Publication: Evaluation of an Adolescent Development Program for Girls in Tanzania
Loading...
Published
2017-02
ISSN
Date
2017-02-08
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
This paper evaluates a program targeted to adolescent girls in Tanzania that aims to empower them economically as well as socially. The program was found to be highly successful in Uganda in terms of economic, health, and social outcomes. In contrast, this evaluation finds that the program did not have any notable effect on most of these outcomes in the Tanzanian setting. The evaluation also measures the impact of the program with and without microcredit services. The findings show that the addition of microcredit improves the take-up of the program and savings of the participants. The paper explores programmatic implementation information that helps explain the marked difference in outcomes between Uganda and Tanzania. This research shows that layering additional microfinance services onto an adolescent development program can be an effective tool to attain greater inclusion of youth in financial services, and brings out important issues of the generalizability of the research findings.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Buehren, Niklas; Goldstein, Markus; Gulesci, Selim; Sulaiman, Munshi; Yam, Venus. 2017. Evaluation of an Adolescent Development Program for Girls in Tanzania. Policy Research Working Paper;No. 7961. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/26025 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Publication The Economic Value of Weather Forecasts: A Quantitative Systematic Literature Review(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-09-10)This study systematically reviews the literature that quantifies the economic benefits of weather observations and forecasts in four weather-dependent economic sectors: agriculture, energy, transport, and disaster-risk management. The review covers 175 peer-reviewed journal articles and 15 policy reports. Findings show that the literature is concentrated in high-income countries and most studies use theoretical models, followed by observational and then experimental research designs. Forecast horizons studied, meteorological variables and services, and monetization techniques vary markedly by sector. Estimated benefits even within specific subsectors span several orders of magnitude and broad uncertainty ranges. An econometric meta-analysis suggests that theoretical studies and studies in richer countries tend to report significantly larger values. Barriers that hinder value realization are identified on both the provider and user sides, with inadequate relevance, weak dissemination, and limited ability to act recurring across sectors. Policy reports rely heavily on back-of-the-envelope or recursive benefit-transfer estimates, rather than on the methods and results of the peer-reviewed literature, revealing a science-to-policy gap. These findings suggest substantial socioeconomic potential of hydrometeorological services around the world, but also knowledge gaps that require more valuation studies focusing on low- and middle-income countries, addressing provider- and user-side barriers and employing rigorous empirical valuation methods to complement and validate theoretical models.Publication The Macroeconomic Implications of Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Options(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-05-29)Estimating the macroeconomic implications of climate change impacts and adaptation options is a topic of intense research. This paper presents a framework in the World Bank's macrostructural model to assess climate-related damages. This approach has been used in many Country Climate and Development Reports, a World Bank diagnostic that identifies priorities to ensure continued development in spite of climate change and climate policy objectives. The methodology captures a set of impact channels through which climate change affects the economy by (1) connecting a set of biophysical models to the macroeconomic model and (2) exploring a set of development and climate scenarios. The paper summarizes the results for five countries, highlighting the sources and magnitudes of their vulnerability --- with estimated gross domestic product losses in 2050 exceeding 10 percent of gross domestic product in some countries and scenarios, although only a small set of impact channels is included. The paper also presents estimates of the macroeconomic gains from sector-level adaptation interventions, considering their upfront costs and avoided climate impacts and finding significant net gross domestic product gains from adaptation opportunities identified in the Country Climate and Development Reports. Finally, the paper discusses the limits of current modeling approaches, and their complementarity with empirical approaches