Millions of Young Ladies to Get a Boost in Education, Employment and More

A newly approved program will facilitate access to education and economic empowerment opportunities for girls and young women all across Eastern and Southern Africa.

“EAGER is a groundbreaking initiative that will help to achieve impact at scale by directly reaching millions of girls, women, and stakeholders,” explains Boutheina Guermazi, Director for Regional Integration, Africa, and the Middle East. “It also seeks to create the institutional conditions necessary to empower even more girls and women.”

EAGER – for East Africa Girls’ Empowerment and Resilience – is a multi-sectoral effort encompassing education, health, employment, and social protection that will benefit from $382 million in International Development Association financing. In its first phase, deployed in Madagascar and Mozambique, the program will directly support 2 million girls to stay or return to school and 160,000 women to increase their productivity in the labour market; it will also reach traditional leaders, parents, and boys through behavioural change campaigns for a shift in gender norms to occur; some 26,000 local administrators, community leaders, and service providers will then be empowered to implement gender-equality reforms. The African Union will serve as the regional institution supporting EAGER. Future phases will be deployed in Burundi, Comoros, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lesotho, Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.