Publication: Can Youth Empowerment Programs Reduce Violence against Girls during the COVID-19 Pandemic?
Loading...
Date
2021-02
ISSN
Published
2021-02
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
This paper shows that a youth empowerment program in Bolivia reduces the prevalence of violence against girls during the COVID-19 lockdown. The program offers training in soft skills and technical skills, sex education, mentoring, and job-finding assistance. To measure the effects of the program, the study conducts a randomized control trial with 600 vulnerable adolescents. The results indicate that seven months after its completion, the program increased girls' earnings and decreased violence targeting females. Violence is measured with both direct self-report questions and list experiments. These findings suggest that empowerment programs can reduce the level of violence experienced by young females during high-risk periods.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Gulesci, Selim; Beccar, Manuela Puente; Ubfal, Diego. 2021. Can Youth Empowerment Programs Reduce Violence against Girls during the COVID-19 Pandemic?. Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9547. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/35143 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Publication The Future of Poverty(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-07-15)Climate change is increasingly acknowledged as a critical issue with far-reaching socioeconomic implications that extend well beyond environmental concerns. Among the most pressing challenges is its impact on global poverty. This paper projects the potential impacts of unmitigated climate change on global poverty rates between 2023 and 2050. Building on a study that provided a detailed analysis of how temperature changes affect economic productivity, this paper integrates those findings with binned data from 217 countries, sourced from the World Bank’s Poverty and Inequality Platform. By simulating poverty rates and the number of poor under two climate change scenarios, the paper uncovers some alarming trends. One of the primary findings is that the number of people living in extreme poverty worldwide could be nearly doubled due to climate change. In all scenarios, Sub-Saharan Africa is projected to bear the brunt, contributing the largest number of poor people, with estimates ranging between 40.5 million and 73.5 million by 2050. Another significant finding is the disproportionate impact of inequality on poverty. Even small increases in inequality can lead to substantial rises in poverty levels. For instance, if every country’s Gini coefficient increases by just 1 percent between 2022 and 2050, an additional 8.8 million people could be pushed below the international poverty line by 2050. In a more extreme scenario, where every country’s Gini coefficient increases by 10 percent between 2022 and 2050, the number of people falling into poverty could rise by an additional 148.8 million relative to the baseline scenario. These findings underscore the urgent need for comprehensive climate policies that not only mitigate environmental impacts but also address socioeconomic vulnerabilities.Publication Exports, Labor Markets, and the Environment(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-07-14)What is the environmental impact of exports? Focusing on 2000–20, this paper combines customs, administrative, and census microdata to estimate employment elasticities with respect to exports. The findings show that municipalities that faced increased exports experienced faster growth in formal employment. The elasticities were 0.25 on impact, peaked at 0.4, and remained positive and significant even 10 years after the shock, pointing to a long and protracted labor market adjustment. In the long run, informal employment responds negatively to export shocks. Using a granular taxonomy for economic activities based on their environmental impact, the paper documents that environmentally risky activities have a larger share of employment than environmentally sustainable ones, and that the relationship between these activities and exports is nuanced. Over the short run, environmentally risky employment responds more strongly to exports relative to environmentally sustainable employment. However, over the long run, this pattern reverses, as the impact of exports on environmentally sustainable employment is more persistent.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 The Asymmetric Bank Distress Amplifier of Recessions(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-07-11)One defining feature of financial crises, evident in U.S. and international data, is asymmetric bank distress—concentrated losses on a subset of banks. This paper proposes a model in which shocks to borrowers’ productivity dispersion lead to asymmetric bank losses. The framework exhibits a “bank distress amplifier,” exacerbating economic downturns by causing costly bank failures and raising uncertainty about the solvency of banks, thereby pushing banks to deleverage. Quantitative analysis shows that the bank distress amplifier doubles investment decline and increases the spread by 2.5 times during the Great Recession compared to a standard financial accelerator model. The mechanism helps explain how a seemingly small shock can sometimes trigger a large crisis.Publication Impact of Heat Waves on Learning Outcomes and the Role of Conditional Cash Transfers(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-07-14)This paper evaluates the impact of higher temperatures on learning outcomes in Peru. The results suggest that 1 degree above 20°C is equivalent to 7 and 6 percent of a standard deviation of what a student learns in a year for math and reading tests, respectively. These results hold true when the main specification is changed, splitting the sample, collapsing the data at school level, and using other climate specifications. The paper aims to improve understanding of how to deal with the impacts of climate change on learning outcomes in developing countries. The evidence suggests that conditional cash transfer programs can mitigate the negative effects of higher temperatures on students’ learning outcomes in math and reading.
