GAGE baseline and midline findings: Zone 5, Afar

GAGE baseline and midline findings: Zone 5, Afar
Workneh Yadete, and Yitagesu Gebeyehu
05 April 2021, Kombolcha

Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence (GAGE):
A longitudinal research programme (2015-2024)
By finding out ‘what works,’ for whom, where
and why, we can better support adolescent girls
and boys to maximise their capabilities now and
in the future.
We are following 20,000 adolescent girls and boys - the largest cohort of
adolescents in the Global South

GAGE longitudinal research sample

GAGE Ethiopia research sites
3 regions:
• Afar, Amhara, Oromia
• plus Dire Dawa City Administration
Research site selection based on:
• Districts with among highest rates of child
marriage as proxy for conservative gender
norms (MOWCA, UNICEF and ODI, 2015)
• Urban and rural sites
• Food insecure and pastoralist sites as a
proxy for economic poverty
• Woreda-based mapping of all kebeles
based on infrastructure and service
availability (vulnerable/ less vulnerable)
• Programming capacities of NGO
implementing partners

Adolescents in school, Afar, Ethiopia @ Nathalie Bertrams / GAGE 2020
Education and
learning

Education: Access remains limited
Young adolescents’
school enrolment
is significantly
lower than in
other regions.
Zone 5 (Afar): 64%
South Gondar: 93%
East Haraghe: 78%
Young
adolescents’
grade attainment
is also lower than
in other regions.
Zone 5 (Afar): 2.5
South Gondar : 4.5
East Haraghe : 4.8
Young adolescents’
educational aspirations
are low compared to
other regions.
62% South Gondar
59% East Hararghe
37% Zone 5 (Afar)
Many young
adolescents do not
understand what
more education
would allow them
to do with their
futures.
‘What would I do
except working at
household chores?’
(12 year old girl,
Melkajeba)

Parental support is generally high
‘The size of our livestock decreased,
so we understand the value of
education as a means to have job
opportunities for our children’s future’.
(Man, Daleti, Zone 5, Afar)
 Most parents have high aspirations for their children—though they do not always back
this up with action.
 2/3 of female caregivers in all GAGE sites would like for their children to attend at
least some post-secondary education.
 However, gender norms related to Child
marriage competes with girls’ education.
 Declining agricultural fortunes is a driving force.
‘Most of the families arrange and marry their daughter before grade 8.
This is because after grade 8, girls also start to refuse their families.’
marriage arrangement.’ (Key informant, Daleti, Zone 5, Afar)
 In Zone 5 (Afar), absuma marriages leave girls with no choice;
some communities are refusing to send girls to higher education
for fear they will refuse to comply with social norms.

Gender differences in parental support
 Across the younger cohort, female caregivers’
aspirations are slightly higher for boys than girls.
 Larger differences emerge across regions— boys
are significantly favoured in Zone 5 (Afar) and East
Haraghe (in South Gondar they are the same).
GAGE younger cohort, percent of
caregivers who aspire for child to
complete at least some tertiary
education, by sex and location
Adolescents playing, Afar, Ethiopia @ Nathalie Bertrams / GAGE 2020
34
55
44
64
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
Zone 5 East Hararghe
Girls Boys

Continued enrolment: a challenge for early adolescents
 Enrolment falls sharply between lower-and upper primary school—and on a national
level, only about ½ of students survive to 5th grade. This is the worst for Afar children.
 Thus while most of GAGE’s younger cohort is in school and “on grade”—
the next few years is likely critical to preventing drop-out.
113
48
109
117
60
18
71
52
53
29
74
46
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
National Afar Amhara Oromia
NER 1-4 NER 5-8 Survival to grade 5
Source:
Ministry of
Education (2018)

