Document Type

Brief

Publication Date

3-17-2021

Abstract

In Kenya, early pregnancy is a challenge for girls that often has immediate effects on their educational opportunities, future implications for their social, health, and economic outcomes, and immediate and ongoing negative impacts on their children. Early pregnancy is an outcome shaped by a myriad of issues affecting an adolescent girl’s life—including community norms on gender roles, violence, and the social value of girls; barriers to formal education; household poverty; lack of economic independence; experience of violence; and social isolation. For girls to achieve well-being in early and late adolescence, no single-sector intervention—whether it be education, health, wealth creation, or the prevention of violence—will be adequate. The Adolescent Girls Initiative–Kenya delivered multisectoral interventions to over 6,000 girls aged 11–15 in two marginalized areas of Kenya: Kibera and Wajir. Two-year follow-up results, as noted in this brief, largely confirmed the AGI-K theory of change and held up the view that an investment in early adolescents among the right groups of marginalized girls would have short-term benefits on asset accumulation, educational attainment, and household economic status that translated into longer-term impact on delaying childbearing.

DOI

10.31899/pgy17.1030

Language

English

Project

Adolescent Girls Initiative-Kenya

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