MAJA GAVRILOVIC, UNICEF OFFICE OF
RESEARCH—INNOCENTI
HOW ARE SOCIAL
PROTECTION
PROGRAMMES
TARGETING OR
INCLUSIVE OF
ADOLESCENCE?
SOCIAL PROTECTION GENDER NORMS AND
ADOLESCENCE: AN EXPERT DIALOGUE

WHY INVEST IN
ADOLESCENTS
THOUGH SOCIAL
PROTECTION?
01.
Social Protection (SP) can play critical role in facilitating safe
transitions to adulthood
• Period of rapid physiological, biological and
psychological change
• Heighted exposure to poverty and vulnerabilities
(Neetu, et. al, 2017).
02.
Unique window of opportunity for SP to:
• Improve opportunities constrained by gender norms
• Promote more equitable gender roles and relations
• In many countries, there is a limited recognition of
adolescence as a distinct life stage

HOW ARE
ADOLESCENTS
REPRESENTED IN
SP PROGRAMMING?
01.
With global attention in adolescent development growing, key
moment to step up the efforts and leverage impacts of SP for
adolescents
02.
Traditionally, adolescents not the primary focus of government-
run SP
• Prioritization of ECD and adult outcomes
• In SSA, targeting often includes large number of
adolescents, but their multiple needs and vulnerabilities
rarely reflected in programme design
03.
Gender lens inconsistently used for understanding risk &
vulnerability and informing design
• Many issues related to adolescence (eg. sexuality,
SRH) remain sensitive and a cultural taboo, limiting
buy-in for adolescence-focused programming

Target Groups in SP Programmes in SSA
Source: Cirillo & Tebaldo 2016 (Social Protection in Africa: Inventory
of Non-Contributory Programmes): http://www.ipc-
undp.org/pub/eng/Social_Protection_in_Africa.pdf
ADOLESCENTS ARE
FALLING THROUGH
THE CRACKS IN
(DIRECT) TARGETING

HOW ARE NEEDS
REFLECTED IN
PROGRAMMING
01.
Sub-set of adolescent-focused programmes (typically run as
pilots) to address different (overlapping) vulnerabilities faced by
adolescents
02.
Social transfers mainly used for this purpose include:
• Cash transfers (conditional and unconditional)
• Educational stipends/scholarships/vocational training
• Fee waivers
• In-kind transfers (eg. school feeding, uniforms/school
supplies)
03.
Focus on a narrow set of issues and younger cohorts (e.g.
meeting practical needs)
04.
‘Transformative’ programs can be used as a vehicle to
promote:
• empowerment, voice and agency among
adolescents
• tackle harmful socio-cultural practices
• improve their strategic position in families and
community

FOCUS PRIMARILY
ON YOUNGER
ADOLESCENT
GIRLS
01.
Affirmative action for girls is justified given their greater
(multidimensional) poverty, compared to boys (UN Women,
2015)
02.
More efforts are needed to reflect in programming how gender
norms and ideologies of masculinity expose boys to specific
risks

EDUCATION CONTINUES TO BE
AMONG THE MAIN ADOLESCENT
FOCUSES OF SOCIAL TRANSFERS

SOCIAL
PROTECTION AND
ADOLESCENTS
01.
Main adolescent-focus to date: promote secondary school
access
02.
Strong evidence that conditional and unconditional programs:
• improve school attendance and attainment (Baird et
al. 2014)
• delay sexual debut, marriage and childbearing and
reduce risky behavior but not in all settings (Dake et
al. 2018 Handa et al. 2014; Handa et al. 2015;
Heinrich et al. 2017)
• improve mental health (Kilburn et al. 2016)
• reduce intimate partner violence (Pettifor et al. 2016)
03.
Transformative potential:
• reduce gender disparities in secondary school
enrolment
• challenge traditional attitudes around how girls are
valued by their families and communities
• provide safe, progressive environment for girls and
boys where they can learn new values/norms, and be
empowered.