Why are children out of school?
 Family Work
‘I have a strong interest in education, but I
have been busy herding camels. Our sisters
are herding goats and cattle, while I and my
older brother are herding the camels. Thus,
every child is busy and can’t attend
education.’ (11-year-old boy, Daleti)
 There are insufficient teachers—in
some communities school buildings
stand empty
‘Teachers face sickness to the point of
death because of shortage of food.’
(Woreda level KI)
 Teachers often do not speak the
language
‘Policy says students should learn in their
mother tongue until grade 8… we are not
able to do that because there is a shortage
of teachers who speak Afar language.’
(Educational key informant, Daleti)
 There are not enough schools
‘The school is too far. It takes about four
hours on foot.’ (11-year-old girl, Melkajeba)

The gender gap in education is complicated
Favours girls
Girls miss fewer days of school than
boys. Over the last 2 weeks, boys
were absent 29% of school days, girls
were absent 18% of days.
Favours boys
Boys often migrate for whole
seasons at a time—meaning catching
up on days missed is not feasible.
‘They are absent from the class for
almost a semester… they enrol in the
school in the month of September
and are returning to school in
December’. (Teacher, Daleti)
Parents have higher aspirations for
boys than girls: 44% versus 34% want
their child to attend post-secondary
education.
Parents refuse to allow their daughters
to attend secondary school—as they
might then refuse absuma (maternal
cousin) marriage.
‘Most of the families arrange and
marry their daughter before grade 8.
This is because after grade 8, girls also
start to refuse their families’ marriage
arrangement.’ (Key informant, Daleti)

Policy
implications
School, Afar, Ethiopia @ Nathalie Bertrams / GAGE 2020

Policy implications: Education
1
• Ensure that all communities have functional schools—growing a cadre of teachers by
heavily investing in a cohort of Afar adolescents who can return to their communities
to teach after university.
2
• Incentivise attendance by ensuring that all schools have potable water and offer
school feeding.
3
• Align the school calendar with migration schedules.
4
• Work with parents—and clan leaders—to encourage investment in education.
5
• Stipend (in cash and kind) should be provided to poorest household to improve
equitable access to education.

Policy implications: Education
1
• Step-up adult literacy classes which can ensure their support for adolescents.
2
• Create a multi-prolonged aimed at improving the secondary school uptake – by
constructing more secondary schools and economic support (especially for girls).
3
• School should be adequately resourced including WASH facilities, text books
and other necessary school infrastructure.
4
• Creating diverse role models that can highlight multiple success
(especially for girls).
5
• Invest in dormitories for older students, especially girls—so that students can
focus on their schooling.

Health, nutrition and sexual
and reproductive health
An adolescent mother at a hospital, Afar, Ethiopia @ Nathalie Bertrams / GAGE 2020

Food insecurity is common both during base and midlines
•34% of adolescents have been hungry in the last month.
•Compared to 8% in S. Gondar and Zone 5
East Hararghe is disadvantaged
•In E. Hararghe and S. Gondar, boys are more likely to report hunger.
•In Zone 5, girls are more likely to report hunger.
Gender matters
‘Now the government provides food when there is drought. There is also the
safety net programme. They give us wheat and edible oil.’ (teacher, Zone 5)
PSNP is helping support food security
 Adolescents with disabilities are more likely to report hunger in the last month than
those without (29% vs 20%)—primarily because those living alone in order to attend
special needs schools are not given large enough stipends.

Baseline: Health and nutrition: Boys are generally disadvantaged
‘I live only on drinking camels’ milk and I don’t get any other food. Since there
is shortage of pasture in such dry season, the camels don’t produce sufficient
milk…. As a result, I get milk from the camels only in the morning and evening
times, while staying the daytime without having anything.’
(12-year-old boy Daleti)
 Nearly all (90%) young adolescents report good health.
 Migrating boys reported diets that were not diverse—and often insufficient.
 Adolescents in Zone 5 are less likely to report having been ill than those in other
regions—perhaps because care seeking is more limited. 5% reported having had
a serious illness or accident—compared to 18% in East Hararghe.
 Boys are more likely than girls to report having had a recent health symptom:
48% versus 37%

