Highlights from Africa SPJ: HIGHLIGHTS FROM Empowering women and girls through social protection AFRICA SPJ: EMPOWERING WOMEN AND GIRLS THROUGH SOCIAL PROTECTION © 2023 International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank 1818 H Street NW Washington DC 20433 Telephone: 202-473-1000 Internet: www.worldbank.org This work is a product of the staff of The World Bank with external contributions. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this work do not necessarily reflect the views of The World Bank, its Board of Executive Directors, or the governments they represent. The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or currency of the data included in this work and does not assume responsibility for any errors, omissions, or discrepancies in the information, or liability with respect to the use of or failure to use the information, methods, processes, or conclusions set forth. 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Cover design: Jihane El Khoury Roederer ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This paper was written by Ioana Botea, Wendy Cunningham, and Lindsay Mossman. The authors would like to thank Sophia Friedson-Ridenour, Sarika Gupta, and Palak Rawal for their extensive feedback and inputs. Kehinde Ajayi, Kathleen Beegle, Aline Coudouel, Alessandra Heinemann, Jana el- Horr, and Maria Beatriz Orlando served as peer reviewers. Iffath Sharif, Dhushyanth Raju, and Camilla Holmemo provided invaluable guidance and support throughout the assignment. Fiona Mackintosh provided editorial assistance and Jihane El Khoury Roederer created the graphic design. The authors would also like to recognize the following colleagues who provided detailed technical inputs and feedback: Kara Adamon, Fanen Ade, Hajalalaina Consuella Rabearivony Andrianjakanava, Alfredo Manfredini Bohm, Thomas Bossuroy, Benedicte de la Brière, Emelyne Calimoutou, Laura Campbell, Valeria Cardia, Samantha Zaldivar Chimal, Christabel Dadzie, Clara Delavallade, Roman Tesfaye Gebremedhin, Rebekka Grun, Abu Yadetta Hateu, Emma Hobson, Natalie Ann Jackson, Estelle Koussoube, Margareta Norris Harrit, Kevin Heraniah, Muderis Abdulahi Mohammed, Mack Capehart Mulbah, Michael Munavu, Patrick Premand, Zo Andrianjaka Tahiana Randrianatoandro, Julia Rachel Ravelosoa, Laura Rawlings, Lea Rouanet, Abla Safir, Samantha de Silva, Siv Tokle, Riantsoa Kanto Najaina Tovohasimbavaka, Sara Troiano, Ubah Thomas Ubah, Emily Weedon, and Penny Williams. The work was financed by a grant from the World Bank’s Rapid Social Response and Adaptive and Dynamic Social Protection (RSR-ADSP) Umbrella Trust Fund Program, which was supported by Australia, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. II  |  HIGHLIGHTS FROM AFRICA: EMPOWERING WOMEN AND GIRLS THROUGH SOCIAL PROTECTION AUTHOR’S NOTE This guide is part of a package aimed at helping Social Protection and Jobs (SPJ) task teams in the Africa region to incorporate women’s and girls’ empowerment (WGE) into their operational and analytical work. The package consists of four products: 1. Dashboard of Women’s and Girls’ Empowerment Interventions A curated repository of WGE interventions from the SPJ portfolio in Africa, including information on operational details, any impact evaluation results, and implementation arrangements – with various filters enabling users to tailor the information. 2. Highlights from Africa: Empowering Women and Girls through Social Protection A paper that condenses the information from the dashboard to identify evidence-based types of WGE interventions and draw lessons for moving the WGE agenda forward. 3. Measurement Guide: Four Indicators for Assessing Women’s and Girls’ Empowerment A guide proposing a set of essential indicators to track changes in WGE as part of lending operations and providing guidance on how to collect and analyze the data. 4. Women’s Empowerment in Practice: Lessons from the Ghana Productive Safety Nets Project A qualitative case study presenting beneficiary and frontline provider perspectives on the implementation and experience of WGE interventions on the ground. These materials can be used side-by-side or on their own. The resources use the operational approach outlined in “An Operational Approach to Enhancing Women’s and Girls’ Empowerment in World Bank Operations” (Cunningham and Gupta, 2022), which is a guide to linking empowerment concepts with intervention areas that can be integrated into World Bank operations.  III Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS II AUTHOR’S NOTE III ABBREVIATIONS V EXECUTIVE SUMMARY VI 1 INTRODUCTION 1 2 METHODOLOGY USED TO IDENTIFY WGE INTERVENTIONS 4 3 WGE INTERVENTIONS FROM THE AFRICA SPJ PORTFOLIO 7 4 LESSONS LEARNED 26 5 RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS 28 REFERENCES 30 IV  |  HIGHLIGHTS FROM AFRICA: EMPOWERING WOMEN AND GIRLS THROUGH SOCIAL PROTECTION IV ABBREVIATIONS Acronyms Definition ASNP Adaptive Safety Nets Project in Niger BMGF Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation DPO Development Policy Operation FCV Fragile, Conflict, and Violence GBV Gender-based Violence GERLS Girls’ Ebola Recovery Livelihood Support Project in Liberia GEWEL Girls’ Education and Women’s Empowerment and Livelihoods Project in Zambia GRM Grievance Redress Mechanism HDD Harnessing the Demographic Dividend Project in Mozambique HNP Health, Nutrition, and Population Global Practice ID Identification Document IEG Independent Evaluation Group ICR Implementation Completion and Results ISR Implementation Status and Results J-PAL Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab KGS Keeping Girls in School LIPW Labor-intensive Public Works MoHA Ministry of Home Affairs NASSP National Social Safety Nets Project in Nigeria PAD Project Appraisal Document PSNP Productive Safety Net Project in Ghana RPSNP Rural Productive Safety Net Program in Ethiopia SBCC Social and Behavior Change Communication SPJ Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice SSNP Social Safety Net Project in Madagascar and the Gambia SSNSP Social Safety Net System Project in Mauritania SRH Sexual and Reproductive Health SWEDD Sahel Women’s Empowerment and the Demographic Dividend Project SWL Supporting Women’s Livelihoods UNFPA United Nations Population Fund UPSNP Urban Productive Safety Net Program in Ethiopia WGE Women’s and Girls’ Empowerment YEOP Youth Employment and Opportunities Project in Kenya   |  V EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Women’s and girls’ empowerment (WGE) is a key priority for the World Bank’s engagement in the Africa region. Gender equality has long been central to the World Bank’s twin goals of ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity.1 The Bank has made substantial investments aimed at closing gaps between men and women as well as advancing our understanding of what works to close those gaps. However, only recently has the Bank recognized WGE as a policy goal in its own right. WGE emerged a key strategy for human capital development in Africa in 2019.2 This highlights the need for guidance and tools to help task teams operationalize the WGE agenda in the region. The Africa region and the Social Protection and Jobs (SPJ) Global Practice have both made strides towards achieving WGE, though coordination and knowledge-sharing could be improved. The Africa Human Capital Plan has resulted in an estimated US$6 billion of new Bank-financed projects championing women and girls in the two years since its launch in 2019.3 Similarly, the share of Africa SPJ projects referencing women’s empowerment as a goal increased from 5 percent to 33 percent between 2014 and 2020.4 The share of gender-tagged SPJ projects increased from 56 percent in FY17 to 100 percent in FY22. The strategic emphasis on WGE has substantially expanded engagement and innovation in this area. However, initiatives remain dispersed, often leaving task teams to start from zero rather than being able to draw from prior experience. This paper highlights WGE interventions from the Africa SPJ portfolio for easier and more effective project design and implementation. Based on an in-depth review of selected projects in the SPJ portfolio in Africa, the paper identifies evidence-based types of WGE interventions that task teams can incorporate into new or existing projects. The description of each intervention type includes a brief explanation of the mechanism through which it contributes to WGE as well as references to projects implementing it. Accompanying case studies provide a deep dive into specific interventions to illustrate how different projects have responded to WGE constraints. The paper is not intended to provide a comprehensive overview of initiatives in the region but instead curates examples of good practice in the design and implementation of WGE interventions. 1 World Bank (2015a). 2 World Bank (2019). 3 World Bank (2021). 4 According to the findings of an internal portfolio review conducted in October 2020. VI  |  HIGHLIGHTS FROM AFRICA: EMPOWERING WOMEN AND GIRLS THROUGH SOCIAL PROTECTION Operational Approach to WGE The paper uses an Operational Approach to WGE and recognizes three pillars necessary for women to set and achieve their goals: resources, agency, and context. It defines “empowerment” as a process of change by which those who have been denied the ability to make strategic life choices acquire this ability.5 Specifically, it describes the empowerment process as the removal of barriers in three interrelated pillars: (i) “resources,” mainly physical/financial, human, and social capital; (ii) “agency,” the ability to make decisions about one’s own life; and (iii) “context,” formal and informal social norms, relationships, and institutions. While interventions in each pillar can increase the ability of women and girls to make and realize choices, implementing actions in all three pillars is more likely to achieve transformational change.6 Ten types of WGE interventions stand out in the Africa SPJ portfolio. The interventions are implemented as part of social safety net or economic inclusion/labor market projects that have WGE as a primary or secondary objective. Most interventions target adult women, with a subset focusing on adolescent girls. The identified interventions each fall into one of the three empowerment pillars depending on the main WGE need they are responding to. In practice, the most effective interventions often address multiple constraints and cut across different pillars. Resources interventions include those that provide women and girls with cash or productive assets (financial and physical capital), increase their knowledge and skills (human capital), expand their social networks (social capital), or provide them with information. They also include ancillary services, such as childcare provision. Control over resources gives women and girls the means to realize their choices. Most of the Bank’s SPJ operations expand girls’ and women’s resources by providing them with cash transfers, productive grants, or income through employment schemes. The resource transfer tends to be the core activity of SPJ projects and the reason why most projects contribute to WGE even without explicit intention. In addition, four types of resource interventions are being implemented in Africa SPJ projects: (i) women-owned digital accounts; (ii) childcare provision; (iii) vocational training in male- dominated sectors; and (iv) safe spaces for adolescent girls. Nigeria and Ghana examples illustrate the type of support in this pillar. Agency interventions aim to strengthen women’s and girls’ goal-setting, decision-making, and leadership skills, increase their self-efficacy, and foster solidarity and collective action among them. Interventions can be individual or collective in approach. This internal strength makes it possible for women and girls to make strategic life choices. SPJ projects in Africa have included three main types of agency-enhancing interventions: (i) psychosocial and life skills training; (ii) behavioral nudges; and (iii) gender-responsive grievance redress mechanisms (GRM). Interventions in Niger, Madagascar, and Zambia offer concrete examples in this pillar. Context interventions are those that engage the broader community and gatekeepers, such as fathers, husbands, or local leaders. They can also promote legal and policy reforms to change inequitable norms 5 Kabeer (1999). 6 See Cunningham and Gupta (2022) for more detailed information. