The DFID / Nike Foundation Girl Hub

1. Introduction

1.1 The Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI) is the independent body responsible for scrutinising UK aid. We focus on maximising the effectiveness of the UK aid budget for intended beneficiaries and on delivering value for money for UK taxpayers. We carry out independent reviews of aid programmes and of issues affecting the delivery of UK aid. We publish transparent, impartial and objective reports to provide evidence and clear recommendations to support UK Government decision-making and to strengthen the accountability of the aid programme. Our reports are written to be accessible to a general readership and we use a simple ‘traffic light’ system to report our judgement on each programme or topic we review.

1.2 We will review Girl Hub, a partnership between DFID and Nike Foundation, examining how the partnership is delivering and plans to deliver development impact for intended beneficiary communities. These Terms of Reference outline the purpose and nature of the investigation and identify its main themes. A detailed methodology for the investigation will be developed during an inception phase.

2. Background

2.1 The focus of this ICAI investigation is Girl Hub, a partnership between DFID and Nike Foundation. It is DFID’s first direct, exclusive arrangement with a private, not-for-profit foundation, set up in February 2010. It aims ‘to drive the Girl Effect at a scale’, where the Girl Effect is defined as ‘the unique potential of 600 million adolescent girls to end poverty for themselves and the world’.1 This partnership is in line with the objectives of the Girl Effect campaign that Nike Foundation has been involved in developing, which is highlighting the benefits of investing in girls to improve living standards. The aim of the partnership is to harness Nike Foundation’s focus on girls and communications expertise with DFID’s reach, scale and knowledge.

2.2 Nike Foundation was established in 2005 with an exclusive focus on adolescent girls in the developing world. It is already heavily involved in working with girls, with a presence in South America, Africa and Asia. Some programmes to which Nike Foundation gives financial and other support are:2

  • Protection: protecting vulnerable women through, for example, the ‘Safe Spaces’ that have been created in Kibera, Kenya for girls living in an urban slum;
  • Education: ensuring that women can access education in difficult circumstances, for example, if a family member is sick or injured. In Uganda, British charity Opportunity International has created micro-insurance products focussed on providing payouts for healthcare and education for those that need them;
  • Microfinance for older girls: after creating a ‘Safe Space’ programme for girls in rural Bangladesh, Bangladeshi development organisation BRAC introduced micro-loans for its older girl participants. The aim of these loans was to allow girls to start small businesses – for example, growing tomatoes, selling fabric or raising chickens – while still attending school; and
  • Helping rural girls to access education: CAMFED, which specialises in the education of girls in rural Sub-Saharan Africa, in this case helps rural girls in Zambia to access education.

2.3 DFID has committed £12.9 million of funding to Girl Hub up to the end of the 2013-14 financial year.3 Nike Foundation is providing £870,000 of direct funding, with a further £1.5 million of in-kind funding. Girl Hub established its first national centre in Rwanda in March 2011 and centres are planned to open soon in Nigeria and Ethiopia. DFID Ethiopia is planning to contribute £14 million during 2011-15 to establish and fund the operations of Girl Hub Ethiopia. Girl Hub currently has a team of 16 staff: 9 in London and 7 in-country. Its central office is located within the DFID Palace Street office in London.

2.4 Girl Hub is not directly involved in service delivery but aims to be a catalyst and convenor with a range of partner organisations. Examples of specific Girl Hub projects are:

  • Umwangavu: a communications platform being developed in Rwanda that includes a national radio station and girls’ magazine intended to elevate girls’ voices and self-esteem and to rebrand teenage girls as valued citizens. It has the support of the Rwandan presidency;
  • 12+: pilot of an innovative girls’ health programme co-designed with the Rwandan Ministry of Health and a team of girls. The Ministry of Health now plans to scale this programme up nationally and DFID has committed to support this;
  • Influencing the UN General Assembly on adolescent girls’ health: following communications with President Kagame and the Rwandan Government, adolescent girls’ health issues were put on the agenda at the September 2010 Millennium Development Goals (MDG) summit;
  • End child marriage programme: started in August 2011, this initiative will scale up a programme aiming to eliminate child marriage in the Amhara region of Ethiopia, where half of girls are married by the age of 15. The programme is intended to reach 200,000 girls in three years;
  • Influencing DFID’s work: Girl Hub participated in the creation of a new gender strategy. It also reviewed 27 country bids as part of the Bilateral Aid Review and advised on the impact for girls; and
  • Sensemaker pilot: this is a digital collation of qualitative evidence and learning. Girl Hub plans to develop Sensemaker as a key part of its monitoring and evaluation strategy.

2.5 There are many other organisations and programmes with a specific focus on girls, for example the United Nations Girls Education Initiative (UNGEI), the World Bank’s Adolescent Girls Initiative (AGI) and ONE’s Africa’s Future is Female campaign.

2.6 The work by UNGEI was launched after the World Education Forum in Dakar in April 2000. UNGEI is committed to narrowing the gap between boys and girls through primary and secondary education and is committed to the 2015 Millennium Development Goal of free universal education for all.4

2.7 AGI was launched in October 2008 as part of the World Bank Group’s Gender Action Plan – Gender Equality as Smart Economics – to increase women’s economic opportunities by improving their access to the labour market, agricultural land, technology, credit and infrastructure services. Girl Hub is one of AGI’s partners.