based on historical data series. The integrated modeling approach proposed in this paper can inform policymakers as they make proactive decisions on climate change adaptation and resilience.Publication Rigging the Scores: Corruption through Scoring Rule Manipulation in Public Procurement Auctions(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-12-02)Public procurement is highly susceptible to corruption, especially in developing countries. Although open auctions are widely adopted to curb it, this paper finds that corruption remains prevalent even within this procurement format. Procurement officers can collaborate with firms to manipulate scoring rules, ensuring predetermined winners, while corrupt firms submit noncompetitive bids to meet minimum bidder requirements. Using extensive data from Chinese public procurement auctions, the paper introduces model-driven statistical tools to detect such corruption, identifying a corruption rate of 65 percent. A procurement expert audit survey confirms the tools’ reliability, with a 91 percent probability that experts recognize suspicious scoring rules when flagged. Firm-level analysis reveals that local, state-owned, and less productive firms are favored in corrupt auctions. Lastly, the paper explores policy implications. Analysis of the national anti-corruption campaign since 2012 suggests that general investigations may be insufficient to address deeply ingrained corrupt practices. Using counterfactuals based on an estimated structural model, the paper shows that implementing anonymous call-for-tender evaluations could improve social welfare by 10 percent by eliminating suspicious rules and encouraging broader participation.Publication Labor Demand in the Age of Generative AI: Early Evidence from the U.S. Job Posting Data(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-11-18)This paper examines the causal impact of generative artificial intelligence on U.S. labor demand using online job posting data. Exploiting ChatGPT’s release in November 2022 as an exogenous shock, the paper applies difference-in-differences and event study designs to estimate the job displacement effects of generative artificial intelligence. The identification strategy compares labor demand for occupations with high versus low artificial intelligence substitution vulnerability following ChatGPT’s launch, conditioning on similar generative artificial intelligence exposure levels to isolate substitution effects from complementary uses. The analysis uses 285 million job postings collected by Lightcast from the first quarter of 2018 to the second quarter of 2025Q2. The findings show that the number of postings for occupations with above-median artificial intelligence substitution scores fell by an average of 12 percent relative to those with below-median scores. The effect increased from 6 percent in the first year after the launch to 18 percent by the third year. Losses were particularly acute for entry-level positions that require neither advanced degrees (18 percent) nor extensive experience (20 percent), as well as those in administrative support (40 percent) and professional services (30 percent). Although generative artificial intelligence generates new occupations and enhances productivity, which may increase labor demand, early evidence suggests that some occupations may be less likely to be complemented by generative artificial intelligence than others.Publication Investment Policy Reforms and Foreign Direct Investment Inflows(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-12-01)Foreign direct investment has the potential to introduce much-needed capital and expertise in emerging and developing economies. To attract foreign direct investment, many countries have eased restrictions on foreign ownership in various sectors, reformed their institutions, and set up investment promotion agencies. Until the mid-2010s, Ethiopia remained one of the few countries that resisted this trend, with several stringent restrictions in place on foreign direct investment entry and operations in the country. This study employs a synthetic control method to examine patterns in foreign capital inflows following a series of investment policy reforms that were substantively introduced in the mid-2010s (circa 2015). The study offers evidence that investment policy reforms contributed to a significant foreign direct investment inflow in Ethiopia, compared to what would have occurred in the absence of these policies. An alternative strategy that conservatively specifies the donor country pool using an AI-assisted deep search technique changes the donor pool weighting matrix of the synthetic control method, but the estimated policy effects largely remain robust to this specification. The findings highlight the importance of targeted reforms in promoting foreign direct investment inflow in developing countries.