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY  |  VII and institutions. These interventions aim to create an enabling environment for women and girls to mobilize their resources and practice their agency. Based on the in-depth review, projects include two main types of context interventions: (i) engaging community leaders and other gatekeepers at the community level, and (ii) engaging husbands, fathers, and other gatekeepers at the household level. The Sahel provides the best examples of such interventions. Four Key Lessons SPJ projects can successfully incorporate WGE interventions as part of standard design. There’s a new generation of SPJ projects taking an intentional approach to WGE. In contrast with the previously held belief that targeting women automatically leads to their empowerment, SPJ projects are increasingly recognizing—and responding to—the multitude of factors limiting women’s ability to live to their full potential. The reviewed projects include an array of activities (e.g., life skills training, childcare, husbands’ clubs) and delivery arrangements (e.g., group-based implementation, digital accounts) that complement standard project design to strengthen its impact on WGE. Transformational change requires interventions from multiple pillars. The review highlights complementarities between interventions in the resources, agency, and contexts pillars. Two SPJ operations, in Zambia and Mozambique, stand out for their holistic approach to WGE. Both projects layer several interventions to provide women with resources, strengthen their voice and agency, and, in the context pillar, facilitate positive social norms change. Moreover, SPJ projects often include interventions from multiple pillars to mitigate risks, such as an increase in gender-based violence (GBV), associated with transforming power relations. SPJ projects promote WGE alongside core project objectives. SPJ projects advance WGE even when it is not one of their main objectives. While the Zambia and Mozambique projects have explicit WGE objectives, most identified WGE interventions are drawn from SPJ projects whose main aim is to reduce poverty, strengthen resilience to shocks, or improve employment outcomes. The WGE interventions are incorporated into these projects to reduce underlying gender inequalities and to strengthen the main project objectives by playing a mutually reinforcing role. Projects can incorporate WGE interventions gradually during implementation. While several projects included WGE interventions as part of initial project design, many incorporated the more logistically complex and transformative interventions after client buy-in and delivery capacity had improved. For example, in Zambia, the “context” interventions engaging husbands and community leaders were incorporated based on the recommendations of a GBV assessment. In Ghana, after observing implementation challenges, the safety nets project has gradually phased in WGE adaptations such as the provision of crèches and temporary latrines at work sites. The design phase is not the only opportunity for projects to incorporate WGE interventions. VIII  |  HIGHLIGHTS FROM AFRICA: EMPOWERING WOMEN AND GIRLS THROUGH SOCIAL PROTECTION Four Recommendations Task teams aiming to promote WGE should start by identifying the most pressing constraints in all three pillars. The Operational Approach to WGE provides a stepwise method. The first step is to define the goal of the project—which could be closing a particular gender gap or improving a particular outcome for women or girls. The second step is to identify the constraints in each pillar that prevent women or girls from realizing that goal. The third and final step is to design project activities around the most pressing among the identified constraints. In practice, even if implementing interventions across all three pillars is not feasible or desirable, it is important to determine the full set of factors that may limit the project’s ability to achieve its goal. The SPJ Global Practice should recognize the potential for increasing its engagement under the context pillar. Interventions aimed at expanding women’s resources are at the core of SPJ projects. The in-depth review also revealed the important progress made on increasing girls’ and women’s agency. However, although the approach to WGE is becoming increasingly holistic, SPJ projects have had limited engagement in the context pillar. More analysis and experimentation are needed to understand and address underlying social norms. Interventions engaging husbands, fathers, and community leaders have had promising results and should be tested more widely within SPJ operations. SPJ task teams should leverage a broad set of financing instruments to enact systemic WGE reform. Although Development Policy Operations (DPOs) have rarely been led by the SPJ Global Practice and thus were not covered by the in-depth review, they can be an effective vehicle for establishing a favorable environment for WGE. Complementing SPJ investment operations with DPOs that support policy reforms aimed at reducing key legal and policy barriers to WGE can be an effective strategy for overcoming context constraints. The DPO Gender Dashboard includes examples of policy reforms that have promoted gender equality and WGE. Task teams should systematically measure progress towards WGE. Although a significant share of projects identify WGE as an objective, few projects designate any indicators to measure it. With the exception of projects accompanied by impact evaluations, most measure women’s participation rather than their empowerment, using output indicators such as the number of women beneficiaries. Integrating WGE outcome indicators in results frameworks increases accountability and enables task teams to adjust the design of the project as needed. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY  |  IX 1 INTRODUCTION Women’s and girls’ empowerment (WGE) is a key priority for the World Bank’s engagement in the Africa region. Gender equality has long been central to the World Bank’s twin goals of ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity.7 The Bank has, therefore, made substantial investments aimed at closing gaps between women and men as well as at advancing our understanding of what works to close those gaps. However, only recently has the Bank recognized WGE as a policy goal in its own right and a key strategy for human capital development in Africa.8 This highlights the need for guidance and tools to help task teams operationalize the WGE agenda in the region. The Social Protection and Jobs (SPJ) sector plays an important role in empowering women and girls. Social protection interventions have been proven to have wide-ranging positive impacts on women and girls.9 The impact on women’s economic outcomes is supported by the largest body of evidence. When cash transfer, public works, and labor market interventions designate women as the main recipients of payments within households, they enable women to access more resources and increase their role as decision-makers. There is also increased recognition of the potential for social protection operations, and social safety nets in particular, to generate transformative change given their rapidly expanding scale and unique ability to reach marginalized groups. More recently, social protection projects have started to move beyond targeting women and girls as recipients of resource transfers to incorporating elements aimed at increasing their agency and challenging inequitable social norms.10 The Africa region and the SPJ Global Practice have made strides toward WGE, though much remains to be done. Since its launch in 2019, the Africa Human Capital Plan is estimated to have led to over US$6 billion of new projects championing girls and women.11 Similarly, the share of Africa SPJ projects referencing women’s empowerment as a goal increased from 5 percent to 33 percent from 2014 to 2020.12 The share of gender-tagged SPJ projects increased from 56 percent in FY17 to 100 percent in FY22. The attention given to WGE within the Africa SPJ portfolio has resulted in considerable innovation. However, these initiatives remain dispersed, often requiring task teams to start from zero rather than being able to draw from prior experience. 7 World Bank (2015a). 8 World Bank (2019). 9 IEG (2014). 10 According to the findings of an internal portfolio review conducted in October 2020. 11 World Bank (2021). 12 According to the findings of an internal portfolio review conducted in October 2020. INTRODUCTION | 1 Efforts to promote WGE can be strengthened by adopting an organizing structure that divides empowerment into its underlying actionable components. The Operational Approach to WGE provides such a structure.13 It defines “empowerment” as a process of change by which those who have been denied the ability to make strategic life choices acquire this ability.14 It posits that empowerment relies on three interrelated components: (i) “resources,” the physical/financial, human, and social capital that enhance women’s or girls’ ability to exercise choice; (ii) “agency,” the capacity for women or girls to make decisions about their own lives and act on them to achieve a desired outcome, free of violence, retribution, or fear; and (iii) “context,” the formal and informal social arrangements, mainly norms and institutions, that shape and influence the ability of women and girls to express agency and assert control over resources. While interventions in any single pillar might advance the well-being of women and girls, working across all three may relieve multiple interrelated constraints and empower women and girls to make and realize choices that can lead to specific sectoral achievements.15 To help task teams to better integrate WGE throughout the project cycle, this paper consolidates and curates existing experiences and lessons from 12 SPJ projects to provide specific and concrete information to be used by World Bank task teams. Based on an accompanying repository of WGE interventions in Africa SPJ projects, the paper identifies 10 main intervention types that are operating in the context of World Bank projects (see Box 1). Each intervention type is mapped to one of the three empowerment pillars – resources, agency, and context. Six case studies are presented in boxes across the paper to illustrate the nature of WGE interventions as well as the feasibility of including them in project design. The paper also reflects on lessons from the design and implementation of the WGE interventions and provides recommendations for moving the WGE agenda forward through lending operations. 13 Cunningham and Gupta (2022). Kabeer (1999). This concept is related to, but not equivalent to, reducing gender gaps or targeting women through sectoral projects. Instead, focusing on 14  empowerment requires shifting away from seeing women and girls only as beneficiaries to recognizing their role in achieving outcomes of importance to themselves. 15 For more detailed information, see Cunningham and Gupta (2022). 2  |  HIGHLIGHTS FROM AFRICA: EMPOWERING WOMEN AND GIRLS THROUGH SOCIAL PROTECTION BOX 1. Types of WGE Interventions by Pillar RESOURCES: Interventions that transfer cash or productive assets (financial and physical capital), increase their knowledge and skills (human capital), expand their social networks (social capital), provide them with information, or provide them with ancillary services to strengthen their access to and control over resources: 1. Monetary transfers to women 2. Women-owned bank or digital accounts 3. Childcare provision 4. Vocational training in male-dominated sectors 5. Safe spaces for adolescent girls AGENCY: Interventions that strengthen women’s and girls’ goal-setting, decision-making, and leadership skills, increase their self-efficacy, and foster solidarity and collective action among them (which can be individual or collective in approach): 6. Psychosocial and life skills training 7. Behavioral nudges 8. Gender-responsive grievance redress mechanisms CONTEXT: Interventions that engage husbands, parents, or community leaders or that promote legal and policy reform to change inequitable norms and institutions: 9. Engaging community and religious leaders 10. Engaging husbands and fathers Note: The pillars are listed in descending order in accordance with the types of interventions with which World Bank staff tend to have the most experience. The paper is structured as follows: Section 2 highlights the methodology that was used for the underlying in-depth review. Section 3 showcases effective and innovative WGE interventions drawn from Africa SPJ projects in the resources, agency, and context pillars. Finally, Section 4 offers insights on lessons learned and recommendations moving forward. INTRODUCTION | 3 2 M ETHODOLOGY USED TO IDENTIFY WGE INTERVENTIONS This paper is based on an in-depth review of SPJ projects in the Africa portfolio. The goal of the review was not to generate a comprehensive list of interventions related to WGE in the Africa SPJ portfolio but to identify the best examples of project activities and document their design and implementation features. The methodology that was used had six main steps (Figure 1). A participatory and iterative approach was taken, and a team with gender and human capital expertise provided the authors with guidance and feedback throughout. FIGURE 1. Methodology 1. Analytical 2. Project 3. Document 4. Initial 5. Interviews 6. Final Review Selection Review Categorization Categorization • Review of • Longlisting of • Review of • Interventions • Key informant • Revision and World Bank different types project PADs, categorized interview with finalization of and external of active SPJ ISR, ICRs,and into an Excel task teams the repository documents projects in Africa analytical papers repository • Request • Identification • Shortlisting of • Summary of additional of proven or different types design and documents from promising of active SPJ implementation task teams types of WGE projects in Africa details interventions The process started with a review of the theoretical and evidence base. The in-depth review was grounded in the Operational Approach to WGE and on evidence of what works. A thorough review of key World Bank and external frameworks and studies provided the basis for constructing the repository and writing the paper. These included the World Bank’s Group Gender Strategy (FY16-23): Gender Equality, Poverty Reduction and Inclusive Growth, the World Bank’s Voice and Agency: Empowering Women and Girls for Shared Prosperity report, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s Conceptual Model of Women and Girls’ Empowerment, and the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab’s (J-PAL’s) Enhancing Women’s Agency: Cross-Cutting Lessons from Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Studies in Low- and Middle- Income Countries report, among others.16 This review further identified the types of interventions that had been proven effective in advancing WGE. 16 World Bank (2015a), Klugman et al (2014), BMGF (2019), and Chang et al (2020). 