Adolescence is critical to development, but young people must be supported and empowered to reach their full potential. Despite remarkable progress over the past two decades and increased recognition on the international development agenda of the particular needs of adolescent girls, the transition to healthy adulthood remains particularly fraught for poor adolescent girls in low- and middle-income countries.
Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence (GAGE), an exciting new longitudinal research initiative working in the Global South, aims to strengthen the evidence base on adolescent girls – as individuals and as future women– to maximise their capabilities and shape their own futures. GAGE research will focus on what policies and programmes work, where and why. It will identify the medium- and long-term impacts of interventions for girls, and ascertain how best to time and sequence those interventions.
The consortium will produce a global body of evidence, based on data gathered through innovative approaches over eight years (with a potential five-year extension) which will go beyond current frameworks to advance the wellbeing of adolescent girls.
The GAGE evidence base will:
- Promote state-of-the-art knowledge about what works to promote well-being for adolescent girls, strengthening the capacities of practitioners and policy actors to become more discerning consumers of research evidence;
- Support adolescent girls to become actively involved in the research process
- Fast-track social change for adolescent girls by informing policy, programming design, monitoring and evaluation (M&E) and advocacy;
- Improve the research tools and methodologies for working with adolescents.
We will undertake an in-depth, mixed-methods programme of longitudinal research in four focal countries in Africa and Asia, balancing a mix of ‘gold standard’ impact evaluation approaches with innovative implementation and action research.
We will undertake participatory work with adolescent girls in additional countries, including conflict-affected countries in the Middle East.
We will also deliver a political economy analysis and implement capacity-strengthening approaches based on ‘learning by doing’, complemented by the development of toolkits, resources and short courses.
Over the longer term we will help create a cadre of interdisciplinary researchers in the South and North who can undertake mixed-methods research on adolescent girls.
The GAGE consortium includes leading research institutions from Africa, Asia, MENA (to be selected during inception phase), the UK and the US; the world’s top INGOs working on adolescence and gender and two key think tanks, with a global reputation as pioneers of policy research on gender and adolescence, ODI and the International Center for Research on Women
For further information on GAGE please contact Caroline Spencer, Operations and Partnerships Manager.