Researchers evaluated the impact of a program addressing constraints related to hygiene infrastructure and access to sanitary products while addressing social stigma around menstruation, on girls’ learning and psychosocial well-being in Madagascar. The program led to improvements in academic learning outcomes and anxiety. Reduction in stigma and improvements in observed hygiene behaviors were larger in schools with peer leaders who were identified, trained, and coached to address these harmful social norms.

Government ministries introduced middle school scholarships to cover girls’ transportation, housing, and supplies; researchers evaluated how paying for out-of-pocket expenses affected schooling impacts and child marriage. The researchers found that the intervention reduced girls’ chance of leaving middle school by 53 percent and reduced their chance of getting married as children by 49 percent.

In Colombia, researchers evaluated the impact of an online sexual health course implemented in public middle schools on adolescents’ sexual health knowledge, behavior, and attitudes towards sexual health. The study showed that the online course led to improved sexual health knowledge and attitudes, and increased the likelihood that students redeemed vouchers for condoms, an important precautionary behavior.

Researchers introduced a convenient and hygienic sanitary product, reusable menstrual cups, to Nepalese girls in the seventh and eighth grades. Their evaluation addressed several questions: Is menstruation as large a barrier to education as many believe? Does switching to modern sanitary products increase attendance and school performance among girls?

In Sub-Saharan Africa, young girls drop out of school at higher rates than boys. A large portion of drop outs occur between primary and secondary school, when families in most countries have to start paying fees for their children to continue attending school. In Zambia, researchers designed and evaluated the impact of a training that taught adolescent girls non-cognitive skills to negotiate health and educational decisions with authority figures in their lives. They found that girls who were taught negotiation skills had better educational outcomes in the following three years. The negotiation training appeared to have larger effects on girls with higher abilities.

Researchers evaluated the impact of an early childhood psychosocial stimulation program on child development outcomes in urban Odisha, India. They found that a home-visiting stimulation program led to greater development outcomes, particularly for boys, stunted children, and children with more educated mothers.

Researchers, in partnership with BRAC, are conducting a randomized evaluation with both male and female adolescents in Tanzania to identify the differential impacts of demand side and supply side interventions and to better understand the role males play in affecting sexual and reproductive health outcomes.

Researchers are partnering with the Government of Niger to evaluate the impact of empowerment clubs providing adolescents girls with life skills trainings; gender norms clubs designed to change gender-related norms among young men; or both clubs implemented in the same villages on gender norms and women’s empowerment outcomes.