SOCIAL AND
GENDER NORMS
CAN MODIFY
IMPACTS ON SAFE
TRANSITIONS
01.
Transfer Project research has identified education and increases
in household economic stability as 2 main pathways through
which SCTs facilitate safe transitions to adulthood
• But, varies by context, and pathways found to be
more important among female populations
02.
Differential impacts on some outcomes (sexual behaviour,
mental health among others) for males vs. females has been
demonstrated in some countries
03.
Can be hypothesized that traditional gender norms may be
underlying and moderating some of these differential effects, but
further research needed.

Need robust
research to
unpack the links
between norms,
core pathways &
programme
impacts
Important for research & evaluations
to measure gender norms/attitudes &
examine moderating impacts
Even if no impacts on norms
expected/feasible

PROGRAMMES MAY
ALSO CHALLENGE
DISCRIMINATORY
GENDER NORMS
AND HARMFUL
PRACTICES HEAD
ON
Child Marriage Examples
01.
“Our daughters, our wealth”, CCT program in India conditional
on girls remaining unmarried until the age of 18
02.
Transformative scope: i) Send message to invest in girls
(valuable and not a burden) ii) use cash for girls education rather
than marriage.
• No positive effects, may have encouraged families to
marry off their daughters once they turned 18.
• Poor design jeopardized results (e.g. absence
of clear messaging to promote intent)
03.
UNICEF supported Integrated Safety Net Programme (INSP) in
Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) – case
management focus to combat harmful gender norms and
practices around early marriage, invest in adolescent SRH
(among other aims) rolling out in 2018

01.
Targeting by itself may not be enough to achieve specific
objectives if transfers are not shared equitably within HH
02.
Adolescent-sensitive design innovations
• South Africa: providing transfers directly to adolescent
girls (not caregivers)
• Malawi: transfers (varied amounts) provided to
adolescent girl and caregiver in participating HH
• India: individual entitlements have been piloted in the
Basic Income Grant pilot in India
03.
Transfer size can address specific gender and age
vulnerabilities
• Mexico, Colombia, Tanzania: Higher amounts for
secondary- school-age girls than for primary-school-
age girls
• Jamaica: Higher payments for secondary-school age
boys
HOW CAN DESIGN
FEATURES BE
USED
STRATEGICALLY TO
IMPROVE
(TRANSFORMATIVE)
OUTCOMES FOR
ADOLESCENTS?

HOW CAN DESIGN
FEATURES BE
USED
STRATEGICALLY TO
IMPROVE
(TRANSFORMATIVE)
OUTCOMES FOR
ADOLESCENTS?
04.
Messaging/soft conditions: Influence allocation of resources,
strengthen the bargaining power of individuals who may
otherwise lack it (Pace et al. 2018).
• Conditions found to improve the outcomes of ‘marginal’
children in whom parents are less likely to invest (eg.
Burkina Faso pilot).
• Soft conditionality’ labeling also effective (eg. ‘tagging’
transfers)
• Using messaging to promote certain adolescent-
focused outcomes (eg. sexual behavior, education,
gender equity)
05.
Cash+ programming: cash alone not enough to address the
multifaceted challenges faced by adolescents.
06.
Efforts to link adolescents in SCT participating households
with complementary programming/services targeting specific
vulnerabilities.
• Malawi, Zambia: linked adolescents to information,
treatment and testing for HIV
• Tanzania: livelihoods training, mentoring & linkages to
SRH/HIV services

CONCLUSIONS

01.
Mainstream adolescent lens into programming:
• Ensure their needs are explicitly and systematically
reflected in the programme cycle (e.g. vuln.
assessments, objectives, features, M&E)
• Invest in staff capacity and operational systems, building
political commitment and support.
02.
Where programmes specifically target adolescents:
• Consider when girls and/or boys should be preferentially
targeted, and base this selection on evidence instead of
well-worn assumptions
• Target especially vulnerable groups of
adolescents/those ‘hard-to-reach’ e.g. teen mothers,
out-of-school adolescents etc.
03.
Adolescent-sensitive messaging:
• Should be well-designed and implemented:
• Broad (or gender-neutral) awareness raising
messages can easily signal the wrong message,
inadvertently reinforcing negative behaviors
CONCLUSIONS

