This report is intended to help humanitarian practitioners more effectively identify and address the unique needs of adolescent girls in displacement and crisis settings. It also provides donors and policy makers, who have the ability to drive change in humanitarian programming, with guidance on how to make sustainable impact for adolescent girls.
This report synthesizes the findings from:
- Desk research and key informant interviews
- In-country assessments from refugee camps in Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Uganda
- Learning to date from pilot programs in three refugee camps in Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Uganda
Adolescent girls in humanitarian settings should not just be seen as a vulnerable group; girls possess enormous capacity for becoming a source of transformation in their families and communities. Growing evidence supports that investing in girls’ economic and social empowerment can reduce their risks of experiencing violence and is an effective pathway to sustainable development. Likewise, conflict and crisis situations often lead to shifting gender roles that open up possibilities for positive social changes, resulting in an opportunity for gender norms to change for the better.
Key recommendations:
- Allocate a sufficient start-up period to allow time for staff training and consultations with girls, and to adjust tools for learning activities. Time must be invested before interventions start to ensure staff can work effectively with girls and tools are developed for girls’ activities.
- Maintain a focus on girls as the primary beneficiaries. Programs for youth or women are mostly attended by adult males or older women, respectively. Level the playing field for girls by centring interventions on girls, and involving them every step of the way.
- Create safe spaces to bring girls together. Public spaces are usually dominated by men and boys. Girls need a space to call their own. Safe spaces can be a platform for building girls’ social networks, knowledge, and skills.
- Build mentorship and leadership models into programs. Girls and communities mutually benefit from mentorship and leadership. When a girl sees herself as a leader or mentor, it can create a positive force for change in her life. Strong networks of girl leaders improve the status of females in the community.
- Integrate programs with economic strengthening activities. Financial literacy and vocational skills training, and practicing savings, should accompany the learning activities for girls. Integrating activities to increase a girl’s economic prospects can lead to improvement in her and her family’s future well-being.
- Ensure programs are developmentally and contextually appropriate. Life skills for younger girls should focus on different issues than for pregnant, married, and parenting girls; for financial literacy skills, help younger girls to practice savings, and older girls to access loans.
- Involve men and boys in programs as partners and allies for changing gender norms. Engaging men and boys without explicit focus on transforming unequal power relations may not be as effective and can even lead to more gender inequality.