4  |  HIGHLIGHTS FROM AFRICA: EMPOWERING WOMEN AND GIRLS THROUGH SOCIAL PROTECTION Second, 12 projects were selected based on their WGE focus and to reflect the full range of project types and country contexts. The full list of active SPJ projects in Africa was narrowed down to those that either defined WGE as an objective or included WGE interventions across multiple pillars. Based on the shortlist, 12 projects were selected for the in-depth review to cover the range of project types (safety nets, labor market support, etc.) and country contexts, including countries affected by fragility, conflict, and violence (FCV). In addition, the review included the Sahel Women’s Empowerment and Demographic Dividend (SWEDD) project, led by the Health, Nutrition, and Population (HNP) Global Practice, because it is considered the region’s flagship WGE operation. Third, the WGE interventions within each shortlisted project were identified. For each project, the review included the Project Appraisal Document (PAD), Implementation Status and Results (ISR) reports, Implementation Completion and Results (ICR) reports, other implementation or monitoring reports, gender assessments, process and impact evaluations, and any available and pertinent analytical work. The desk review generated a detailed list of WGE interventions, that could be project components, activities within components, or design and implementation features, that were then categorized and documented. TABLE 1. Projects Selected for In-Depth Review Country Project Gender Project Name Code Tagged Social Protection and Jobs (SPJ) Global Practice Ethiopia P151712 Yes Urban Productive Safety Net Program (UPSNP) P163350 Yes Rural Productive Safety Net Program (RPSNP) The Gambia P167260 Yes Social Safety Net Project (SSNP) Ghana P164603 Yes Productive Safety Net Project (PSNP) Kenya P151831 Yes Youth Employment and Opportunities Project (YEOP) Liberia P159493 N/A* Girls’ Ebola Recovery Livelihood Support (GERLS) Madagascar P167881 Yes Social Safety Net Project (SSNP) Mozambique P166100 Yes Harnessing Demographic Dividend Project (HDD) Nigeria P151488 Yes National Social Safety Nets Project (NASSP) Zambia P169975 Yes Girls’ Education and Women’s Empowerment and Livelihoods Project (GEWEL) Mauritania P171125 Yes Social Safety Net System Project II (SSNSP) Niger P166602 Yes Adaptive Safety Net Project 2 (ASNP) Health Nutrition and Population (HNP) Global Practice Sahel Multiple Yes Sahel Women’s Empowerment and Demographic Dividend (SWEDD) Note: * This project was approved before the introduction of the gender tag. Fourth, the identified WGE interventions were then categorized by pillar, element, and intervention type. The categorization was done based on the main constraint that each intervention aimed to address. When interventions covered multiple pillars, the secondary pillar was also captured. In addition, interventions METHODOLOGY USED TO IDENTIFY WGE INTERVENTIONS  |  5 were categorized based on pillar element (such as social capital versus human capital), and then group into intervention types. The details of the design and implementation of these interventions were compiled and validated with the relevant task teams. Fifth, interviews were conducted with each task team to add details to the findings of the project document review. These interviews yielded key details about the project’s implementation and any new developments. The interviews with the task teams also yielded rich insights into the experience of designing and implementing WGE interventions in practice. This information was used to refine the categorization where necessary, to add further detail to the descriptions of the interventions in the repository , and to generate the key lessons learned and reflections included in this paper. Sixth, the information was organized into a repository of 43 WGE interventions. This interactive and user-friendly database is intended as a reference for task teams designing new projects or seeking to strengthen their impact on WGE during project implementation. The tool’s primary function is to enable task teams to access information on WGE interventions according to their needs and interests. For example, users can filter the data by empowerment pillar, project name, project type, or intervention type. The data are further organized by intervention details, targeted constraints, any impact evaluation results, and implementation arrangements. Background information on each reviewed project is included on a separate sheet, including hyperlinks to operational documents and contacts. By mapping the interventions to the WGE pillars, the repository also illustrates related concepts and facilitates the adoption of the WGE approach in SPJ operations. 6  |  HIGHLIGHTS FROM AFRICA: EMPOWERING WOMEN AND GIRLS THROUGH SOCIAL PROTECTION 3 W GE INTERVENTIONS FROM THE AFRICA SPJ PORTFOLIO This section presents the 10 main WGE intervention types identified through the in-depth review of SPJ projects from Africa. The intervention types are grouped by empowerment pillar—resources, agency, and context—according to the constraint they were primarily designed to address. The description of each intervention type includes a brief summary of the evidence linking it to WGE and references to specific SPJ projects implementing it. A subset of intervention types is accompanied by detailed case studies. Overall, 43 WGE interventions were identified across the 12 SPJ projects (plus HNP’s SWEDD). The majority of the interventions, 23 out of 43, fall under the resources pillar. Only interventions that were particularly intentional or innovative in their approach to WGE were captured in the review, hence most core interventions (such as cash transfers or public works employment) were not included. The review identified 11 and 9 WGE interventions in the agency and context pillars, respectively. As a function of how projects were selected for the review, the identified WGE interventions are spread evenly across safety nets (15 interventions), economic inclusion and jobs (16 interventions), and adolescent girls’ empowerment (12 interventions) project component types. Resources Interventions Resources are the tangible and intangible kinds of capital that enhance the ability of women and girls to exercise choice. The different types of capital that women and girls have, own, or use individually or collectively to advance their goals include physical and financial capital, social capital, and human capital. The resources pillar also includes the provision of information and ancillary services aimed at increasing women’s access to and control over resources. ƒ Financial and physical capital refers to the financial and in-kind resources that women and girls access, own, and control.17 Most SPJ projects provide this kind of capital, by means of providing regular cash transfers, start-up grants, or wages directly to women. In addition, some SPJ projects incorporate activities or design elements that go beyond providing access to strengthen women’s  ore broadly, financial and physical capital consists of economic resources, such as income, savings, credit, technology, land, equipment, livestock, roads, 17 M schools, health clinics, and other personal or public assets. WGE INTERVENTIONS FROM THE AFRICA SPJ PORTFOLIO  |  7 control over the resources. These activities can include the provision of childcare, which can free women up to participate in economic activities and earn income. ƒ Human capital encompasses knowledge and skills that enable girls and women to act on their goals and achieve their objectives. This includes the knowledge and skills accumulated through formal schooling as well as those developed informally through learning-by-doing, apprenticeships, and skills training. Human capital development interventions tend to be most successful when they include gender equality content and take into account particular constraints on women such as childcare responsibilities, transport barriers, or lower literacy rates. ƒ Social capital refers to the personal relationships and networks that can assist girls and women in achieving their objectives. It is particularly important in situations where other types of resources are scarce (for example, the ability to borrow money informally in an emergency) or where social status and reputation are required. It can take the form of peer support or mentorship, which can expand the size and composition of women’s and girls’ social networks. Five types of interventions emerged in the in-depth review under the resources pillar: (i) monetary transfers to women; (ii) women-owned bank or digital accounts; (iii) free or subsidized childcare; (iv) vocational training in male-dominated sectors; and (v) safe spaces for adolescent girls. Providing monetary transfers to women improves their access to financial resources. SPJ projects, and especially cash transfer schemes, typically target women for both instrumental and intrinsic reasons. Historically, the delivery of cash primarily to women was based on the argument that this would guarantee that the money would be spent wisely and to the benefit of children.18 In addition, women are prioritized as recipients of monetary transfers as a way to improve their own outcomes. The evidence confirms that, as a result of receiving and managing the transfer, women often report higher decision-making power, particularly over household expenditure, marriage, and fertility,19 as well as improved social status.20 Giving cash to women does not necessarily lead to their empowerment. Although women are often the formal recipients of cash transfers, gender norms play an important role in moderating or even limiting the intended WGE impact. Intra-household power dynamics may determine who decides how to spend the money or even cause backlash if putting cash in the hands of the woman is perceived as challenging the status quo. For this reason, monetary transfers alone are rarely sufficient for empowering women. They should be accompanied by effort to enhance women’s control over the transferred resources as well as complementary interventions to improve women’s agency and address restrictive gender norms (see Case Study 1). Similarly, stipulating a quota reserving a defined proportion or number of places for women has been shown to have mixed impacts on their empowerment (see Box 2).  he existence of significantly different impacts depending on the sex of the main recipient has, however, been largely been disputed (Yoong et al, 2012) 18 T and Hagen-Zanker et al, 2017). 