Targeting girls’ education and empowerment in Uganda

• In Event: Girls' Education and Empowerment

Proposal

Girls’ education and empowerment have been a focus of various governmental and non-governmental initiatives in developing countries throughout the world. Ending all forms of discrimination against women and achieving gender equality is one of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, which emphasizes that girls’ empowerment is crucial not just for attainment of individual rights, but also for accelerating economic growth and development. Girls’ empowerment begins with quality education and may include providing access to information about their rights, teaching life skills, promoting equal job and leadership opportunities, creating possibilities to make their own informed life choices, including those related to family planning and reproductive health, and others. This presentation is based on an implementation study of a girls’ education and empowerment project in Uganda developed by one of the largest international NGOs.

The program targets one of the most vulnerable population groups, adolescent girls. Investing in adolescents, and specifically adolescent girls, promises both immediate benefits as well as dividends for future generations (Amin et al., 2013). Through girls’ education, labor force participation, fertility choices and health, girls can play a crucial role in a country development. The program has been introduced in the following countries: Bangladesh, Uganda, Tanzania, South Sudan, Liberia, and Sierra Leone; with the largest program location in Uganda. The following barriers prevent Ugandan girls from receiving quality education and further entering the labor market: negative attitudes towards girls’ education among policy makers; poor response to the needs of young female students; child marriage (10% of girls are married before the age of 15 (Girls not Brides, 2016)) and pregnancy (the rate of teenage pregnancy is about 30% (BRAC, 2014)); inadequate sanitation and hygiene facilities; lack of female teachers; sexual harassment and gender-based violence (nearly 60% of women in Uganda have experienced physical violence since the age of 15 (Wori Uganda, 2015)); and health concerns, particularly HIV and AIDS, that lead to absenteeism at schools.

The program aims to address some of the very pressing issues that adolescent girls face today. Its clubs for girls offer the opportunity for mentorship, life skills training and microfinance. These clubs create safe spaces where teenage girls can create their own social networks with peers, receive health education and life skills training. Moreover, in this particular context, there is a demand among girls for livelihood training, financial literacy and building entrepreneurial mind-set, all of which is taught throughout the program. Previous evaluations of this program in Uganda have shown that over a two-year period, teen pregnancy rates in the villages with such a program were 20 to 25% lower than those in a control sample from similarly situated villages without the program. These results suggest a significant effect of family planning knowledge imparted by this training. Resulting from health education, the usage of condoms also rose with 67% of program participants always using a condom versus only 38% in the control sample. The survey also noted an increase in savings levels among girls.

In this presentation, we describe the given context and the challenges that adolescent girls face in Uganda; then we go into details of the structure and features of the program and particularly its educational and training components; finally, we demonstrate the current results of this initiative, discussing what works well and what could be improved. Our findings are based on the information drawn from the thorough literature review and document analysis conducted prior to the field research trip to Uganda, on-site observations in Kampala, interviews with program staff working directly with the program clubs and the results of our implementation study.

This research offers a unique perspective on the issue of girls’ education and empowerment. The results of this project may potentially inform other organizations working in this area. Finally, this project aims to contribute to achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals through contributing to improving knowledge related to providing access to quality education, alleviating poverty by empowering adolescent girls and young women, ensuring gender equality, and promoting decent work for all.


References
Amin, S., Austrian, A., Chau, M., Glazer, K., Green, E., Stewart, D., and Stoner, M. (2013). Adolescent girls vulnerability index: Guiding strategic investment in Uganda. New York: Population Council.

Girls not Brides. (2016). Child marriage around the world: Uganda. Retrieved from https://www.girlsnotbrides.org/child-marriage/uganda/

BRAC. (2014). Empowerment and livelihood for adolescents. Retrieved from http://www.brac.net/search/item/723-empowerment-and-livelihood-for-adolescents

Wori Uganda. (2015). 9 Facts about domestic violence in Uganda you should know. Retrieved from http://woriuganda.org/9-facts-about-domestic-violence-in-uganda-you-should-know/

Authors

• Veronika Rozhenkova, UCLA, WORLD Policy Analysis Center

• Skye Allmang, UCLA, WORLD Policy Analysis Center