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Empowering Adolescent Girls(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-12)Nearly 60 percent of Uganda's population is aged below twenty. This generation faces health and economic challenges associated with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), early pregnancy, and unemployment. Whether these challenges are due to a lack of information and or vocational skills is however uncertain. A programme was conducted to provide: (i) vocational training to run small-scale enterprises; and (ii) information on health and risky behaviors. The programme conducted, positively impacts behaviors on both economic and health margins. On economic margins, the intervention raises the likelihood that girls engage in income generating activities by 32 percent mainly driven by increased participation in self-employment. On health related margins, self-reported routine condom usage increases by 50 percent among the sexually active, and the probability of having a child decreases by 26 percent. Strikingly, the share of girls reporting sex against their will drops from 21 percent to almost zero. The findings suggest combined interventions might be more effective among adolescent girls than single-pronged interventions aiming to improve labor market outcomes solely through vocational training, or to change risky behaviors solely through education programmes.Publication Empowering Adolescent Girls in Uganda(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-01)The productive potential of adolescent girls in Uganda is critically limited by the reciprocal relationship between low health, education and employment indicators. With little incentive to attain relevant skills training, girls choose to have children early and become engaged in risky behavior, further hampering their ability to generate income. To address these challenges, we evaluated the impact of a BRAC program that simultaneously provided livelihoods training to run small-scale enterprises, and education on health and risky behaviors. After tracking 4,888 girls over a period of two years, the author found that the program had strong positive impacts on economic, health and agency outcomes for the girls. The program increased the likelihood of participants engaging in income-generating activities by 32 percent; self-reported routine condom use by those who were sexually active increased by 50 percent; fertility rates dropped by 26 percent; and there was a 76 percent reduction in adolescent girls reporting having had sex against their will during the past year.Publication Women’s Empowerment in Action(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-12)Women in developing countries are disempowered: high youth unemployment, early marriage and childbearing interact to limit their investments into human capital and enforce dependence on men. The authors evaluate a multi-faceted policy intervention attempting to jumpstart adolescent women’s empowerment in Uganda, a context in which 60 percent of the population are aged below twenty. The intervention aims to relax human capital constraints that adolescent girls face by simultaneously providing them vocational training and information on sex, reproduction and marriage. The authors find that four years post-intervention, adolescent girls in treated communities are 48 percent more likely to engage in income generating activities, an impact almost entirely driven by their greater engagement in self-employment. Teen pregnancy falls by 34 percent, and early entry into marriage/cohabitation falls by 62 percent. Strikingly, the share of girls reporting sex against their will drops by close to a third and aspired ages at which to marry and start childbearing move forward. The results highlight the potential of a multi-faceted program that provides skills transfers as a viable and cost-e¤ective policy intervention to improve the economic and social empowerment of adolescent girls over a four year horizon.Publication Empowering Adolescent Girls in a Crisis Context(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-07)In Sierra Leone, the empowerment and livelihoods for adolescents (ELA) initiative sought to enhance adolescent girls’ social and economic empowerment by providing life skills training, livelihood training, and credit support to start income-generating activities. The Ebola crisis occurred during the project, resulting in curbed implementation. In contrast, younger girls (12 to 17 years old) who resided in communities that benefitted from the program in high Ebola disruption areas were more likely to be in school and saw their numeracy and literacy levels improve. However, as younger women spend less time with men in the presence of ELA, men likely shift their attention to older girls: the evaluation finds an increase in unwanted and transactional sex by older girls in areas highly exposed to the Ebola crisis. As the program was implemented, the Ebola epidemic hit Sierra Leone. First, in an effort to stem the spread of the disease, the government-imposed quarantines, limited travel, and closed public spaces such as markets in certain areas, which significantly impacted the economic activities of men and women. Second, schools were closed for an entire academic year. Finally, Sierra Leone’s limited health resources were diverted into caring for patients and preventing the spread of the epidemic, limiting their ability to attend to other issues such as sexual and reproductive health. These results show how safe spaces interventions can be effective even in the face of large-scale shocks such as Ebola crises as seen in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Uganda, as well as other shocks constraining economic and social life, by buffering girls from the adverse effects of crises.Publication Empowering Girls Triggers Their Brothers to Compete(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-10)This brief has key messages through an experiment in Uganda, we find that empowering adolescent girls triggers a surge in their brothers’ competitiveness.Understanding preferences for competition is important because competitiveness is a predictor of labor market outcomes. To examine gender differences in preference for competition, the