19 Hagen-Zanker et al. (2017) 20 de la Rocha and Latapi (2008) 8  |  HIGHLIGHTS FROM AFRICA: EMPOWERING WOMEN AND GIRLS THROUGH SOCIAL PROTECTION CASE STUDY 1. Recipient Nomination Process in Nigeria Recommended Application: Cash transfer projects that the care and well-being of their own household is that target women as recipients of the payments should usually provided by an adult woman. design interventions that account for household gender The process encourages household members to reflect norms and roles. This can increase women’s say in how together on the roles and responsibilities within the to use the transfer within the household and reduce any household and to designate the individual with the main potential backlash from other household or community burden of care to receive the transfer. The process also members. encourages household members to recognize the value WGE Constraints: While designating women as the of these responsibilities and of the women whose work recipients of household cash transfers can contribute is essential for the functioning and well-being of the to their empowerment, it can be difficult to implement household. This recognition is then reinforced by the because of social norms that expect men to be the head of selection of an adult woman as the main cash transfer the household and responsible for financial management. recipient for the household. Households also select These norms may limit the ability of women recipients an alternate recipient who receives the transfer in the to control and make decisions about the use of the cash absence of the main recipient, and who can be either transfer or even lead to resistance to the project from male or female. In those cases where a household insists households or communities (IEG, 2014). on an adult man being the recipient, this is acceptable to Solutions: The targeting process for the Nigeria NASSP the project as the household members have the right to includes an information campaign to generate community choose. support for paying the cash transfer to women household Results: The project has been successful in persuading members. Most safety nets projects designate an adult households to designate women as their cash transfer woman, usually the wife of the household head, as the recipient. Over 90 percent of transfer recipients from the main transfer recipient. In Nigeria, the NASSP uses 1.2 million households enrolled in the NASSP are women. a community-based targeting exercise to generate a Qualitative information collected by the project indicates list of poor households in each project location. It then that the facilitated process has helped most households collects welfare data from the households ranked the to understand the important role played by women in poorest to apply a proxy means test. Once the community the household and to accept that women can receive and validates this list of households as being the poorest in manage cash. Only in a few cases do adult men still retain the community, the project disseminates information the responsibility for collecting the cash transfer, mostly to foster acceptance of prioritizing women to receive in communities in the north where traditional social the transfers. This includes the message that the cash and gender norms remain strong and restrict women’s transfer is not for the personal use of the household head mobility or public engagement. but is meant to benefit the entire household and promotes Key Considerations: The project does not widely the idea that the transfer recipient should be the main communicate its objective to increase the number of person responsible for caregiving in the household, women cash transfer recipients. This is due to a concern which is usually a woman. that this approach to increasing recognition of women’s Gender experts from the Ministry of Women’s Affairs important role in the household may result in initial and trained female members of the project team go to resistance and make households less willing to engage. each beneficiary household to conduct a facilitated In terms of WGE, the project has taken a pragmatic process to identify their transfer recipient. They ask approach by focusing on increasing women’s access to household members who is responsible for undertaking and control over resources as a first step towards shifting care responsibilities, such as taking care of sick family intra-household power dynamics and empowering members, preparing meals, fetching water, and washing women. clothes. Through this process, household members realize WGE INTERVENTIONS FROM THE AFRICA SPJ PORTFOLIO  |  9 All reviewed projects included some form of monetary transfer to women. This includes the provision of modest cash transfers on a monthly or bi-monthly basis to help smooth consumption and meet basic needs. None of the reviewed projects offers cash transfers exclusively to women, although the majority prioritize women recipients either explicitly or implicitly by asking households to identify the main person responsible for caregiving (see Case Study 1). Other common forms of monetary transfers include the one-off delivery of larger grants to enable women to start or grow income-generating activities, as seen in Zambia GEWEL and Ghana PSNP. Monetary transfers also take the form of daily wages provided as part of public works schemes. BOX 2. Quotas to Mandate Women’s and Girls’ Participation Gender quotas are often used to reserve a defined proportion or number of places for women. Evidence from India has shown that mandating women’s representation in local politics and community decision-making can have a sustained positive impact on women’s collective agency (Field et al, 2021), with positive knock-on effects on girls’ aspirations (Beaman et al, 2012), attitudes towards female leaders (Beaman et al, 2009 and Bhavnani, 2009), and child marriage (Castilla, 2018). However, emerging research suggests that gender quotas in other countries or in community-driven development projects have not had similarly positive outcomes. In Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo, requiring women’s participation in community-driven projects increased women’s attendance at meetings but did not increase the extent to which they spoke at these meetings. Nor did it change community attitudes towards women leaders or the role played by women in the community (Casey et al, 2012 and van der Windt et al, 2018). This suggests that increasing women’s representation can have important effects that can be accelerated through the use of quotas, but this must be accompanied by other measures to produce sustainable increases in women’s participation and influence. Among the reviewed projects, both Ethiopia’s UPSNP and Ghana’s PSNP have quotas for women’s representation in project decision-making bodies to make up for women’s greater vulnerability and lower visibility. In Ethiopia, the project has a 30 percent quota for women on public works planning committees and also requires that at least one woman is in a leadership position at each public works site. Overall, there is a high level of representation of women on project committees, reaching nearly 50 percent in most cases. In Ghana, project managers have not found it difficult to enroll enough women; in fact, many say that they are oversubscribed (Friedson-Ridenour, 2022). However, it is unclear whether the quota (60 percent female enrollment) is driving the large numbers of women enrollees or whether high female enrollment is, at least in part, a result of lower demand by men who tend to have access to more income-generating opportunities. In addition, Mozambique’s HDD project has a quota for women- led firms in its Business Plan Competition despite concerns that it might hamper job creation given the relatively smaller size of women-led businesses. Therefore, the evidence on the effectiveness of quotas in promoting WGE is mixed. 10  |  HIGHLIGHTS FROM AFRICA: EMPOWERING WOMEN AND GIRLS THROUGH SOCIAL PROTECTION Women-owned bank or digital accounts offer transfer recipients more control over their financial resources. There is strong evidence that projects that provide financial resources (for example, cash transfers, public works, or economic inclusion projects) are more effective at empowering women if they include design features that give women control over those resources.21 In particular, depositing funds directly into women-owned bank or digital accounts has been shown to enhance women’s direct control over financial resources and, in turn, increase their ability to protect the resources and increase their decision-making power within their households.22 These approaches are most effective for WGE when complemented by interventions that address power imbalances (the context pillar), as opposed to simply providing a mechanism so that women can circumvent their spouses. Digital transfers to women are increasingly being made across the Africa SPJ portfolio, at least partly to increase women’s access to and control over the household’s financial resources. Ghana’s PSNP, Nigeria’s NASSP, and Zambia’s GEWEL projects are all paying transfers into beneficiaries’ digital accounts; a process that accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic. The payment system in Zambia was particularly innovative because it was the first to allow beneficiaries to choose between multiple payment providers. The key challenges that have been encountered when using digital payments have included women’s limited access to mobile phones, a lack of identification documents (see Box 3), and women’s limited digital and financial literacy. BOX 3. Identification Documents – A Barrier and an Opportunity for Empowerment Identification documents (IDs) are critical for advancing WGE, as they are often required for opening a bank account, acquiring a loan, or accessing other services. However, in countries where a national ID system has not been fully rolled out, many women and girls, including those from poor and marginalized communities, can find it difficult to acquire an ID. The move to paying transfers into digital accounts has increased the need for a solution to this problem. The reviewed Africa SPJ projects have used two measures to increase access to IDs: Support governments in rolling out national IDs: In Zambia, where there is an enabling political environment for discussions about national IDs, the GEWEL project partnered with the Ministry of Home Affairs (MoHA) to implement a “caravan” initiative that involves mobile units travelling to communities to provide project beneficiaries with identification documents. Reliance on program-based IDs: In Nigeria, the NASSP issues program-based IDs for female transfer recipients or alternates, which are used to verify their receipt of payments and their fulfilment of their co-responsibilities. Given the national scope of the NASSP and the creation of a project database with a unique identifier for each beneficiary, there is an opportunity to eventually provide NASSP beneficiaries with national IDs. The NASSP team is working with a team that is developing digital IDs as part of a planned expansion of national ID coverage in the country. 21 Chang et al (2020). 22 Field et al (2021) and Aker et al (2016). WGE INTERVENTIONS FROM THE AFRICA SPJ PORTFOLIO  |  11 Offering free or subsidized childcare enables women to participate in employment support initiatives and, in turn, to acquire more financial resources. Most research to date has found that childcare provision increases women’s labor force participation, which points to the lack of affordable childcare being a binding constraint on women’s employment.23 For instance, one in four women offered childcare centers as part of a public works intervention in Burkina Faso used them. This led to improved employment and financial outcomes for the women themselves as well as better development outcomes for their children.24 In Kenya, providing subsidized early childcare to mothers living in a Nairobi slum also substantially increased women’s employment and, in turn, access to financial resources.25 Improving access to childcare can take different forms depending on the context, with some research finding that providing earmarked cash transfers or childcare subsidies is also highly effective in enabling women to take up paid employment, especially married mothers.26 Within the reviewed projects, childcare was most often provided as part of vocational or business training and during public works (see Case Study 2). In the Liberia GERLS project, each training space included a childcare area with room for children to play and rest under the care of contracted childcare providers.27 In Ghana’s PSNP, crèches are provided on public works sites to enable women to participate.28 The Madagascar SSN project provides “mobile cribs” for babies during their parents’ cash-for-work hours, and the Ethiopia UPSNP also established temporary childcare centers at some public works sites. Despite being increasingly integrated in SPJ projects, childcare interventions can be challenging to implement due to social norms, concerns regarding the quality of care, and operational considerations. Providing women with vocational training in male-dominated sectors has proven potential to enable women to access more profitable jobs and further increase their resources. Business and vocational skills training boosts knowledge and skills and is particularly important for those who have left (or never had the opportunity to attend) formal schooling. The skills training can in turn lead to better wage or self-employment opportunities and enable beneficiaries to increase their income, assets, and overall resource base. However, research has shown that gender gaps persist among training participants, partly driven by sectoral and occupational segregation. For instance, women workers tend to be concentrated in the trade and retail industries or services such as hairdressing, hospitality, and food, while men predominate in most manufacturing sectors as well as in services such as transportation.29 Because of a profit gap between the different sectors, women who enter male-dominated sectors earn 67 percent higher incomes on average than women who remain in traditionally female-concentrated sectors.30 While other gendered differences such as education levels, roles, and activities or discrimination may exist within each sector, giving women and girls training in non-traditional sectors can equip them with valuable resources. 23 Chang et al (2020). 24 Ajayi et al (2022a). 25 Clark et al (2019). 26 Clark et al (2019). Many GERLS beneficiaries did not want to bring their children to the childcare center, preferring to leave them with a neighbor or family member. 27  Participants instead requested food or other help from the project to cover the costs of meals or childcare from a person of their choosing. When the project did not agree to this request, women beneficiaries had their neighbors or others come to the training center to take home some of the meals provided there instead.  