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Interventions to Prevent or Reduce Violence Against Women and Girls : A Systematic Review of Reviews(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014)Violence against Women and Girls (VAWG) is a pervasive global problem. It is a violation of basic human rights and a drag on development. Much of the research to-date on the topic-including a major recent World Health Organization study to produce global prevalence rates has focused on better understanding the scale and nature of the problem. The present study builds on this body or research while shifting focus to synthesizing global evidence on potential solutions. This paper, a systematic review of reviews, breaks new ground by synthesizing evidence on the effects of VAWG prevention interventions. It examines the diversity of geographical context, the types of violence addressed, and the numerous approaches that have been used to combat VAWG. Additionally the review summarizes the quality of evidence on efficacy and effectiveness in order to highlight strengths and gaps of interventions on a global scale and could serve as a point of reference for those intending to undertake future design, implementation, and evaluation of interventions. This paper finds that knowledge of intervention impacts on VAWG prevention is growing, but is still highly limited. Nonetheless, a small but growing body of rigorously tested interventions demonstrates that preventing VAWG is possible and can achieve large effect sizes. The interventions with the most positive findings used multiple, well-integrated approaches and engaged with multiple stakeholders over time. They also addressed underlying risk factors for violence, including social norms regarding gender dynamics and the acceptability of violence. These examples point to the imperative of greatly increasing investment both in innovative programming in primary prevention, as well as in high-quality experimental and quasi-experimental evaluations to guide international efforts to end VAWG.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 Violence Against Women and Girls : Finance and Enterprise Development Brief(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-04)Violence against women and girls (VAWG) affects survivorsapos; ability to achieve individual potential and contribute to the economy. Unequal gender norms within a household can limit a woman s control over and access to economic resources. Restraining womenapos;s ability to access economic resources is a form of intimidation and coercion. Although microfinance projects can reduce household vulnerability, merely offering resources to women does not enable and empower them to exert control over those resources or make decisions about their lives. Providing women with an income can contribute to disrupting household and gender dynamics, potentially contributing to VAWG.Publication Violence Against Women and Girls : Social Protection Brief(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-12)The definition of social protection (SP) programs varies widely, as do the types of interventions included and the specific outcomes sought. These programs can be implemented through public and/or private sectors, with the involvement of single or multiple government sectors, or by some combination of these actors. This brief will specifically focus on four types of social protection interventions: social assistance, social insurance, labor market programs, and early childhood development. It will offer suggestions for integrating violence against women and girls (VAWG) prevention efforts within these interventions. These areas of focus are meant to be illustrative of different social protection programs, rather than to reflect the full breadth of SP programs. In general, SP programs are public interventions that support the poorest populations and assist individuals, households, and communities to better overcome social and economic risks. Examples of programs include: a) social assistance (social safety nets): cash transfers, school feeding, and targeted food assistance; b) social insurance: old-age and disability pensions and unemployment insurance; c) labor market programs: skills-building programs, job-search and matching programs, and improved labor regulations; and d) early childhood development. Other program interventions, which fall under what is referred to as social protection, aim to strengthen families abilities to respond to hardships by promoting gender equality. Examples include early childhood development, projects that focus on at-risk youth, or targeted poverty alleviation programs.Publication Violence Against Women and Girls : Education Sector Brief(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-12)Experiencing violence in schools can negatively impact girls' enrollment as well as the quality of the education they receive. Evidence suggests that sexual harassment is widespread in educational settings in many parts of the world. Children who have witnessed violence at home or experienced violence have lower educational attainment. In Zambia, girls who experienced sexual violence were found to have more difficulty concentrating on studies, some students transferred to another school to escape harassment, and others dropped out of school because of pregnancy. Few ministries of education around the world have explicit policies on sexual violence and harassment as unacceptable, and few have developed guidelines on the definition of harassment and how educational institutions should respond.