World Bank’s Africa GenderInnovation Lab, in collaboration with researchers from the University of Maryland and ColumbiaUniversity, launched a lab-in-the-field experiment within a randomized control trial of BRAC’scommunity-based Empowerment and Livelihood for Adolescents (ELA) program in Uganda.The ELA program simultaneously provided vocational and life skills training for girls aged 14 to 20. An impact evaluation of ELA showed that it empowered girls along economic and social dimensions: the program increased girls’ participation in self employment, improved girls’ control over their bodies, and shifted deep rooted gender norms held by adolescent girls in communities that participated in the program. Four years after the implementation began, we used a lab-in-the-field experiment to compare communities that received ELA with those that did not. The aim of this experiment was to test whether girl’s empowerment would have a direct impact on girls’ or boys’ competitiveness. To measure preferences for competition, we implemented the experimental protocol of Niederle and Vesterlund (2007). More specifically, participants were asked to select a compensation scheme before performing a simple task, from which we identified their taste to compete. They either chose to be paid according to a competitive tournament scheme or a non competitive piece-rate scheme. The experiment was designed to control for a host of factors such as individual differences in ability, overconfidence, risk aversion, and altruism. Our findings highlight the impact of gender equality on gender differences in competitiveness: when boys are faced with more empowered sisters, they increase their competitiveness. This suggests that the benefits of adolescent girls’ empowerment programs may spill over beyond the participating girls themselves to their brothers. More work needs to be done to understand if the changed behavior in brothers will have persistent effects on girls in the future.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Global Economic Prospects, January 2025(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-01-16)Global growth is expected to hold steady at 2.7 percent in 2025-26. However, the global economy appears to be settling at a low growth rate that will be insufficient to foster sustained economic development—with the possibility of further headwinds from heightened policy uncertainty and adverse trade policy shifts, geopolitical tensions, persistent inflation, and climate-related natural disasters. Against this backdrop, emerging market and developing economies are set to enter the second quarter of the twenty-first century with per capita incomes on a trajectory that implies substantially slower catch-up toward advanced-economy living standards than they previously experienced. Without course corrections, most low-income countries are unlikely to graduate to middle-income status by the middle of the century. Policy action at both global and national levels is needed to foster a more favorable external environment, enhance macroeconomic stability, reduce structural constraints, address the effects of climate change, and thus accelerate long-term growth and development.Publication Digital Progress and Trends Report 2023(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-03-05)Digitalization is the transformational opportunity of our time. The digital sector has become a powerhouse of innovation, economic growth, and job creation. Value added in the IT services sector grew at 8 percent annually during 2000–22, nearly twice as fast as the global economy. Employment growth in IT services reached 7 percent annually, six times higher than total employment growth. The diffusion and adoption of digital technologies are just as critical as their invention. Digital uptake has accelerated since the COVID-19 pandemic, with 1.5 billion new internet users added from 2018 to 2022. The share of firms investing in digital solutions around the world has more than doubled from 2020 to 2022. Low-income countries, vulnerable populations, and small firms, however, have been falling behind, while transformative digital innovations such as artificial intelligence (AI) have been accelerating in higher-income countries. Although more than 90 percent of the population in high-income countries was online in 2022, only one in four people in low-income countries used the internet, and the speed of their connection was typically only a small fraction of that in wealthier countries. As businesses in technologically advanced countries integrate generative AI into their products and services, less than half of the businesses in many low- and middle-income countries have an internet connection. The growing digital divide is exacerbating the poverty and productivity gaps between richer and poorer economies. The Digital Progress and Trends Report series will track global digitalization progress and highlight policy trends, debates, and implications for low- and middle-income countries. The series adds to the global efforts to study the progress and trends of digitalization in two main ways: · By compiling, curating, and analyzing data from diverse sources to present a comprehensive picture of digitalization in low- and middle-income countries, including in-depth analyses on understudied topics. · By developing insights on policy opportunities, challenges, and debates and reflecting the perspectives of various stakeholders and the World Bank’s operational experiences. This report, the first in the series, aims to inform evidence-based policy making and motivate action among internal and external audiences and stakeholders. The report will bring global attention to high-performing countries that have valuable experience to share as well as to areas where efforts will need to be redoubled.Publication The Container Port Performance Index 2023(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-07-18)The Container Port Performance Index (CPPI) measures the time container ships spend in port, making it an important point of reference for stakeholders in the global economy. These stakeholders include port authorities and operators, national governments, supranational organizations, development agencies, and other public and private players in trade