The Ghana project is considering adopting the mobile crèches model successfully piloted in Burkina Faso and replicated in Cameroon, Madagascar, and 28  Ethiopia. 29 World Bank (2022). 30 Goldstein et al (2019). 12  |  HIGHLIGHTS FROM AFRICA: EMPOWERING WOMEN AND GIRLS THROUGH SOCIAL PROTECTION Despite its potential, this type of intervention has been challenging to incorporate in the reviewed projects. The review identified several projects, including those in Liberia, Mozambique, and Kenya, that included vocational and entrepreneurship training in male-dominated sectors for girls and young women in their design. Implementation has, however, proven much more complex than standard skills training due to the increased need to tackle different constraints simultaneously. In Liberia, beneficiary girls chose to engage in traditionally women-dominated sectors despite an awareness-raising campaign conducted by the project. The short implementation timeframe made it challenging for the project to offer additional support or guidance to enable the girls to enter other trades. Similarly, providing information on male-dominated trades and their profitability was not sufficient to create major shifts in sectors in projects in Mozambique and Kenya. These challenges suggest that training aiming to reduce occupational segregation has to also expand social networks (or social capital resources), shift beliefs about one own’s ability to succeed in a new field (agency), and push back against discriminatory social norms (context). Efforts are underway in Mozambique to test various approaches for effectively targeting these constraints. WGE INTERVENTIONS FROM THE AFRICA SPJ PORTFOLIO  |  13 CASE STUDY 2. On-Site Crèches in Ghana Recommended Application: Public works programs should incorporate measures to meet the particular needs of women participants including by providing childcare and allowing for flexible working days and hours. WGE Constraints: Despite the high percentage of women beneficiaries in the Ghana PSNP’s labor-intensive public works (LIPW), women’s childcare and household responsibilities prevented them from benefiting fully On-site crèche made with locally available materials from the program. Seventy percent of LIPW beneficiaries are women, but they have only limited time (in terms of the number of days and of the number of hours during promoting women’s participation in the project (Dadzie each day) available to work outside their homes because and Ofei-Aboagye, 2020). of their heavy responsibilities to their households and A 2022 qualitative study of select LIPW sites also found families and the absence of affordable childcare. that women generally valued the provision of childcare Solutions: The PSNP incorporated onsite childcare into because they no longer had to carry and mind their its LIPW worksites to encourage women to participate children while performing physical labor and because it in and benefit from public works employment. All of kept their children safe and prevented them from spending the project’s LIPW sites are required to have crèches long hours in the hot sun (Friedson-Ridenour, 2022). For for infants and small children, particularly to enable example, one LIPW beneficiary stated, “When we bring breastfeeding women to participate in the program. the children here and they are crying, the caretaker takes Crèches are physical structures that are built at LIPW the children and plays with them. This makes us feel sites. They have two rooms, one for playing and the other free to work.” However, the study found that there was for sleeping, furnished with basic mattresses. Parents limited standardized monitoring of or accountability for using the on-site crèches provide food for their children ensuring that on-site crèches were being implemented as at mealtimes. Women in the community are nominated intended. The crèches varied between sites and deviated by other LIPW participants to provide childcare and are from stipulated plans for the construction of facilities. paid as part of the LIPW. They receive basic training For example, although the crèches were supposed to be from supervisors focused on childcare and prevention of two-room structures, in practice childcare arrangements abuse. These childcare providers are often older women appeared to be relatively informal, and many crèches or those less able to engage in the physical work at the were located under trees. worksite. Key Considerations: The experience in Ghana is Results: An assessment of the LIPW found that providing indicative of a growing recognition by projects that childcare and other initiatives resulted in greater and childcare affects women’s decision to work, how many more consistent participation of women in LIPW. Overall, hours they work, and the type of work that they engage participating in the LIPW increased beneficiaries’ in (Haddock et al, 2019). While the provision of on-site earnings from paid employment, and the impact was crèches has facilitated women’s participation in LIPWs, greater for women than men. A project review assessing they can be challenging to operationalize (see below on opportunities for women to participate in LIPW noted childcare intervention challenges). In the public works that the introduction of on-site crèches was valuable to associated with the Ghana PSNP, the on-site crèches are women and supported them in their domestic and care built once the site has been selected and participants are responsibilities. It further suggested that interventions already engaged. In the interim, childcare is provided in a supporting women’s reproductive roles were essential to shaded space in the open. 14  |  HIGHLIGHTS FROM AFRICA: EMPOWERING WOMEN AND GIRLS THROUGH SOCIAL PROTECTION For adolescent girls, safe spaces (or girls’ clubs) are an effective way to build social capital and expand their resources. When girls reach the onset of puberty, their parents and caregivers begin to restrict their mobility, which prevents them from building social networks and receiving and exchanging information. In recognition of these constraints, skills training programs geared towards adolescent girls are often delivered in “safe spaces”, or girls’ clubs led by a peer leader or mentor. There is much robust evidence that safe spaces are an effective way to deliver skills training and other interventions for girls and to build girls’ social relationships and ties within their communities.31 Of course, the details and context of how the safe spaces program is implemented are key to achieving the desired outcomes. For example, an adolescent girls’ program in Tanzania was not able to replicate the positive results achieved in Uganda because of difficulties in securing meeting spaces, limited club materials, and inadequate training for new mentors.32 Among the projects reviewed for this study, the Mozambique HDD and SWEDD (led by HNP) deliver safe spaces to both in-school and out-of-school girls. There are separate groups for married and unmarried girls, those with or without children, and those who are and are not likely to return school. The physical spaces are locations that the girls perceive as safe and where they can speak privately. The curricula taught in these safe spaces are adapted to the national or regional context in which content is being delivered but often cover sexual and reproductive health (SRH) knowledge and services, job and skills training, basic and financial literacy, and civic engagement. Girls meet at the safe spaces usually for one or two hours at least once per week over the course of four to six months. They are supported by mentors, who are women from the targeted communities and usually slightly older than the girl beneficiaries. These are women in whom the girls feel comfortable confiding and who are trained to deliver the curriculum. The mentors can also refer girls to other services. Agency Interventions “Agency” refers to a person’s capacity to make decisions about her own life and act on them to achieve a desired outcome, free of violence, retribution, or fear. It can be expressed in terms of women’s and girls’ ability to use their voice, either to define and articulate their own individual interests and needs or as part of collective and social change. Increasing women’s and girls’ agency is a valuable goal in its own right in addition to being instrumental to improving other aspects of women’s and girls’ well-being.33 Interventions in this pillar can be either individual or collective in approach. ƒ Individual agency is a person’s ability to pursue goals, use their voice, and make decisions. This ability relies on non-cognitive skills, such as self-efficacy, goal-setting, and decision-making. It manifests itself as the capacity for girls and women to speak up and influence discussions and decisions that affect their lives and futures, in both the public and private domains. ƒ Collective agency refers to women and girls gaining solidarity and taking action collectively to pursue common goals and enhance their position. It refers to the participation and representation (both numerical and substantive) of women and girls in political and economic decision-making  cales et al (2013), Leventhal et al (2015), Amin et al (2016), Adoho et al (2014), Bandiera et al (2020), Stark et al (2018), Decker et al (2018), and Buehren et 31 S al (2017). 32 Buehren et al (2017). 33 Donald et al (2017). WGE INTERVENTIONS FROM THE AFRICA SPJ PORTFOLIO  |  15 institutions and platforms. Collective agency also includes the ability to organize collectively in favor of gender equality and empowerment, for example, in the form of self-help groups or social movement organizations, as well as women and girls occupying leadership positions. The projects studied for this report included three types of agency interventions: (i) psychosocial and life skills training; (ii) behavioral nudges; and (iii) gender-responsive grievance redress mechanisms. Providing psychosocial and life skills can increase women’s and girls’ self-efficacy and individual agency. Mainly designed to increase knowledge and human capital, standalone business and vocational training interventions have had a mixed impact on building women’s agency. However, coupling them with modules aimed at developing women’s psychosocial skills (covering the locus of control and self-efficacy) and life skills (covering negotiation skills, goal setting, emotional control, and personal motivation) has been found to be more effective for WGE. A recent review found that three out of five training programs that aimed to increase employment and entrepreneurship among women increased women’s self-efficacy – a key measure of individual agency – and that these were the programs that included components on psychosocial or life skills.34 In addition, a paper using data from 17 Sub-Saharan African countries showed that socio-emotional skills were associated with higher earnings, especially for women.35 Among the reviewed projects, the majority of them (Zambia’s GEWEL, Liberia’s GERLS, Mozambique’s HDD, Ghana’s PSNP, Nigeria’s NASSP, SWEDD, Mauritania’s SSNSP, and Niger’s ASNP) include psychosocial and life skills training. This training is typically delivered by female community-based volunteers or mentors who have received training and who are remunerated with a stipend or other form of payment. This creates a network of service providers with whom beneficiaries feel comfortable in speaking openly and with whom they can build a strong rapport. While the duration and level of intensity of this kind of training varies by project, all trainings follow a prepared curriculum that uses participatory learning approaches and that is accessible to low literacy learners. Behavioral nudges can be incorporated into project activities to enhance women’s and girls’ self- efficacy and goal-setting ability. A growing body of evidence shows that small tweaks consisting of positive reinforcement and indirect suggestions rather than direct instruction – often called nudges – can induce beneficiaries to change their attitudes and behavior in a positive way, thus, strengthening the project’s impact.36 In particular, the evidence suggests that adjusting the way in which specific project activities are delivered can amplify their effects by aligning beneficiaries’ preferences and cognitive processes. Studies of cash transfers have shown that asking beneficiaries to articulate their spending goals in advance of receiving cash transfers can be effective in influencing how they allocate those resources without the need for conditionalities.37 The in-depth review revealed that the same tools can be used to increase women’s agency and enable them to set and achieve their goals, as seen in Madagascar (see Case Study 4). Similarly, in the Gambia, the cash transfer program uses social and behavior change communication (SBCC) to promote the idea that women should be designated as the recipient of the transfers within beneficiary households. 34 Chang et al (2020). 35 Ajayi et al. (2022b). 36 Datta and Mullainathan (2014), Mullainathan and Shafir (2013), and World Bank (2015b). 37 Benhassine et al (2015) and Sedlmayr et al (2020). 