04.
Complementary support Should be tailored to adolescent
needs, vulnerabilities, age and priorities (life cycle lens)
05.
Social/gender norms lens critical for advancing
transformative programming but must be practical/feasible
• Relative importance of ‘social norms approach’
depends on specific issues/context
• Understand when/how norms act as a barrier to
development outcomes
• Recognition that design and implementation
practices themselves are informed by social norms
and beliefs (eg. gender assumptions in CCTs)
• Should not oversell the potential of SP to affect social
and gender norms (eg. cost effectiveness)
06.
Evaluation needs:
• Methodologies to measure/assess changes in norms
related to SP (what should we measure, at what level
and how?)
• More analysis of moderating effects of norms
CONCLUSIONS

• Baird, S., et al. (2014). "Conditional, unconditional and everything in between: a systematic review of the effects of cash transfer
programmes on schooling outcomes." Journal of Development Effectiveness 6(1): 1-43.
• Cluver, L., Boyes, M., Orkin, M., Pantelic, M., Molwena, T., & Sherr, L. (2013). Child-focused state cash transfers and adolescent
risk of HIV infection in South Africa: a propensity-score-matched case-control study. The Lancet Global Health, 1(6), e362-e370.
• Dake, F., Natali, L., Angeles, G., De Hoop, J., Handa, S., & Peterman, A. (2018). Income transfers, early marriage and fertility in
Malawi and Zambia. Studies in family planning, in press.
• Handa, S., Halpern, C. T., Pettifor, A., & Thirumurthy, H. (2014). The government of Kenya's cash transfer program reduces the
risk of sexual debut among young people age 15-25. PLoS One, 9(1), e85473-e85473.
• Handa, S., Peterman, A., Huang, C., Halpern, C. T., Pettifor, A., & Thirumurthy, H. (2015). Impact of the Kenya Cash Transfer for
Orphans and Vulnerable Children on Early Pregnancy and Marriage of Adolescent Girls. Social Science & Medicine, 141, 36-45.
• Heinrich, C. J., Hoddinott, J., & Samson, M. (2017). Reducing adolescent risky behaviors in a high-risk context: the effects of
unconditional cash transfers in South Africa. Economic Development and Cultural Change, 65(4), 619-652.
• Kilburn, K., Thirumurthy, H., Tucker Halpern, C., Pettifor, A., & Handa, S. (2016). Effects of a large-scale unconditional cash
transfer program on mental health outcomes of young people in Kenya: a cluster randomized trial. Journal of Adolescent Health,
58(2), 223-229.
• Neetu, A., et al. (2017) Gender Socialization During Adolescents in Low- and Middle-Income countries: Conceptualization,
influences and outcomes. Innocenti Discussion Paper 2017-01.
• Pace, N., et al. (2018). Shaping Cash Transfer Impacts Through ‘Soft-conditions’: Evidence from Lesotho. Journal of African
Economies, 2018, 1-31.
• Pettifor, A., et al. (2016). "The effect of a conditional cash transfer on HIV incidence in young women in rural South Africa (HPTN
068): a phase 3, randomised controlled trial." The Lancet Global Health 4(12): e978-e988.
• Rosenberg, M. et. al, (2013) The Impact of a National Poverty Reduction Program on the Characteristics of Sex Partners Among
Kenyan Adolescents. Journal of AIDS and Behaviour (2014) 18:311-316.
• UN Women. 2015. Progress of the world’s women 2015-2016. Transforming economies. Realizing rights. New York, USA.
REFERENCES

Transfer Project:
www.cpc.unc.edu/projects/transfer
Facebook: @TransferProject
Twitter: @TransferProjct
Email: mgavrilovic@unicef.org
THANK YOU.