and logistics. The index highlights where vessel time in container ports could be improved. Streamlining these processes would benefit all parties involved, including shipping lines, national governments, and consumers. This fourth edition of the CPPI relies on data from 405 container ports with at least 24 container ship port calls in the calendar year 2023. As in earlier editions of the CPPI, the ranking employs two different methodological approaches: an administrative (technical) approach and a statistical approach (using matrix factorization). Combining these two approaches ensures that the overall ranking of container ports reflects actual port performance as closely as possible while also being statistically robust. The CPPI methodology assesses the sequential steps of a container ship port call. ‘Total port hours’ refers to the total time elapsed from the moment a ship arrives at the port until the vessel leaves the berth after completing its cargo operations. The CPPI uses time as an indicator because time is very important to shipping lines, ports, and the entire logistics chain. However, time, as captured by the CPPI, is not the only way to measure port efficiency, so it does not tell the entire story of a port’s performance. Factors that can influence the time vessels spend in ports can be location-specific and under the port’s control (endogenous) or external and beyond the control of the port (exogenous). The CPPI measures time spent in container ports, strictly based on quantitative data only, which do not reveal the underlying factors or root causes of extended port times. A detailed port-specific diagnostic would be required to assess the contribution of underlying factors to the time a vessel spends in port. A very low ranking or a significant change in ranking may warrant special attention, for which the World Bank generally recommends a detailed diagnostic.Publication The Container Port Performance Index 2020 to 2024: Trends and Lessons Learned(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-09-22)The Container Port Performance Index (CPPI) provides a global benchmark of how container ports perform in handling vessel calls. Developed jointly by the World Bank and S&P Global Market Intelligence, it measures the time ships spend in port and relates this to the number of containers moved during that time. This approach makes the CPPI a unique diagnostic tool that can highlight patterns in port operations and shed light on global and regional supply chain dynamics. Now in its fifth edition, the CPPI report covers the period from 2020 to 2024. It builds on a well-established methodology to generate scores for more than 400 container ports worldwide. Over time, the CPPI has become a trusted reference point for policymakers, industry stakeholders, and researchers who seek to understand how ports adapt to shocks, recover from disruptions, and identify opportunities for investments, reform and modernization. A major innovation in this edition is the introduction of multi-year trend analysis. Rather than presenting annual snapshots, the report now tracks how CPPI scores have changed across five years. This longitudinal perspective reveals shifts in port performance, showing where scores have risen, fallen, or remained stable. By linking these movements to external factors, the CPPI offers insights into how global and regional supply chains evolve under pressure. The results clearly mirror the crises that have shaken global trade. During the COVID-19 pandemic, CPPI scores in different regions declined sharply as congestion, equipment shortages, and delays overwhelmed many ports. By 2023, global averages rebounded in parallel with easing freight markets and reduced congestion. Yet 2024 brought new challenges: the Red Sea crisis disrupted major trade lanes, while climate-related constraints at the Panama Canal added further stress. These shocks were reflected in lower global and several regional average scores, underscoring the vulnerability of maritime transport to geopolitical and environmental events. The CPPI is not about comparing one port against another, but about understanding changes in performance over time. Ports that improved their scores often did so by reducing time at anchor, optimizing berth operations, investing in digital tools, and strengthening coordination across logistics partners. The evidence confirms that improvements are possible across ports of all sizes, and that rising scores are linked to deliberate actions to minimize time in port relative to containers moved. By consolidating five years of results, this edition transforms the CPPI into a long-term reference point. It shows how global crises have affected shipping, how different regions have adapted, and what lessons can be drawn for future resilience. The World Bank and S&P Global Market Intelligence remain committed to maintaining the CPPI as a global public good, providing transparency, comparability, and practical insights to support more reliable and sustainable maritime supply chains.Publication Global Economic Prospects, June 2025(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-06-10)The global economy is facing another substantial headwind, emanating largely from an increase in trade tensions and heightened global policy uncertainty. For emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs), the ability to boost job creation and reduce extreme poverty has declined. Key downside risks include a further escalation of trade barriers and continued policy uncertainty. These challenges are exacerbated by subdued foreign direct investment into EMDEs. Global cooperation is needed to restore a more stable international trade environment and scale up support for vulnerable countries grappling with conflict, debt burdens, and climate change. Domestic policy action is also critical to contain inflation risks and strengthen fiscal resilience. To accelerate job creation and long-term growth, structural reforms must focus on raising institutional quality, attracting private investment, and strengthening human capital and labor markets. Countries in fragile and conflict situations face daunting development challenges that will require tailored domestic policy reforms and well-coordinated multilateral support.