Adolescent Girls Initiative-Kenya (AGI-K) was designed to reduce the risks and vulnerabilities faced by adolescent girls in Kenya by promoting violence prevention, health and well-being, and economic empowerment. The programme increases health education and develops livelihoods and life skills at the individual level, as well as shifts harmful social norms that increase the risk of violence at the community level.

The full intervention includes all of the following components:

• Violence prevention: community dialogues on the causes and consequences of violence against girls, as well as funded community projects
• Education: conditional cash transfers to encourage school enrolment
• Health: weekly safe spaces for groups of girls led by a female mentor using a health, life skills, and nutrition curriculum
• Wealth creation: financial education sessions and activities such as opening bank accounts

A randomised controlled trial compared four packages of interventions:

01 only the violence prevention component
02 the violence prevention and education components
03 the violence prevention, education, and health components
04 the full intervention (the violence prevention, education, health, and wealth creation components).

The evaluation showed that AGI-K did not reduce girls’ experience of violence but did improve their retention in school, confidence, and household economic status, as well as delayed childbearing.

AGI-K was implemented by the Population Council, the African Population and Health Research Center, Save the Children, and Plan International. If you want to adapt the programme, we strongly recommend that you contact them first.