Midline: No significant changes but health is shaped by gender
and residence location
Overall, 89% of adolescents report being in good health.
 There are slight advantages for younger adolescents (91% versus 86%), boys (91%
versus 87%), and those in rural areas (88% versus 84%, among the older cohort).
There are gender differences in
health—girls (esp. older girls) are
more prone to some types of infection
and boys have more accidents.
Health risks also vary by location—in
rural areas, parasites and malaria are
common. Boys in lowland rural areas
reported that they have been facing
recurrent skin diseases.
Adolescents in urban areas reported
more ill-health on our survey, but this
appears related to better awareness,
not worse health.
Poor health outcomes in pastoralist
areas are due to limited WASH, cost of
and distance to services, and low
awareness of when to seek
professional care.

Midline: Disability and ill health are linked both ways
 Adolescents with disabilities are far less likely to report good health than those
without (71% vs 91%).
 Cost and fatalism reduce
access to medical care for those
with disabilities.
‘They did not take me to a clinic... I
think that Allah will open my eyes.’
(11-year-old blind boy, Zone 5, Afar)
 Many permanent disabilities
result from delayed care seeking. Adolescent with a visual disability, Ethiopia @ Nathalie Bertrams / GAGE 2020

Baseline: Sexual and reproductive health information is limited
‘I got married 2 months ago and I’ve had my period once. My mother advises me
about menstruation and to obey whatever my husband asks. She said there will be
disagreement unless you obey.’ (11-year-old girl, Daleti, Zone 5, Afar)
While 2/3 of young adolescents in Zone 5 reported a source of information about
puberty—it appears the quality of information is limited.
‘We also advise them not to worry if they see blood on their clothing at any time
because it appears in all girls at this age.’ (Teacher, Daleti)
In school girls get support for puberty from girls’ clubs.
 Younger adolescents have very little knowledge about contraception—only 7%
could name a form of contraception.
 Older adolescents knew about ‘the contraceptive methods given with syringe
that is used for 3–6 months’ (Older girl, Daleti) but knowledge is much more
limited in remote rural kebeles.

Midline: Access to puberty education varies
 Boys mostly feel pride at growing up.
 Girls are more conflicted—because menarche is
stigmatized and, in some communities, means that
girls must soon marry.
‘I saw blood on their cloth when we played
together and when I asked them what it was, they
warned me not to tell.’ (12-year-old girl, Zone 5)
 Three-fourths of adolescents have a source of
information about puberty.

Baseline: Contraception is secretly accepted—and needed
‘As the health post is located along the roadside where everybody
can see you, they rather go to health facility in Kumame town,
where the couldn’t be identified.’ (Young adolescent boy, Daleti)
‘Sadah is a culture, which has existed in the
community for many years… and is based on its
convenience for boys and girls to spend their
time together.’ (12-year-old boy, Daleti)
 Adolescent sexual activity appears to be increasing in some communities—in the
context of Sadah dancing.
 Some older adolescents are using contraception--though secretly from their
parents.
‘If they do not come. We will
bring them from their home.’
(Younger boy, Melkajeba)

Baseline: Contraception uptake is focused on pregnancy
prevention not protection from HIV or STDs
‘If the victim girl gave birth, the person is expected
to pay about 26 cattle.’ (Older boy, Daleti)
 Boys are also invested in
contraception, because of the
costs of premarital pregnancy.
 Key informants are worried that Sadah is contributing to the spread of HIV/AIDS
through exposure to multiple partners, but awareness of sexually transmitted
diseases and how to prevent them appears low.
 HIV testing is not a common practice in zone 5 but some adolescents conduct
testing secretly in health centres or private clinics.
‘I heard there are boys that take their girlfriends to the town to take
the family planning methods to prevent unwanted pregnancy.’
(Young adolescent girl, Daleti)

Midline: Contraceptive knowledge varies
 Services and education are
more limited in E. Hararghe
and Zone 5.
‘All these things you are talking about are new for
us. We don’t know these things in our locality,
because as you know there is no school or health
institution here.’
(older boy, Zone 5)

