Abstract

The Sahel Women Empowerment and Demographic Dividend (P150080) project is a regional project aiming to accelerate the demographic transition by addressing both supply- and demand-side constraints to family planning and reproductive and sexual health. To achieve its objective, the project targets adolescent girls and young women mainly between the ages of 8 and 24, who are vulnerable to early marriage, teenage pregnancy, and early school drop-out. The project targeted 9 countries of the Sahel and Western Africa (Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger) and is expanding in other African countries. The SWEDD is structured into three main components: component 1 seeks to generate demand for reproductive, maternal, neonatal, child health and nutrition products and services; component 2 seeks to improve supply of these products and qualified personnel; and component 3 seeks to strengthen national capacity and policy dialogue.

The World Bank Africa Gender Innovation Lab and its partners are conducting rigorous impact evaluations of key interventions under component 1 to assess their effects on child marriage, fertility, and adolescent girls and young women’s empowerment. The interventions were a set of activities targeting adolescent girls and their communities, designed in collaboration with the government of Côte d’Ivoire. These were (i) safe spaces to empower girls through the provision of life skills and SRH education; (ii) support to income-generating activities (IGA) with the provision of grants and entrepreneurship training; (iii) husbands’ and future husbands’ clubs, providing boys of the community with life skills and SRH education; and finally (iv) community sensitization by religious and village leaders. The latter two have the objective to change restrictive social norms and create an enabling environment for girls’ empowerment.

These data represent the first round of data collection (baseline) for the impact evaluation.

Geographic coverage

Mali, Regions of Kayes, Ségou and Sikasso

Analysis unit

Households, individuals

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

The baseline sample comprises 8776 households and 7463 girls living in the regions of Kayes, Sikasso and Ségou in Mali. To define the sample, we partnered with INSTAT Mali. At first, INSTAT conducted a census of the population living in the areas around the 49 schools selected by the education focal point that will all benefit from the SWEDD program. Therefore, census activities were concentrated in 287 villages located within a radius of 10/15km around these schools. Eventually, 10 villages had to be dropped due to security reasons. Keeping with the eligibility criteria of surveying villages where there were at least 10 households with a girl aged between 12 and 24 years old, 270 villages were eventually sampled. Households were surveyed before randomization into groups assigned to receive the SWEDD program.

The objective of the baseline survey was to build a comprehensive dataset, which would serve as a reference point for the entire sample, before treatment and control assignment and program implementation.

Mode of data collection

Computer Assisted Personal Interview [capi]

Research instrument

The questionnaire administrated to girls contains the following sections: 1. Education 2. Marriage and children 3. Aspirations 4. Health and family planning 5. Knowledge of HIV/AIDS 6. Women's empowerment 7. Gender-based violence 8. Income-generating activities 9. Savings and credit 10. Personal relationships and social networks 11. Committee members and community participation

The household questionnaire was administered to the head of the household or to an authorized person capable of answering questions about all individuals in the household. The adolescent questionnaire was administered to an eligible pre-selected girl within the household. Considering the modules of the adolescent questionnaire, it was only administered by female enumerators. The questionnaires were written in French, translated into Bambara, and programmed on tablets in French using the CAPI program.

Abstract

The Sahel Women Empowerment and Demographic Dividend (P150080) project is a regional project aiming to accelerate the demographic transition by addressing both supply- and demand-side constraints to family planning and reproductive and sexual health. To achieve its objective, the project targets adolescent girls and young women mainly between the ages of 8 and 24, who are vulnerable to early marriage, teenage pregnancy, and early school drop-out. The project targeted 9 countries of the Sahel and Western Africa (Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger) and is expanding in other African countries. The SWEDD is structured into three main components: component 1 seeks to generate demand for reproductive, maternal, neonatal, child health and nutrition products and services; component 2 seeks to improve supply of these products and qualified personnel; and component 3 seeks to strengthen national capacity and policy dialogue.

The World Bank Africa Gender Innovation Lab and its partners are conducting rigorous impact evaluations of key interventions under component 1 to assess their effects on child marriage, fertility, and adolescent girls and young women’s empowerment. The interventions were a set of activities targeting adolescent girls and their communities, designed in collaboration with the government of Côte d’Ivoire. These were (i) safe spaces to empower girls through the provision of life skills and SRH education; (ii) support to income-generating activities (IGA) with the provision of grants and entrepreneurship training; (iii) husbands’ and future husbands’ clubs, providing boys of the community with life skills and SRH education; and finally (iv) community sensitization by religious and village leaders. The latter two have the objective to change restrictive social norms and create an enabling environment for girls’ empowerment.

These data represent the first round of data collection (baseline) for the impact evaluation. The sample comprises 5,310 households and 5,263 girls living in the regions of Poro, Tchologo, Bagoué, Folon, and Kabadougou.

Geographic coverage

Northern regions of Côte d’Ivoire: Poro, Tchologo, Bagoué, Folon, and Kabadougou.

Analysis unit

Households, adolescent girls

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

The study was conducted in 280 localities in the catchment area of 60 middle schools (or collèges) eligible for the program in the regions of Poro, Tchologo, Bagoué, Folon, and Kabadougou. These 60 eligible schools were identified, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and the Program Implementation Unit, out of a total of 83 schools in the five regions of program implementation, and correspond to the schools with the largest populations of girls at the time, to reach the project’s targeted number of beneficiaries. We then selected 280 localities (villages or neighborhoods of urban localities) in the catchment areas of the schools. To select the adolescent girls eligible for the program, we conducted a census with 45,883 households in the 280 localities. Girls were considered eligible for community safe spaces if they were 8–24 years old and had never been to school or did not go to school during the academic year 2017/2018. Priority criteria were defined to prioritize girls who were orphans, single mothers, or single but currently pregnant. In addition, a vulnerability index was constructed with the census data to select in priority girls who were considered the most at-risk of early marriage and early pregnancies, due to the vulnerability of the household. We sampled a fourth of the total eligible girls who were aged 12–24 to be part of the impact evaluation sample and be surveyed at baseline.

This step-by-step sampling procedure provides a representative sample of eligible girls aged 12 and above in the regions since the sample covers the majority of the schools and villages located in the regions, providing further informative power to the results.

The objective of the baseline survey was to build a comprehensive dataset, which would serve as a reference point for the entire sample, before treatment and control assignment and program implementation.

Mode of data collection

Computer Assisted Personal Interview [capi]

Research instrument

The data consists of responses from households to questions pertaining to: 1. List of household members 2. Education and employment of household members 3. Characteristics of housing and durable goods 4. Chocs and food security 5. Household head's aspirations for their children 6. Attitudes on women's empowerment and gender equality

The questionnaire administrated to girls contains the following sections: 1. Education 2. Marriage and children 3. Aspirations 4. Reproductive health and family planning 5. Knowledge of HIV/AIDS 6. Women's empowerment 7. Gender-based violence 8. Income-generating activities 9. Savings and credits 10. Personal relationships and social networks

The household questionnaire was administered to the head of the household or to an authorized person capable of answering questions about all individuals in the household. The adolescent questionnaire was administered to an eligible pre-selected girl within the household. Considering the modules of the adolescent questionnaire, it was only administered by female enumerators. The questionnaires were written in French and programmed on tablets in French using the CAPI program.