Implementing Multiple Gender Strategies to Improve HIV and ... - ICRW

Local Involvement/
Ownership
Community leaders initially were involved in mobilizing participants and
providing meeting venues, such as social halls and chiefs’ camps.
Throughout the project, community stakeholders provided moral support.
Some community members, particularly the chiefs, participated by
following-up on defaulters. This negatively affected the project, as the
pressure to repay their loans may have increased the girls’ vulnerability.
Local leaders currently support the Young Savers Clubs but have no direct
implementation role.
The government was involved through the local provincial administrators
who conducted mobilization. They also participated in disseminating results
and recruiting girls.
Evaluation
Methodology
• Longitudinal study with control group: TRY included a monitoring and
research component that allowed managers to track the performance of
the project and measure changes associated with the intervention. The
impact of the project was assessed by comparing project participants to
a group of suitable controls who had not been exposed to the project.
Each participant was matched to a control who lived in the same
neighborhood and had approximately the same age, education, marital
status, parenthood status, and employment status. Controls were
identified through a house-to-house survey in the vicinity of the
participant’s home. In all, 326 participants and their matched controls
were interviewed at baseline in 2001, and 222 pairs were interviewed at
endline in 2005. Experimental respondents and their matched controls
were compared on economic and financial indicators, gender attitudes,
and reproductive health knowledge, behavior and negotiation. The
evaluation went beyond financial performance to include the impact of
participation across social and reproductive health dimensions.
Evaluation Results • Project reach: The project reached 535 adolescent girls and young
women.
• Longitudinal study with control group: Results from the 2001 baseline
show that TRY participants and their controls had comparable income
levels and comparable attitudes toward most gender issues. An
aggregate score was computed using responses to eight gender
attitude statements, with one point given for each progressive attitude
held. In two of the eight issues raised, girls in the control group were
significantly more liberal in their thinking than TRY girls.*
• Results from the 2005 endline show that participants had a significantly
higher level of income compared to controls. Further, while their
household assets had been similar at baseline, at endline, participants
owned considerably more assets than controls. Girls who participated
in TRY also demonstrated more liberal gender attitudes compared to
controls. In particular, TRY girls were significantly more likely to say
that wives should be able to refuse their husbands sex, that marriage is
not the only option for an unschooled girl, and that it is not necessary to
have a husband to be happy. There were also some indications that
participant girls had greater ability to refuse sex and insist on condom
use.
* “More liberal” gender attitudes stress gender equality or equity, as
opposed to traditional conservative stereotypes and beliefs about male
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