Barriers to contraceptive uptake differ across locations
 Of sexually active girls (nearly
all of whom are married)—only
41% have ever used
conception.
 Uptake is higher in S. Gondar
(54%) versus Zone 5 (9%) and E.
Hararghe (4%)
‘If someone rapes her… she will be protected from getting
pregnant. The injection will control the pregnancy.’
(18-year-old husband)
In S. Gondar, even unmarried girls often use
contraception.
‘There are no people using contraception… It is because
people do not want to use contraception because it is
regarded as haram’. (17-year-old married girl)
In Zone 5, girls often emphasized that
contraception is forbidden by religion.
‘I gave birth at home. I did not go to the health facility… I
was sick in the evening… and I gave birth the next day.
Then the dead baby was born.’
(married 17-year-old girl, Zone 5)
Access to maternity care is more common in
S. Gondar than in other rural locations.
 In S. Gondar, 25% of married girls
have been pregnant…despite
59% of older girls having been
married by age 18.
 In Zone 5, 43% of married girls
have been pregnant… 46% of
older girls were married by age
18.

Policy
implications
Girls herding goats, Afar, Ethiopia @ Nathalie Bertrams / GAGE 2020

Recommendations: food security and nutrition
1
• Ensure that adolescents and parents are targeted for nutrition education.
2
• Expand the PSNP—including pastoralist areas and poor urban populations.
3
• Scale up school feeding.
4
• Step-up health and nutrition awareness raising for parents—especially focusing on
the need to attend to migrating boys.
5
•Include health, nutrition, and SRH information in classroom content, gearing messages to
students’ ages rather than their grades given repetition—and the reality that most drop out.

Recommendations: general health
1
Awareness raising for adolescents on hygiene and sanitation.
2
Expand health services [physical facility, trained health professionals and medicines] in
rural areas to improve accessibility.
3
Awareness raising for parents to improve their health/health services seeking
behaviour.
4
Scale up adolescent-friendly SRH services to ensure that needs are met even in more
remote communities, starting with ensuring there is a functional health post in all kebeles.
5
6
Continue to scale up the HE programme into remote [such as, pastoralist
communities] areas.
Work with religious/community leaders to discourage faith healing (and encourage
referrals to medical providers).

Recommendations: puberty education and support
1
• Use school and community-based classes to provide adolescents
with accurate and timely information about their maturing bodies.
2
• Ensure that girls are offered practical advice about how to
manage menstruation(including how to make sanitary supplies).
3
• Work with boys to reduce menstruation-related stigma.
4
• Work with parents to improve their knowledge about
menstruation and to reduce menstruation-related stigma.

Recommendations: sexual and reproductive health
1
• Use school and community-based (provided by HEWs) classes to provide
adolescents with accurate, age-tailored and timely information about reproductive
biology, contraception, and disease prevention.
2
• Ensure that HEWs offer a full array of youth-friendly sexual and reproductive health
services – including contraception (and condoms) and HIV testing.
3
• Use marriage as a point of intervention work with couples to ensure that partners
are aware of biology and options.
4
• Promote natural ways of birth control in communities where modern contraceptive
is not welcomed due to cultural reasons, and proactively target men and boys.
5
• Strengthen investments in efforts to change gender norms around child marriage,
adolescent child-bearing and safe sex.

Bodily integrity and
freedom from violence
An adolescent girl with her child, Afar, Ethiopia @ Nathalie Bertrams / GAGE 2020

Baseline: corporal punishment is common
At the baseline, 2/3 of GAGE
adolescents have experienced or
witnessed violence at home.
 Boys are more likely to
experience violent
discipline than girls.
 Girls are more likely to be
punished for violating
gender norms—boys for
misbehaving.
Violence is so normalized in Afar—
adolescents do not even perceive it as
violence, and so do not think to report.
‘I need to be a boy. Boys are
brave. I will be very happy if I get
the chance of being a boy. It is
because boys can fight with
others using their gille and win.’
(Younger girl, Zone 5)
 Gender norms that equate masculinity with violence encourage boys to fight—
when they are young over pasture and water.