16  |  HIGHLIGHTS FROM AFRICA: EMPOWERING WOMEN AND GIRLS THROUGH SOCIAL PROTECTION CASE STUDY 3. Psychosocial Interventions in Niger Recommended Application: Psychosocial interventions solving, goal setting, interpersonal communication, can be provided as part of a multifaceted package to and women’s leadership while simultaneously building address different constraints faced by poor women self-worth, self-efficacy, and aspirations. In addition, in their efforts to be more economically or personally discussions prompted participants to relate their successful. They play an important role in strengthening economic goals to broader values and spousal, gender women’s agency (e.g., goal-setting skills, self-efficacy, and generational roles. The training was delivered by self-worth) as well as strengthening support from family private trainers contracted by the government through and community members. small firms. WGE Constraints: The task team conducted an Community film screening (context pillar): The full assessment of the constraints to productive employment community, including elders, economic and traditional among the targeted poor women before designing the leaders, as well as program beneficiaries and their support package. As part of the assessment, respondents husbands (or other family members), were invited to identified “successful” people as those possessing attend a video screening and a community discussion. perseverance, determination, courage, and seriousness. Program staff projected a short video, filmed in local In line with available evidence, these results suggested languages, that depicted the story of a couple that that the project should offer life skills training, particularly overcomes household and personal constraints and to women, who tend to report lower socio-emotional develops economic activities, with support from family skills than men. In addition, the assessment pointed to and the larger community. As a result, they become an important influence of social norms on the “choice” more economically resilient. After the screening, trained of the respondents’ activities (especially among women). facilitators guided a public discussion on social norms, This emphasized the need to include accompanying aspirations, and community values. Together, these interventions tackling social norms. activities applied multiple approaches to shift social Solutions: The Adaptive Safety Nets Project in Niger tested norms and aspirations, including the use of role models in four variations of an economic inclusion intervention the video, peer effects in the audience construction, goal for poor households receiving monthly cash transfers setting and social consensus techniques in the discussion, (Bossuroy et al., 2021). Those in the three treatment and values alignment in both the video and discussion. arms also received support to set up and operate savings Results: The accompanying impact evaluation found groups; coaching; and micro-entrepreneurship training that all arms improved households’ consumption of food designed to facilitate the choice of income-generating and non-food products, business revenues and women’s activities and improve business practices. The treatment psychological and social well-being, including mental groups also received one of three options: a lump-sum health, future expectations and social support (Bossuroy cash grant (‘capital’ arm); psychological and social et al., 2022). The capital arm also had psychosocial effects, interventions, such as life-skill training and a community and the psychosocial arm also had economic impacts. The film screening to boost aspirations and address gender full arm had the largest economic effects at 6 months, and social norms (‘psychosocial’ arm); or both the cash whereas some of the effects of the psychosocial arm grew grant and psychosocial interventions (‘full’ arm). over time. The arms with psychosocial interventions were Two psychosocial interventions were implemented: particularly cost-effective. These results highlight the value of addressing psychosocial constraints as well as Life skills training: A week-long life-skills training was capital constraints in government-implemented poverty organized for groups of beneficiaries. Grounded in reduction programs. participatory problem-centered learning, the training incorporated exercises such as role plays, games, and case studies. The nine modules of the curriculum focused on building skills for effective decision-making, problem- WGE INTERVENTIONS FROM THE AFRICA SPJ PORTFOLIO  |  17 CASE STUDY 4. Behavioral Nudges in Madagascar Recommended Application: Behavioral nudges can Plan making: This activity aims to expand women’s be useful as accompanying measures to increase immediate range of choices by helping them to declare women’s self-efficacy and ability to plan how best to their intentions, set action steps, and follow through on use the transfer. They are suitable to be used with both their plans. conditional and unconditional cash transfers as well as Self-affirmation: This activity aims to expand women’s with cash-for-work or public works programs. long-term range of choices by increasing their motivation WGE Constraints: Project field research for the and encouraging and enabling them to set higher Madagascar Social Safety Net Project (SSNP) found that standards. a key barrier to women’s good decision making about Three versions of each type of activity are implemented how to spend their cash transfers was a lack of self- and then repeated. Beneficiaries engage in all three efficacy and ability to plan ahead. Many of the women versions of each activity over three transfer periods, beneficiaries were focused on the short-term needs of after which the sequence is repeated. The activities their households and were unable to make or execute use interactive and pictorial methods, such as drawing, realistic longer-term plans for using the cash transfer. playing games with cards and stones, using stickers, Female participants also often felt that their lives were image cards, storybooks, and playing with their children. pre-ordained, which further limited their confidence in their ability to influence their own and their children’s Results: In a qualitative evaluation conducted 18 months futures (Datta et al, 2020). Combined with gendered into the implementation of the behavioral nudges, the norms that limit women’s knowledge, decision-making beneficiaries reported feeling greater self-efficacy, a ability, and community engagement, these mental models measure of individual agency. They also reported having constrain women’s empowerment and the long-term an increased awareness of their ability to influence their well-being of their children and families. own futures and make informed choices for their families (Datta et al, 2020). Their testimony also suggested that Solutions: In response to this finding, the project their confidence in their ability to control household incorporated some behavioral nudges into its resources had grown. Women who received the plan- implementation with the aim of reinforcing women’s making nudges also reported using the group action plans confidence in their own positive influence on their family developed during the sessions to negotiate collectively and household. for more favorable prices from farm input producers Madagascar’s behavioral nudges were developed jointly (collective agency). by the Government of Madagascar, the World Bank, and Key Considerations: Behavioral nudges were delivered ideas42, an applied research group founded by leading in a group setting to leverage social support for the experts in behavioral economics. They take the form of plan-making and self-affirmation activities. During these short group participatory sessions of no more than 15 sessions and in follow-up group meetings, women share to 20 minutes for women beneficiaries right before they their goals and successes with each other, strengthening receive the cash transfer. The groups are led by a Mother their commitment to maintaining their individual and Leader and meet in an area next to the place where the collective agency. transfers are disbursed. The sessions each consist of one of two activities: 18  |  HIGHLIGHTS FROM AFRICA: EMPOWERING WOMEN AND GIRLS THROUGH SOCIAL PROTECTION Gender-responsive grievance redress mechanisms (GRMs) can play a role in amplifying women’s voices and increasing their agency. GRMs are systems to which beneficiaries can submit queries, requests for clarifications, and complaints about a program or project. They not only enable the project team to gather feedback to use to improve its implementation but also offer beneficiaries and their communities a chance to contact authorities regarding their rights. Such mechanisms are particularly valuable in giving a voice to the marginalized and in increasing women’s and girls’ sense of agency.38 What is key, however, is that GRMs are designed to take underlying gender inequalities in terms of mobility, literacy, and mobile phone ownership, for example, into account. Among the reviewed projects, Zambia’s GEWEL, Nigeria’s NASSP, Ghana’s PSNP, and Mozambique HDD have all integrated gender-responsive measures into their GRMs. The project in Zambia was the first in the region to expand the scope of the GRM to more holistically respond to the needs of women beneficiaries (see Case Study 5). The Government of Zambia has shared lessons with the Government of Mozambique and is now advising other governments as well. The specific adaptations that they have made to the standard GRM design include: (i) offering multiple reporting channels to increase access and ensure confidentiality, including the opportunity to submit complaints anonymously and/or through a hotline or call service operated outside the community; (ii) allowing beneficiaries to give feedback in person to local focal points selected by the community to overcome any literacy barriers and to provide complainants with support and referrals; (iii) conducting extensive awareness campaigns to advertise the availability and role of the GRM; and (iv) training project staff and frontline service providers in how to handle and refer GBV-related cases. Furthermore, in both Nigeria and Zambia, a mapping of GBV services has been conducted to identify local service providers and provide referrals to survivors of GBV and to identify any gaps in service provision. In Mozambique’s HDD project, the GRM is accompanied by an initiative to train project safeguard focal points and institutional leaders on key topics related to the prevention of GBV, sexual exploitation and abuse, and sexual harassment. The capacity building focuses on topics such as harmful social norms, the national legislation and mechanisms to prevent and respond to GBV, and the adoption of a survivor- centered approach in handling reports of GBV received through the GRM. In addition to the importance of a trusted and well-functioning GRM for fostering women’s agency, the project also recognizes the role of the broader context in reducing GBV and empowering girls and women. 38 Klugman et al (2014). WGE INTERVENTIONS FROM THE AFRICA SPJ PORTFOLIO  |  19 CASE STUDY 5. A Gender-sensitive Grievance Response Mechanism in Zambia Recommended Application: Gender-responsive and survivor-centred gender response mechanisms (GRMs) are needed, especially in contexts with a high prevalence of GBV. The GRM can enable women to make their voices heard and for increasing the sense of agency felt by GBV survivors and thus their ability to report incidents. WGE Constraints: While the evidence shows that safety nets have either a positive or neutral effect in terms of the prevalence of GBV, it is important to recognize that certain groups or individuals may still experience a higher risk of violence as a result of participating in the program. Programs that benefit women can exacerbate intra-household tensions and violence behavior from men in the short to medium term as a reaction against women’s increased access to and control over assets and decision-making (Botea et al, 2021). In Zambia, a qualitative study aimed to identify the potential risks for women beneficiaries of participating in the GEWEL project. Although women beneficiaries of GEWEL’s Supporting Women’s Livelihoods (SWL) component reported having increased self-esteem, confidence, and willingness to assert themselves, they also noted experiencing instances of violence from In-person complaints to community focal points: Women their partners and other non-beneficiaries. The study focal points were selected by the project in each found that there was a temporary increase in intimate community based on being a trusted and respected partner violence against women beneficiaries at the member of the community. They were trained to deal with start of the project, mainly verbal abuse and controlling GBV complaints and referrals. This was done to ensure behavior (Kuttner and Nkonkomalimba, 2020). Similarly, anonymity for complaints and to enable women with low a qualitative rapid assessment of the Keeping Girls in literacy skills to submit a complaint directly. School (KGS) component raised concerns that school boarding facilities were unsafe environments for girls, A telephone hotline through a Zambian NGO: Lifeline/ which