Understanding How PYD Programs Achieve Positive Impact in LMICs:
How can PYD programs that have proven to be effective be adapted to different contexts?
- Are there examples of successful adaptations of evidence-based PYD programs in LMICs?
- Are there systematic ways of adapting evidence-based PYD programs to different contexts, situations, or audiences in LMICs?
- What are the most cost-effective ways to adapt PYD programs to specific conditions in LMICs?
In a recent education policy brief, USAID highlights the importance of social and emotional learning and soft skills for improved educational and workforce outcomes for youth in LMICs. The brief acknowledges that the preponderance of evidence for the link between SEL/soft skills and positive outcomes derives from extensive research in the U.S. and other high-income countries, and only a small but growing literature from LMICs. This brief is important to our need for understanding the way PYD programs work in LMICs because it clearly positions PYD constructs as the proximal targets of youth programing to improve economic and education outcomes for all youth, especially those from marginalized groups or situations.
Very recently, the child, early, and forced marriage and unions (CEFMUs) and Sexuality Programs Working Group produced a detailed report on gender-transformative programs to end CEFMUs In this report, the importance of social norms, specifically those related to gender and adolescent sexuality as a mechanism of change which can reduce CEFMU. Programs aimed at transforming gender roles and norms do so in a variety of ways, which are very aligned with PYD strategies. All four of the PYD domains are related to the work of these programs: assets in the form of knowledge and skills, agency to make independent decisions about their own bodies, contribution in the form of advocacy for social change, and enabling environment in the form of social norms which are at the core of this approach. The extensive review of program curricula and activities highlights common components and the importance of a multi-level approach which engages girls and women, boys and men, parents and grandparents, as well as community leaders and resource providers. Community mobilization programs to shift social norms have strong evidence for efficacy in reducing dating and intimate partner violence through documented shifts in attitudes toward violence. Some programs that engage men and boys have been found to reduce perpetration of dating violence specifically by shifting norms to be more favorable toward respectful and non-violent relationships. Qualitative data embedded in a cluster-randomized trial indicated that reductions in maltreatment of teens was the results of knowledge and skill improvements among the parents.
In the past few years, several reviews and commentaries have been written to support adaptation of promising practices to new contexts. Epidemiological research helped to identify contextual variations in risk and protective factors, such as gender and age or life stage. There are also examples of expansion of promising and effective PYD programs within and across countries. For example, the Empowerment and Livelihood for Adolescents (ELA) program, first developed and tested in Bangladesh, was also tested and found effective in Uganda. Akazi Kanoze, which demonstrated positive impact on access to employment, was expanded across Rwanda’s secondary-education system. Importantly, some research has been done to examine the success of large-scale implementations providing insight into how and for whom they work. For instance, among Malawian youth, access to vocational and entrepreneurial training leads to better outcomes for male than female participants due primarily to the constraints on girls’ ability to fully participate in the training offered.
See also: Do PYD programs in LMICs achieve their longer-term/sectoral outcomes by effecting PYD outcomes?