Midline: Violence from caregivers
 Overall, nearly half (47%) of adolescents report
violence at the hands of their caregivers in the last
year.
 Younger adolescents are more likely to experience
physical violence than older adolescents—because
older adolescents run away.
‘He never beats me now, because I am older.’
(18-year-old boy, Zone 5, Afar)
 Caregiver violence is most common in Zone 5—60%
of boys have experienced violence in the last year.
 Boys are more at risk—but girls are beaten not for
misbehaving, but for violating gender norms.

Midline: Violence from teachers
 Two-fifths of enrolled adolescents report violence
from a teacher in the last year—with boys and those
in E. Haraghe and Zone 5 at higher risk.
 Younger adolescents are more at risk than older
adolescents (46% vs 30%)—because older
adolescents are usually just sent home.
 Adolescents are beaten for misbehavior—and for
lack of learning—and for arriving late because their
parents give them chores.
‘Teachers beat us if we become absent from school… They will
tie our hands like this and then they will beat us using a stick
on our hands.’ (12-year-old girl, Zone 5)
‘I beat them when they do not sit properly ... I also beat them
when they do not give a right answer.’ (teacher, Zone 5, Afar)

Baseline: Child marriage remains the norm
‘She drunk a poison because… she disliked the person whom she was
forced to marry… they (the clan leaders) told her to stick to her
marriage and to respect absuma.’ (Older boy, Daleti)
‘If my daughter married to someone outside of our kinship, our family line
would discontinue.’ (Man, Daleti)
 Most girls are married in middle-adolescence and have no input into timing
of marriage.
 Child marriage is driven by the absuma marriage system—which is supported
by adults and boys.
 Girls are simply resigned to absuma marriages—as they know even suicide is
not a route out.

Baseline: Norm change is slow and triggers resistance
‘Especially if she is going to get married to an adult who is older than her; she
hates him, since he is going to beat her when they get married’.
(Younger girl, Daleti)
 Costs of violating absuma are high for all but especially girls.
 Justice officials are afraid of creating conflict—and emphasise girls’ suicide risk
to parents.
 Teachers are afraid of generating conflict by teaching girls that child marriage is
illegal.
‘When we are teaching in girls’ club, sometimes we face challenges or
conflicts. If we teach them directly to stop early marriage and cross-
cousin marriage we will provoke conflict’. (Teacher, Daleti)

Midline: Child Marriage was still common.
 In zone 5, nearly all marriages are
arranged, and two-thirds of married girls
would have rather married later.
 Girls have no say.
‘[My friends] advised me it is better to kill
myself than get married.’
(20-year-old woman, married at 17)
‘I cannot refuse. If I refuse the man who
was going to marry me, he would be given
permission to take me by force.’
(17-year-old girl)

Change strategies
 Ensure schools are walkable, staffed by decently-paid, trained
teachers and adequately resourced—including WASH and sufficient
textbooks.
Empowering girls
 Efforts to engage boys and young men around child marriage and
girls’ rights were very rare.
 School based clubs including girls’ club are not active, and if they
exist, boys are not the members.
Engaging with boys and young men

Change strategies
 Efforts to support parents
appear largely non-existent.
 Engaging with communities -
efforts to reduce child marriage.
 In Zone 5 (Afar), messengers
are often afraid:e limited.
‘If we teach them directly to stop early
marriage and cross-cousin marriage,
we will provoke conflict.’
(Teacher, Community A, Zone 5)
Family, Afar, Ethiopia @ Nathalie Bertrams / GAGE 2020

Change strategies
‘If we teach them directly to stop early marriage and cross-cousin
marriage, we will provoke conflict.’ (Teacher, Community A, Zone 5)
 Strengthening school systems
 Efforts to work with schools to protect adolescent girls from child marriage may be
counter-productive. In Zone 5 (Afar), messengers are often afraid.
 Delivering adolescent-friendly services
 Formal justice approaches to protect adolescents from HTPs, including child
marriage, are not common and cannot be effective.
 The woreda-level key informants in Zone 5 reported that formal interventions to
prevent HTPs take a less punitive approach. Rather than prosecuting parents,
officials explain the risk of marriage to them, urging parents to reconsider a decision
that might make the girl so unhappy that she would consider suicide.

