Re-IMAGINE: Delaying Marriage and Improving Adolescent SRH in Niger
Situation or Background
Re-IMAGINE seeks to replicate, adapt, and test a set of interventions designed to significantly delay the age of marriage within the complex context of Zinder, Niger, hypothesizing that delaying marriage will ultimately postpone the age at first birth. The program will enroll unmarried adolescent girls aged 11 to 15 and collaborate with their families and wider communities to foster positive changes in norms and attitudes toward equitable decision-making, expanded choice, and bodily autonomy.
Our Goal or What We’re Doing
Our research aims to understand the program’s impact on marriage among out-of-school girls, generate evidence, and contribute to learnings to advance quality, replicable, and sustainable approaches to delaying marriage.
Approach or Methodology
Longitudinal qualitative evaluation of shifts in social norms, attitudes, and behaviors related to girls’ education and marriage.
- Baseline of the social norms and governing reference groups that influence decision-making around girls’ education and marriage.
- Midline and endline evaluations of whether and how social norms, attitudes, and behaviors related to girls’ education and marriage have shifted during the intervention and how specific intervention components have contributed to an enabling environment for adolescent girls’ education.
Impact and What We’re Learning
We anticipate that education- and marriage-related behaviors are influenced by social norms concerning expectations about when people should start having children and how many children they should have, perceptions around adolescent girls’ sexuality, and expectations for women as mothers and wives. We believe that through the Re-IMAGINE program, community expectations will shift to create environments where adolescent girls can return to school and enjoy greater agency in marriage-related decision-making.
Please visit the Re-IMAGINE program page for more.
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