by greater investment in further research to bolster the evidence base

Valoriser le potentiel des mentores : recrutement, formation et soutien des mentores pour des programmes dédiés aux adolescentes

Les mentores sont une partie importante de nombreux programmes efficaces pour les filles, mais on dispose de peu d’informations sur les aspects pratiques du développement et du soutien d’un cadre de mentore efficace. Cette boîte à outils rassemble des leçons, des conseils et des idées qui peuvent être adaptés et utilisés pour trouver, former, surveiller, soutenir et évaluer les mentores. Les informations sont basées sur des documents provenant de programmes pour les adolescentes mis en œuvre par le Population Council. Les ressources sont applicables aux planificateurs de programmes, aux superviseurs de mentores et aux mentores. Toutes les ressources peuvent être adaptées aux contextes locaux. --- Mentors are an important part of many effective programs for girls, yet little information is available about the practical aspects of developing and supporting a successful mentor cadre. This toolkit pulls together lessons, tips, and insights that can be adapted and used to find, train, monitor, support, and evaluate mentors. The information is based on materials from programs for adolescent girls implemented by the Population Council. The resources are applicable to program planners, mentor supervisors, and mentors. All resources may be adapted to local contexts

More Than a Backdrop: Understanding the Role of Communities in Programming for Adolescent Girls—Action Guide

The structural and social features of a girl’s community play a critical role in determining what effects programs for adolescent girls can achieve. Girls’ communities include both the physical spaces girls must navigate and adults and peers who shape their beliefs about marriage, work, and education. This action guide focuses on key questions to ask when designing programs: How many girls live in a given community? Is the community urban, peri-urban, or rural? Is it formal or informal? How stable or cohesive is a community? Who is considered a “community member”? What resources exist for girls in the community, and who has access to them? How do economic and social pressures shape community norms about marriage, education, work, and gender roles? The action guide offers tips on how to find answers and provides real-world examples that demonstrate how to use community-level insights for action for adolescent girls. It was written for people who design, manage, and assess community-based programming

Girls on the Move: Adolescent Girls & Migration in the Developing World

Adolescent girls in developing countries are migrating to urban areas in ever greater numbers. While migration can be risky, for the majority of girls, migration can increase opportunities and economic stability and provide them with the autonomy to make decisions about their lives. Preventing the worst outcomes and helping girls succeed are essential to unlocking the benefits of migration. When migrant girls can take advantage of the benefits, they can be a powerful force for change in the developing world—improving lives and reducing poverty in their communities and countries. This Girls Count report examines the social and economic determinants of internal migration for adolescent girls in developing countries, and identifies the links between migration, risk, and opportunity. A wide range of evidence on migrant girls is explored, including findings on programs for girls and an agenda for increasing the visibility of migrant girls, reducing their vulnerability, and realizing their full potential

Evidence review: Promoting adolescent girls\u27 health and well-being in low-resource settings in the era of COVID-19

Adolescent girls are among the groups intended to benefit from measures governments enact to control COVID-19, such as travel restrictions and business and school closures. However, given the dual disadvantage adolescent girls face due to age and gender, even approaches that effectively reduce the threat of COVID-19 transmission may exacerbate other threats to their health, safety, and well-being. In response, governments, multilateral agencies, and non-governmental organizations have moved to address these risks, though evidence to support investment decision-making is limited. Clarity on the type, degree, and strength of the evidence in support of interventions that promote adolescent girls’ health and well-being is urgently needed. We are conducting an evidence review to meet this challenge. Based on the findings of a structured literature search of published and selected grey literature sources, we will map the current scope of evidence on relevant interventions in low- and middle-income countries. Based on this mapping, we will identify the implications for interventions and research on girls’ health and well-being as the crisis evolves across diverse contexts

Adolescent girls and COVID-19: Mapping the evidence on interventions

With the COVID-19 crisis continuing to evolve, evidence on the effectiveness of short-term emergency-oriented responses and long-term mitigation strategies is expanding but still limited. There are, and will continue to be, substantial evidence gaps on programming to address risk across outcomes of importance to adolescent girls. More evidence is needed to slow the risks posed by the pandemic for this subpopulation, which can help guide gender- and age-responsive prevention and impact mitigation investments. Evidence from approaches delivered in other unstable contexts may offer important lessons for decision-making in the current context. Recognizing this, the Population Council conducted a structured review of existing evidence collected prior to the pandemic, across low- and middle-income country contexts (under the auspices of the Adolescent Girls Investment Plan). The review aimed to advance the four goals addressed in this report: reducing girls’ risks of contracting COVID-19; identifying longer-term developmental intervention approaches that hold promise in the recovery period; mitigating the secondary effects of COVID-19 on girls; and identifying priority evidence gaps