Baseline: FGM/C—entrenched but shifting forms
‘They considered female without mutilation as sin locally called
Haram.’ (12-year-old girl, Daleti)
‘In the previous time girls were circumcised by cutting all parts of their clitoris
but now due to the teaching of some religious leaders in the community
circumcisers began to cut only the tip.’ (Community leader, Melkejeba)
 In Zone 5, FGM/C is done at a range of ages, from early childhood to
adolescence, and in some families a number of daughters of different ages may
be circumcised at the same time due to poverty.
 FGM/C has traditionally involved infibulation--but is reportedly shifting gradually
to milder forms.
 FGM/C is believed to be required for religious reasons.

Midline: Female genital mutilation/cutting is common
 Nearly half (47%) of older
girls had been cut—with
marked regional variation.
‘No one teaches against harmful
traditional practices.’
(12-year-old girl, Zone 5)

Midline: Sexual violence
 10% of older girls reported having
experienced sexual violence.
 Girls in S. Gondar (15%) reported more
sexual violence than those in East
Hararghe (5%) and Zone 5 (4%).
Lanscape in Ethiopia © Nathalie Bertrams /GAGE 2020

Midline: Sexual violence
Leads to school drop out
Is increasing
‘In earlier times, no one was touching
a sadula [unmarried virign]. But now
they can grab a sadula if they get her.’
(16-year-old girl from Zone 5)
Girls have little recourse
‘Girls don’t shout if they are raped or
abducted… that is taboo in the
culture.’ (community KI, Zone 5)
Girls are blamed

Policy
implications
A group playing together, Afar, Ethiopia @ Nathalie Bertrams / GAGE 2020

Recommendations: Parental violence
1
• Develop parenting education classes that teach techniques for communicating
with and disciplining adolescents.
2
• Use local role models and mass media to promote behaviour change
3
• Invest in social workers and social courts to identify and follow children
experiencing the worst forms of abuse.
4
• Scale up clubs aimed at improving communication and fostering friendships
between young people.
5
• Proactively target violent masculinities.
6
• Using mass and social media and community meetings, promote social cohesion
and national identity.

Recommendations: Teacher violence
1 Train teachers in child-friendly pedagogies and positive discipline.
2
Reduce class sizes.
3
Provide ways for students to anonymously report violence.
4
Provide school counselors.
5 Strengthen PTSAs.
6 Develop clubs that support adolescent voice and agency.
7 Sanction repeat offenders.

Policy implications: Child Marriage
1
• Create and strengthen reporting chains so that girls can report planned child
marriages; develop age documentation for marriage—and prosecute adults who
violate the law legislating against child marriage.
2
• Adopt and implement the Ethiopian Family Law in Afar.
3
• Engage with traditional justice mechanisms so that they become more
responsive to protect girls from child marriage.
4
• Strengthen formal justice mechanisms by investing in gender- and age-
sensitivity training for police and justice personnel.
5
• Raise awareness about the risk of sexual violence among woreda level officials
as well as communities, including within the context of Sadah and while girls are
herding.

1
• Work with Bureau of Women, Children and Youth to raise awareness among
clan leaders and parents about the risk of suicide for girls compelled to drop out
of school and marry at the cost of their education.
2
• Engage with religious leaders to improve messaging against FGM/C and child
marriage.
3
• Link adolescents with role models who can demonstrate alternative
occupational trajectories and lifestyles.
4
• Expand adolescents’ access to school and community-based clubs—supporting
them to learn about puberty, SRH services, the importance of education, and
how to overcome gender discrimination.
5
• Raise awareness about and shift underlying gendered social norms that lead to
age- and gender-based violence—with adolescents and adults.

