The adolescent girls initiative in Rwanda : final evaluation report

Rwanda has made a remarkable transition from reconstruction to development over the past twenty years. Despite these developments, Rwanda remains one of the poorest countries in the world. An estimated 45 percent of the population still lives below the national poverty line, and 24 percent is considered extremely poor. Women face particular social and economic challenges, including limited access to the labor market, which requires additional policy and project efforts to enable them to achieve better outcomes. Innovative and effective training projects specifically targeting the promotion of successful entry of girls and young women into productive employment are one way to address their needs. Adolescent Girls Initiative (AGI) pilot was implemented by the Government of Rwanda as part of an eight-country initiative led by the World Bank aimed at promoting the economic empowerment of adolescent girls. The development objective of the Rwanda AGI was to improve employment, incomes and empowerment of disadvantaged adolescent girls and young women (aged 16-24), and to test two integrated models for promoting these goals. The Rwanda AGI had three components: skills development and entrepreneurship support; scholarships to resume formal education; and project implementation support. This evaluation focuses exclusively on Component I, which was carried out by the Workforce Development Authority (WDA), under the supervision of the Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion (MIGEPROF). It was delivered sequentially to roughly 2,000 vulnerable girls and young women in three equal-sized cohorts between 2012 and 2014. The project was targeted geographically in four districts (Gasabo, Kicukiro, Gicumbi, and Rulindo), where nine vocational training centers (VTCs) provided the training.