contributed to sexual abuse and harassment in Childline Zambia now provides a hotline for beneficiaries some cases (Friedson-Ridenour and Milapo, 2020). with one number to call for child- protection issues and another for women who have suffered from GBV. Solutions: The GEWEL grievance redress mechanism, as Callers receive counselling over the phone and referred originally designed, provided a mailbox in each community to appropriate services in their district using a case into which beneficiaries could leave complaint forms. management approach. District-level focal persons would collect and process the forms, while serious complaints concerning corruption or The project also conducted a community-level mapping allegations of GBV were referred to HQ-level grievance of GBV services to identify local service providers and focal persons. However, after the studies found that some facilities for referrals. The aim of this exercise was to beneficiaries were at risk of GBV, the project expanded its increase awareness of what health, security, legal, and reporting channels to include: psycho-social services were available in the community and enhance links and coordination between them. The 20  |  HIGHLIGHTS FROM AFRICA: EMPOWERING WOMEN AND GIRLS THROUGH SOCIAL PROTECTION process also enabled the project to identify any gaps “exclusion” or “other” concerns as categorized on the in survivor-centered services within the communities. complaints form. Only a few were related to GBV, with The project put together a directory of these services, some Supporting Women’s Livelihoods beneficiaries including information on the sector, organization, contact reporting having experienced intimate partner violence details and specific services available and distributed it and receiving referrals to response services. While it is to the communities where the GRM boxes are located. not clear that these cases were a result of the women In its efforts to ensure that its grievance redress participation in the project, the GRM makes it possible for mechanism is gender-sensitive, the project has provided beneficiaries to actively engage with service providers training in the operation of the grievance redress and programs and to mitigate any potential unintended mechanism and the prevention of GBV to its implementing consequences of the project. partners, district-level staff, and community focal points. Key Considerations: Building understanding and The GRM monitoring and information system has limited ownership of redress mechanisms at the government access to GBV-related information and complaints in order and community levels is necessary and will depend to protect the privacy of the data, and information sharing upon a clear communication of the project’s purpose protocols and security are in place to ensure safety of in providing the GRM. Many communities have limited survivors and the confidentiality of their complaints. The experience with grievance redress. For example, once project has used posters and public meetings to inform the various GRM channels were rolled out, there was a community members about the GRM and how to access huge influx of complaints, many of which were not related it. Finally, the GRM has a small survivor fund to cover to GEWEL. This suggests a general lack of mechanisms the travel-related costs for a survivor to access services for individuals to report their concerns or to engage outside of their community. proactively with government officials and services. Results: According to project M&E data, there was a large Being able to access GBV response services is likely to be increase in the number of complaints received through problematic, especially for those in remote rural areas. In the GRM after these extra measures were taken, which Zambia, the GEWEL project included a survivor fund in its indicates that the reporting mechanisms and awareness GRM to fund the costs incurred by survivors in traveling campaigns were effective. Complaints are being received outside of their own community to access services. through both the mailboxes and hotlines, but the rollout However, this is a broader challenge that requires of community focal points has been delayed due to the collaboration among different programs and partners and COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, twenty-five percent of a long-term commitment to ensure the provision of GBV complaints were not related to the GEWEL project, and response and referral services. among those that were, over 80 percent focused on WGE INTERVENTIONS FROM THE AFRICA SPJ PORTFOLIO  |  21 Context Interventions “Context” comprises the social arrangements, such as norms and institutions, that shape and influence women’s and girls’ ability to express their agency and assert control over their resources. These are the root causes of the marginalization and disempowerment of women and girls that need to be tackled systematically in order to transform gender power relationships and achieve sustainable WGE. Changing social norms typically requires engaging fathers, husbands, parents, and community leaders in dialogue and promoting laws and policies to reform inequitable norms and institutions. The context interventions identified in the in-depth review mostly involve sensitizing the community to the need for gender equity and engaging with either local or religious leaders at the community level or mainly husbands and fathers at the household level. Engaging community leaders and other stakeholders on the subject of gender equality is essential to change gender and social norms at the community level. Unequal gender relations are grounded in patriarchal societies in which men hold primary power while women and girls face subordination, marginalization, and discrimination. Patriarchal hierarchies manifest themselves in women’s and girls’ lack of control over their bodies, unequal distribution of material resources and knowledge, unequal and biased laws and policies, and discriminatory or exclusionary practices.39 Challenging the status quo and achieving the transformation of gender power relations implicit in the empowerment process, therefore, requires interventions that go beyond the women and girls themselves to engage the broader community and those who uphold its norms. In particular, traditional and religious leaders tend to influence what is considered to be acceptable behavior within a community or society and to act as gatekeepers by restricting women’s and girls’ roles and opportunities. They can, nevertheless, be important allies in the empowerment of women and girls if effectively engaged through the project. Among the reviewed projects, HDD in Mozambique, PSNP in the Gambia, GEWEL in Zambia, and SWEDD (led by HNP) include WGE interventions in the context pillar. For example, the Mozambique project conducted a mapping of influential leaders (religious, traditional, village chiefs, and school leaders) and their views on critical topics. Based on this mapping, the project provides the most influential community leaders with training and sensitization to try to change their views and practices that disempower girls, such as initiation rites, inaccurate beliefs about contraception, or prohibiting women from taking advantage of economic opportunities. The intention is to enable them to influence other leaders and to catalyze change at the community level. Similarly, the Zambia GEWEL project is piloting community dialogue sessions and efforts to identify community-level champions who are willing to work towards changing gender norms. At the regional level, SWEDD brought together many key stakeholders (religious leaders, parliamentarians and legal practitioners) to develop action plans to advance the education and health rights of women and girls. The activities on the action plans have included engaging with government officials, parliamentarians, religious and traditional leaders, local councillors, and civil society organizations to persuade them of the need to strengthen the enforcement of laws related to the rights of women and girls (such as family code, laws against gender‐based violence). Specifically, in Chad and Côte d’Ivoire, the project has supported the translation into local languages of national laws prohibiting GBV and 39 BMGF (2019). 22  |  HIGHLIGHTS FROM AFRICA: EMPOWERING WOMEN AND GIRLS THROUGH SOCIAL PROTECTION the dissemination of those translations to traditional, religious, and administrative authorities at the provincial level. In Mali, parliamentarians, religious leaders, and traditional leaders conducted advocacy on legislative and regulatory issues, such as a draft law criminalizing GBV. Also, SWEDD is creating a collaborative platform to facilitate peer exchanges about legal reform supporting women and girls. Engaging husbands, fathers, or other gatekeepers at the household level is also important for transforming gender power relationships and changing social norms. For WGE to be achieved, it will be essential to actively involve male household members, usually husbands or fathers, given their role in making decisions that affect girls and women. A growing body of evidence shows that interventions that aim to change men’s knowledge, attitudes, or behaviors can be an effective approach for getting men to support women’s empowerment.40 Programs aimed at changing men’s knowledge of or behavior regarding, for example, household finance41 and maternal and child health42 have led to more women being involved in household decision-making. In spite of several successful interventions, similar efforts to work with men in other programs have had implementation challenges, driven by the very social norms that programs hope to affect. Some programs that tried to engage men using skills training or gender transformative men’s groups have suffered from low attendance or take-up and, thus, have had less impact in terms of changing gender norms or improving women’s outcomes than delivering the interventions to women alone.43 Also, the evidence of how this type of interventions has affected the prevalence of intimate partner violence is mixed.44 In the in-depth review, two SPJ projects were identified as including interventions that engaged with men with the aim of changing household gender dynamics – the Zambia GEWEL and Mozambique HDD projects. In Zambia, the project incorporated two training modules, an orientation module and a family vision module, in which husbands were invited to participate alongside the women beneficiaries. The sessions aim to build support for women’s participation in the project as well as to encourage joint decision-making and planning and a more equal division of household chores. In Mozambique, the project includes “schools” for the husbands of beneficiary girls, or for their parents if the girls are unmarried, that cover topics such as positive relationships, conflict management, and gender equality. In addition, the HNP-led SWEDD project provides further examples of how to shift gender norms by engaging husbands and other boys and men in the community (see Case Study 6). 40 Chang et al (2020). 41 Seshan and Yang (2014). 42 Doyle et al (2018). 43 Jejeebhoy et al (2017), Bulte and Lensink (2019), and Green et al (2015). 44 Vaillant et al (2020) and Shah et al (2022). WGE INTERVENTIONS FROM THE AFRICA SPJ PORTFOLIO  |  23 CASE STUDY 6. Husbands’ and Future Husbands’ Schools in the Sahel Recommended Application: Programs targeting The sessions held by the schools take place once a week adolescent girls and young women should engage with and last a maximum of three hours with between five and men, boys, and other key gatekeepers to encourage 15 participants. The sessions in both the Husband Schools changes in social norms regarding gender roles. and the Future Husband Schools cover five themes: (i) WGE Constraints: Unequal gender norms can limit gender, power, and identity; (ii) sexual and reproductive the positive effects of programs aimed at increasing health and rights; (iii) violence (including GBV, early women’s and girls’ agency and control over resources, marriage, and female genital mutilation); (iv) the thus resulting in poor economic and health outcomes. division of unpaid care responsibilities among household Adolescent girls face particular risks of early marriage members; (v) and activism to transform gender norms. and pregnancy, which can lead to high fertility rates, high Two to five activities on each theme are delivered over dropout rates from school, an increased risk of violence, the course of 13 weeks. and limited economic opportunities and well-being in the In addition, the schools offer some specific content tailored long-term (van Eerdewijk et al, 2017). In the countries to their target participants. For example, Future Husband of the Sahel (Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Cameroon, Schools put more emphasis on adolescent sexual and Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Mauritania, Mali, and Niger), women reproductive health. Husband Schools sessions include an and girls have limited bargaining power to negotiate additional focus on maternal, newborn, and child health, and implement their own decisions about sex, fertility, including men’s role as partners during their wife’s relationships, and