Work with adults to:
 Tailor messengers and messages to fit local need, step-up
efforts to prevent child marriage (especially the youngest)
 Ensure parents know when and how to report threats to
their adolescents, and provide guidance on setting
boundaries for adolescents if their choices bring longer-
term risk (e.g. adolescent-initiated under-age marriages)
 Work with adults to address child marriage using both
community venues as well as more targeted approaches
aimed at parents of adolescents girls

Work with adolescents to:
 Work with adolescents to directly tackle child
marriage—using classroom content, school- and
community-based clubs, and mass and social messaging.
 Ensure that adolescents know their rights—to say no to
child marriage —and how and where to report planned
child marriages against themselves or their siblings or
peers.
 Encourage adolescents to protect each other and their
younger siblings from HTPs, including child marriage.

Recommendations: FGM/C
FGM/C:
 Use HEWs to message to mothers and schools to
message to girls (and boys) about the heath risks.
 Work with religious and traditional leaders to develop
messages about FGM/C and the broader gender norms
that support it.

Recommendations: Sexual violence
1 Teach girls they have a right to be safe, how to defend themselves, and how to report.
2 Work with boys and men to target violent masculinities.
3
Message that girls are not to blame.
4 Work with elders to pursue formal justice—and enforce the law.
5 Work with communities to address gender norms.
6 Establish safe houses.
7 Provide girls in secondary school with safe lodgings to reduce risk.

Psychosocial wellbeing,
Voice and Agency
A group of girls playing, Afar, Ethiopia @ Nathalie Bertrams / GAGE 2020

Girls are at higher risk than boys
Less input into
decision-making
Child marriage and FGM/C
‘We feel fear, when our body
changes. We feel fear since
we are afraid of getting
married.’
(11 year old girl, Zone 5)
Poverty and concerns about
access to school, especially
secondary schools for girls
Violence from husbands
within marriage
 Older girls report levels of mental distress 28% higher than older boys.

Mobility and access to peer support, and use of technology varies
In all GAGE Research sites, nearly all
(94%) younger adolescents need
permission to go at least one place.
 Gender differences are
minimal.
 However, Afar
adolescents have the
most freedom (75%).
72% of younger adolescents have a
friend they trust.
 However, only 21% of
Afar adolescents have a
friend they trust.
 Access to technology
including mobile
phones is limited for
adolescents in zone 5.
 Girls access to ICT is
more limited than
boys.

Adolescent voice and agency
‘I will accept what my family say
because I can’t do anything without
them’. (Older boy, Zone 5) ‘Before, our family would have
made us herd goats without
thinking about our interests...
Nowadays, if we don’t like it, we
don’t have to. Our parents read
our facial expressions and
understand.’ (Older girl, Zone 5)
 Opportunities for decision-making are
still limited by age.
 Adolescents are allowed to make
more decisions now than they
were in the past.
 In Zone 5, adolescents role in decision
making is the least compared with
adolescents in other GAGE research
sites.
 Girls have far more limited input than
boys.
 Poverty limits the support parents can
provide to their adolescents.

Policy
implications
Adolescent boy, Afar, Ethiopia @ Nathalie Bertrams / GAGE 2020

Policy implications: PSS and voice and agency
1
• Provide guidance to parents and teachers to better support them to guide
young people in transitions through puberty into adulthood.
2
• Develop and maintain spaces where adolescents can safely spend time
with peers and contribute to their communities.
3
• Provide outreach to the most disadvantaged adolescents.
4
• Continue to develop and expand a cadre of social workers trained to
support young people’s mental health needs.
5
• Invest in hotlines for young people with psychosocial ill-being/ mental ill-
health.

Policy implications: PSS and voice and agency
1
• Expose young people to aspirational yet actionable ideas for their future
pathways.
2
• Develop school- and district-level alumni associations with linkages to local
schools to provide role models and mentors.
3
• Support adolescents to gain safe access to online information.
4
• Develop libraries and computer technologies in all government schools.
5
• Expand clubs and extra-curricular activities, especially for girls.

