Human Capital, Financial Capital, and the Economic Empowerment of Female Adolescents in Uganda and Tanzania
Six out of ten of the world’s poorest people are women1 who, as the primary family caretakers, shoulder much of the burden of raising children and producing food. This is no easy task, yet close to 75% of the world's women are unable to get bank loans because their jobs are unpaid or informal and because they lack the necessary financial knowledge.2 Empowering women through education and financial literacy training may help women achieve a greater degree of financial independence. When afforded more educational opportunities in adolescence, women go on to receive more education, increasing the overall human capital of the country and potentially helping to break the cycle of poverty.
Women in both Uganda and Tanzania bear the primary responsibility for both subsistence agriculture, especially food production, and domestic work, yet decision-making at the household level continues to be male-dominated. In Tanzania women are legally protected against gender discrimination, but only a very small percentage of decision-making positions in ministries and government bodies are held by women. Women in Uganda are also disadvantaged socially—a power imbalance within the community tends to marginalize women, making them even poorer than men.
The Adolescent Development Programme (ADP) aims to increase the economic empowerment of adolescent girls in rural Uganda and Tanzania by working to change social patterns such as early marriage and the practice of dowry-giving. By focusing on providing adolescents with continued education and training, girls are enabled to make informed economic decisions and link their new capabilities, expectations, aspirations and opportunities to achieve economic empowerment.
The project will evaluate the impacts of the ADP in roughly 300 villages dispersed throughout Uganda and Tanzania. The program will be implemented at the village level, and aims to reach all girls between the ages of 14-20 in a given village. The ADP will provide girls with a package of complementary skills and training designed to empower Ugandan and Tanzanian female adolescents through two streams of assistance:
- Formation of Adolescent Development Centres (ADCs) which will provide a context and location for programs which include life skills training, health assistance, income generation skills training, and asset transfer.
- Financial literacy training and access to microfinance.
The ADCs will promote female empowerment by providing a space in which the development of social, financial, and life skills training will be run. There are expected to be around 20 to 25 girls in each ADC, from which two girls will be selected and trained as Adolescent Leaders (ALs), to manage all the ADC activities and facilitate the training courses.
Researchers are interested in a number of outcomes, including the effects on revenue from economic activity, control over earnings, school enrollment and progression, engagement in risky behaviors, early marriage, information sharing among young women, assistance provided among social networks and improvements in their ability to analyze and gain from potential economic and social opportunities. Researchers will also try to measure changes in girls' expectations and aspirations, as well as those of their parents.
Results forthcoming.
1 United Nations Development Programme, “Fast Facts – Gender Equality and UNDP,” http://www.undp.org/publications/fast-facts/FF-gender.pdf.
2 United Nations Centre for Human Settlements, “Press Release: 100 Million Homeless in World – Most are Women and Dependant Children,” http://www.un.org/Conferences/habitat/unchs/press/women.htm.