use of contraception. As a result, the pregnancy and delivery and in caring for their new baby average fertility rate is 6.2 children per woman. Many or giving post-natal care to their spouse. Participants girls face early and forced marriage; the median age also engage in discussions about the relationship at first marriage in the Sahel is 16.6. The usage rate of within couples, including household decision-making, modern contraceptives is low at 9 percent, and. communication, and conflict resolution. Solutions: The SWEDD regional project in the Sahel uses The groups meet in a community location where a gender-transformative approach of Husband Schools participants feel safe and comfortable. The participants and Future Husband Schools to promote equitable sit in a circle with the facilitator’s role being to encourage gender norms. This intervention was developed with the interaction and the exchange of ideas. The sessions United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and Promundo, include participatory activities such as role playing to an NGO. Its aim is to engage with men to foster their break the ice. positive relationships with their spouses, end violence The manuals were developed in 2018 and validated and child marriage, and challenge harmful norms around during a five-day workshop held in Côte d’Ivoire with masculinity. Following the completion of the sessions, representatives from six countries (Burkina Faso, Côte the men may then become agents of change themselves d’Ivoire, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Chad). A training- by influencing their peers and conducting community of-trainers on the methodology was conducted to enable campaigns to change traditional gender norms. testing and feedback on the manual. As a result of lessons Future Husband Schools engage with young men between learned from the testing, the methodology was amended, the ages of 14 and 24 who are not yet married, divided into and each country project team further adapted the two groups based on age (14 to 19 and 20 to 24). These are manual to local conditions after consulting with religious brothers or young men in the same communities as the and community leaders. young girls who are participating in the SWEDD project. Results: By 2019, 1,719 Husbands and Future Husbands Husband Schools target married men in the community, schools had been set up and have benefited more than including men who are husbands of the girls and young 24,000 boys and men in five countries through the SWEDD women in the project’s safe spaces intervention. project (Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Mauritania 24  |  HIGHLIGHTS FROM AFRICA: EMPOWERING WOMEN AND GIRLS THROUGH SOCIAL PROTECTION and Niger). The testimonies of beneficiaries during by pregnant women. In the second phase of the SWEDD community consultations suggested that they had gained project (2020-2024), all nine countries in the project are a greater understanding of the obstacles encountered by implementing Husband and/or Future Husband Schools women, their use of violence had decreased, they had (Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Cameroon, Chad, Côte a greater acceptance of a woman’s right to refuse sex, d’Ivoire, Mauritania, Mali, and Niger). Impact evaluation and they took on more household tasks. There had also results are forthcoming. been a rise in the number of prenatal clinic visits made WGE INTERVENTIONS FROM THE AFRICA SPJ PORTFOLIO  |  25 4 LESSONS LEARNED Four main lessons emerged from the analysis of WGE interventions across the Africa SPJ portfolio. Lesson 1: SPJ projects can successfully incorporate WGE interventions as part of standard design First, SPJ projects can successfully incorporate WGE interventions as part of standard design. There’s a new generation of SPJ projects taking an intentional approach to WGE. The in-depth review of 12 active SPJ projects in Africa revealed an unprecedented focus on empowering girls and women. In contrast with the previously held belief that targeting women automatically leads to their empowerment, SPJ projects are increasingly recognizing—and responding to—the multitude of factors limiting women’s ability to live to their full potential. The reviewed projects include an array of activities (e.g., life skills training, childcare, husbands’ clubs) and delivery arrangements (e.g., group-based implementation, digital accounts) that complement standard project design. The WGE initiatives are not add-ons, but instead have the aim of achieving project objectives by empowering women and girls. There is both increased standardization and innovation, with certain intervention types incorporated across projects and others being adopted on a more experimental basis. Lesson 2: Transformational change requires interventions from multiple pillars The review highlighted complementarities between interventions in the resources, agency, and contexts pillars. In addition to a growing body of research, implementation experience has shown that only by simultaneously addressing constraints in the three pillars can a lasting transformation of power relations occur. Two SPJ operations, the GEWEL project in Zambia and the HDD project in Mozambique, stood out for their holistic approach to WGE. Both projects layer several interventions to provide women with resources, strengthen their voice and agency, and, in the context pillar, facilitate positive social norms change. Other projects, such as Ghana PSNP and Madagascar SSNP, are also starting to implement interventions from across the pillars as a way to reinforce both core and WGE objectives. Projects often need to include interventions from multiple pillars to mitigate any unintended consequences. Transforming power relations can create new challenges, including an increase in gender- based violence (GBV). Reviewed projects have incorporated a variety of strategies to mitigate this risk. For instance, Nigeria’s NASSP conducts a facilitated process through which household members identify the person responsible for most domestic and care work and nominate them as the transfer recipient. This approach enables buy-in from the household and reduces the risk of hostility or violence against the woman receiving the money. 26  |  HIGHLIGHTS FROM AFRICA: EMPOWERING WOMEN AND GIRLS THROUGH SOCIAL PROTECTION Lesson 3: SPJ projects usually promote WGE alongside core project objectives SPJ projects advance WGE even when it is not one of their main objectives. While the Zambia and Mozambique projects have explicit WGE objectives, most identified WGE interventions are drawn from SPJ projects whose main aim is to reduce poverty, strengthen resilience to shocks, or improve employment outcomes. The WGE interventions are incorporated into these projects to reduce underlying gender inequalities and to strengthen the main project objectives by playing a mutually reinforcing role. The experiences highlighted in this paper, including the six case studies, illustrate the wide-ranging benefits of including WGE interventions throughout the portfolio. Lesson 4: Projects can incorporate WGE interventions gradually during implementation SPJ projects tend to take an iterative approach to integrating WGE interventions. While several projects embedded WGE interventions in the initial project design, many incorporated the more logistically complex and transformative interventions after client buy-in and delivery capacity had improved. For example, in Zambia’s GEWEL project, the “context” interventions engaging husbands and community leaders were incorporated during its first additional financing phase based on the recommendations of a GBV assessment. In Ghana, after observing implementation challenges, the safety nets project has gradually phased in WGE adaptations, such as the provision of crèches and temporary latrines at work sites and accommodations for pregnant women. As our knowledge grows about the types of WGE interventions that are necessary to complement SPJ project design and success, the more appropriate the package of WGE interventions can be incorporated upfront. LESSONS LEARNED  | 27 5 RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS Building on the experience to date, the paper provides four recommendations for moving the WGE agenda forward in Africa’s SPJ projects. Recommendation 1: Identify the most pressing constraints in all three pillars New projects aiming to integrate a holistic emphasis on WGE should ideally follow the steps outlined in the Operational Approach to WGE. The Operational Approach to WGE45 emphasizes the importance of assessing constraints in all three pillars of empowerment that may affect women’s and girls’ ability to reach their goals. The first step in applying the approach to SPJ operations is to define the goal that the project aims to achieve—which could be closing a particular gender gap or improving a particular outcome for women. The second step is to thoroughly investigate and identify the underlying constraints in each of the three pillars that prevent women or girls from realizing that goal. The third and final step is to design the project around the most pressing constraints from the list compiled in the second step. In practice, implementing interventions across all three pillars may not be feasible or desirable, but task teams should be cognizant of the full set of constraints and complementarities between pillars when designing project activities. The types of interventions discussed in this paper are examples that span the empowerment pillars. Recommendation 2: Expand experimentation and learning in the context pillar The SPJ Global Practice should recognize the potential for increasing its engagement under the context pillar. Interventions aimed at expanding women’s resources are at the core of SPJ projects. The in-depth review also revealed that important progress has been made in terms of incorporating activities and design tweaks to increase the agency of girls and women. However, although the approach to WGE is becoming increasingly holistic, SPJ projects have had limited engagement in the context pillar. More analysis is needed to understand underlying social norms and thus to find effective ways to change gender power dynamics at the household and community levels. Interventions engaging husbands, fathers, and community leaders have had promising results and should be tested more widely within SPJ operations. Recommendation 3: Support systemic WGE change through legal and policy reforms SPJ task teams should leverage a broad set of financing instruments to enact systemic WGE reform. Although Development Policy Operations (DPOs) are not typically led by the SPJ Global Practice and thus were not covered in the in-depth review, they can be an effective vehicle for establishing a favorable 45 Cunningham and Gupta (2022). 28  |  HIGHLIGHTS FROM AFRICA: EMPOWERING WOMEN AND GIRLS THROUGH SOCIAL PROTECTION environment for WGE. Complementing SPJ operations with DPOs that support policy reforms aimed at reducing key legal and policy barriers to women’s and girls’ empowerment can be an effective strategy for overcoming context constraints to WGE. The DPO Gender Dashboard includes examples of policy reforms promoting gender equality and WGE. Recommendation 4: Improve the tracking and measuring of progress on WGE Task teams should carry out systematic and rigorous measurement of progress towards WGE in all three empowerment pillars. As of now, even though a significant share of projects declared having WGE as an objective, few projects designated any indicators for measuring empowerment. With the exception of projects accompanied by impact evaluations, most measure women’s participation rather than their empowerment, using output indicators such as the number of women beneficiaries. Integrating WGE outcome indicators in results frameworks would increase accountability and enable task teams to adjust the design of the project as needed. The Measurement Guide that accompanies this paper proposes a curated set of four WGE indicators and offers guidance on how to collect and analyze the resulting data. The highlighted interventions confirm that SPJ is taking on-board the institutional shift towards WGE. The in-depth review reveals diverse and increasingly holistic approaches to empowering girls and women in the Africa SPJ portfolio. While the provision of resources is well-entrenched through the frequent selection of women and girls as direct recipients, SPJ task teams have been pushing boundaries and experimenting with complementary agency and context interventions. A set of WGE intervention types has emerged based on both fit into SPJ projects and results. Moving forward, in addition to continued innovation, knowledge-sharing (including across regions and sectors) is key for learning how to leverage World Bank tools to empower women and girls to live the lives they envision for themselves. RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS  |  29 REFERENCES Adoho, Franck, Shubha Chakravarty, Dala T. Korkoyah, Jr, Mattias Lundberg, and Afia Tasneem. 2014. “The Impact of An Adolescent Girls Employment Program: The EPAG Project in Liberia.” Policy Research Working Paper Series No. 6832. 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