Economic
Empowerment
Adolescent girls making bread, Afar, Ethiopia @ Nathalie Bertrams / GAGE 2020

Economic Empowerment
‘We do not want to be involved in
the same activities as our
parents… Our parents are doing
daily labour, it makes them tired.
We want to be government
employees.’
(15 year old girl, Zone 5)
 Economic Aspirations are generally
high.
 Access to decent job opportunities
are so limited in zone 5.
 Parental aspirations for their
adolescents vary significantly by
location:
 e.g. 35% of female caregivers of
10-12 year old girls in East
Hararghe aspire for their
daughters to be doctors vs. only
5% in Afar.
 Family labor is more gendered: boys
more engage in herding and farming,
while girls and women engage in almost
all family works (from domestic chores
to herding and construction of Afar Ari).

Policy implications: Economic Empowerment
1
• Raise awareness about and enforce safe and nonexploitative labour
practices.
2
• School should be adequately resourced including WASH facilities, text
books and other necessary school infrastructure.
3
• Creating diverse role models that can highlight multiple success
(especially for girls).
4
• Invest in dormitories for older students, especially girls—so that students
can focus on their schooling.

GAGE
Ethiopia
reports
‘My husband can go to work and I will go
to my school’: exploring changing
patterns in adolescents’ access to
education and learning in Ethiopia
‘Girls don’t shout if they are raped… that
is taboo’: exploring barriers to Ethiopian
adolescents’ freedom from age- and
gender-based violence | GAGE (odi.org)
‘They did not take me to a clinic’:
Ethiopian adolescents’ access to
health and nutrition information and
services
‘I have nothing to feed my family…’: covid-
19 risk pathways for adolescent girls in
low- and middle-income countries
Adolescent psychosocial well-being and
voice and agency in Ethiopia | GAGE
(odi.org)
Adolescent well-being in Ethiopia: exploring
gendered capabilities, contexts and change
strategies | GAGE (odi.org)
Adolescent health, nutrition and sexual and
reproductive health in Ethiopia | GAGE
(odi.org)
Adolescent education and learning in
Ethiopia | GAGE (odi.org)
Adolescent economic empowerment in
Adolescent bodily integrity and
freedom from violence in
Ethiopia

Briefs
and
Factsheets
on
covid-19
impacts
Child marriage risks in the context of covid-19 in
Exploring adolescents' experiences and priorities
in Ethiopia under covid-19 |
Adolescents’ experiences of covid-19 and the
public health response in urban Ethiopia |
For more resources see: https://www.gage.odi.org

GAGE
Ethiopia
journal
articles
‘People consider us devils’: exploring
patterns of exclusion facing adolescents with
disabilities in Ethiopia | GAGE (odi.org)
Constrained choices: exploring the complexities of
adolescent girls’ voice and agency in child
marriage decisions in Ethiopia | GAGE (odi.org)
Intersecting inequalities, gender and adolescent
health in Ethiopia | GAGE (odi.org)
Gender-norms, violence and adolescence: exploring how
gender norms are associated with experiences of
childhood violence among young adolescents in Ethiopia
Book chapter: Exploring the role of evolving gender
norms in shaping adolescents’ experiences of
violence in pastoralist Afar, Ethiopia | GAGE
(odi.org)

Questions and
discussion
Girl on the way back from school, Ethiopia @ Nathalie Bertrams / GAGE 2020

Contact Us
WEBSITE
www.gage.odi.org
TWITTER
@GAGE_programme
FACEBOOK
GenderandAdolescence
About GAGE:
 Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence
(GAGE) is a nine-year (2015-2024) mixed-
methods longitudinal research programme
focused on what works to support
adolescent girls’ and boys’ capabilities in
the second decade of life and beyond.
 We are following the lives of 18,000
adolescents in six focal countries in Africa,
Asia and the Middle East.

GAGE baseline and midline findings: Zone 5, Afar

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