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Lebanon Economic Monitor, Fall 2022(Washington, DC, 2022-11)The economy continues to contract, albeit at a somewhat slower pace. Public finances improved in 2021, but only because spending collapsed faster than revenue generation. Testament to the continued atrophy of Lebanon’s economy, the Lebanese Pound continues to depreciate sharply. The sharp deterioration in the currency continues to drive surging inflation, in triple digits since July 2020, impacting the poor and vulnerable the most. An unprecedented institutional vacuum will likely further delay any agreement on crisis resolution and much needed reforms; this includes prior actions as part of the April 2022 International Monetary Fund (IMF) staff-level agreement (SLA). Divergent views among key stakeholders on how to distribute the financial losses remains the main bottleneck for reaching an agreement on a comprehensive reform agenda. Lebanon needs to urgently adopt a domestic, equitable, and comprehensive solution that is predicated on: (i) addressing upfront the balance sheet impairments, (ii) restoring liquidity, and (iii) adhering to sound global practices of bail-in solutions based on a hierarchy of creditors (starting with banks’ shareholders) that protects small depositors.Publication Argentina Country Climate and Development Report(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-11)The Argentina Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) explores opportunities and identifies trade-offs for aligning Argentina’s growth and poverty reduction policies with its commitments on, and its ability to withstand, climate change. It assesses how the country can: reduce its vulnerability to climate shocks through targeted public and private investments and adequation of social protection. The report also shows how Argentina can seize the benefits of a global decarbonization path to sustain a more robust economic growth through further development of Argentina’s potential for renewable energy, energy efficiency actions, the lithium value chain, as well as climate-smart agriculture (and land use) options. Given Argentina’s context, this CCDR focuses on win-win policies and investments, which have large co-benefits or can contribute to raising the country’s growth while helping to adapt the economy, also considering how human capital actions can accompany a just transition.Publication The Journey Ahead(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-31)The Journey Ahead: Supporting Successful Migration in Europe and Central Asia provides an in-depth analysis of international migration in Europe and Central Asia (ECA) and the implications for policy making. By identifying challenges and opportunities associated with migration in the region, it aims to inform a more nuanced, evidencebased debate on the costs and benefits of cross-border mobility. Using data-driven insights and new analysis, the report shows that migration has been an engine of prosperity and has helped address some of ECA’s demographic and socioeconomic disparities. Yet, migration’s full economic potential remains untapped. The report identifies multiple barriers keeping migration from achieving its full potential. Crucially, it argues that policies in both origin and destination countries can help maximize the development impacts of migration and effectively manage the economic, social, and political costs. Drawing from a wide range of literature, country experiences, and novel analysis, The Journey Ahead presents actionable policy options to enhance the benefits of migration for destination and origin countries and migrants themselves. Some measures can be taken unilaterally by countries, whereas others require close bilateral or regional coordination. The recommendations are tailored to different types of migration— forced displacement as well as high-skilled and low-skilled economic migration—and from the perspectives of both sending and receiving countries. This report serves as a comprehensive resource for governments, development partners, and other stakeholders throughout Europe and Central Asia, where the richness and diversity of migration experiences provide valuable insights for policy makers in other regions of the world.Publication World Development Report 2006(Washington, DC, 2005)This year’s Word Development Report (WDR), the twenty-eighth, looks at the role of equity in the development process. It defines equity in terms of two basic principles. The first is equal opportunities: that a person’s chances in life should be determined by his or her talents and efforts, rather than by pre-determined circumstances such as race, gender, social or family background. The second principle is the avoidance of extreme deprivation in outcomes, particularly in health, education and consumption levels. This principle thus includes the objective of poverty reduction. The report’s main message is that, in the long run, the pursuit of equity and the pursuit of economic prosperity are complementary. In addition to detailed chapters exploring these and related issues, the Report contains selected data from the World Development Indicators 2005‹an appendix of economic and social data for over 200 countries. This Report offers practical insights for policymakers, executives, scholars, and all those with an interest in economic development.Publication Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21)This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.