2.8 AGI ‘promotes the transition of adolescent girls from school to productive employment through interventions that are tested and then scaled-up or replicated if successful’.5 The initiative is currently being implemented in the following seven countries: Afghanistan, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Jordan, Liberia, Nepal, Rwanda and South Sudan.

2.9 DFID has demonstrated, through the majority of its operational plans across all countries, a focus on girls, specifically in health and education. For example, DFID’s girl education challenge (GEC) announced in September 2011 is a programme focussed on girls’ secondary education, with a projected budget of £355 million until 2015.

3. Purpose

3.1 To examine how effectively and efficiently the Girl Hub partnership is delivering impact and whether this venture should be used as a model for future partnerships.

4. Relationship to other evaluations/studies

4.1 Girl Hub was set up in March 2010 and has not previously been externally evaluated.

4.2 DFID carried out an internal annual review of Girl Hub in 2010. The review describes DFID’s conclusions on Girl Hub’s overall successes and areas where change is necessary, for example, a more comprehensive log-frame. The following analysis of Girl Hub’s initial logical theory, taken from internal documentation, explains its innovation within girls’ education and empowerment, although we understand that this has evolved over time as Girl Hub has developed its understanding:

‘The initial logical theory is that change for girls and young women will be achieved by helping people who have power over resources to include girls’ opinions in their decision-making, helping girls and champions of girls influence those power-holders and making sure anyone who wants up-to-the-minute knowledge can get it. Achieving these three changes will result in developing country decision-makers doing more for girls and doing it better. This will help girls have more assets (in the widest sense), being empowered and realising their rights.’

4.3 Girl Hub has been created on the back of evidence from statistical analysis of the positive effects of empowering women and girls – specifically through education. For example, the Council on Foreign Relations produced a report on the theme of girls’ education in 2004. The overall conclusion was very straightforward: educating girls brings substantial returns.6 The benefits include, but are not limited to, faster economic growth, reduced likelihood of contracting HIV, fostering democracy and improving women’s political participation.

4.4 A literature review carried out by DFID in 2010 in collaboration with DFID’s Chief Economist’s Office, Girl Hub and DFID Ethiopia looked at the economic returns of investing in adolescent girls. While commenting on the ‘distinct lack of evidence on returns to investing in adolescent girls’,7 the report analysed a small number of studies it considered to be relevant and robust. It concluded that ‘the evidence does suggest that a number of interventions in adolescent girls specifically will deliver significant development benefits on a cost effective basis’. Notable areas were education and skills, social protection, health and physical capital.

4.5 There are a number of other relevant studies and evaluations such as:

  • the 2009 Population Council’s report New lessons: the power of educating adolescent girls;8
  • ONE’s 2010 Africa’s Future is Female report;9 and
  • the 2011 World Bank’s policy research working paper Measuring the economic gain of investing in girls.10

4.6 The World Bank’s paper, which was supported by Nike Foundation, calculated the opportunity costs of girls’ exclusion from productive employment, ‘which measure the losses in terms of potential productivity gains and income young girls could have achieved if they were employed, if they had delayed pregnancy, or if they had attained higher educational levels’. The report concluded that ‘marginal investments in girls can have a substantial impact on GDP growth and well-being’. It presented three policy recommendations:

  • increasing funding targeted at adolescent girls, including in the areas of education, labour market engagement and health;
  • counting girls in a country’s systems (for example via birth certificates) and ensuring that programmes are monitored in terms of their success at reaching adolescent girls; and
  • improving advocacy for girls at government level, by making the law work better for girls and mobilising communities, families, men and boys to support adolescent girls.

4.7 This study will take note of and build upon these and other findings.

5. Analytical approach

5.1 As Girl Hub is a relatively new organisation, this review will be an interim investigation. This will assist DFID in its analysis of Girl Hub’s effectiveness and value for money and Girl Hub in the delivery of its programme in the future with a focus on the impact on intended beneficiaries. The study will examine the relationship between DFID and Girl Hub in depth.

5.2 It will focus on:

  • corporate governance structures;
  • how Girl Hub designs its programme to ensure value for money and effectiveness;
  • delivery achievements to date; and
  • the framework for monitoring and evaluation.

5.3 It will draw conclusions and derive lessons specifically for Girl Hub which may also be applicable to similar aid programmes and other partnerships.

6. Indicative questions

The following indicates the key questions for this investigation. They will be elaborated in the inception report.

6.1 Objectives

6.1.1 What was the process and strategy for the set up of Girl Hub?
6.1.2 What is the theory of change for Girl Hub and what is the evidence for this?
6.1.3 How rigorous were the initial objectives?
6.1.4 How are neutrality and independence achieved?

6.2 Delivery

6.2.1 What is the process for ensuring sound financial management? What has the money been spent on and is this sufficiently monitored?
6.2.2 How does DFID ensure sufficient transparency and accountability in terms of the specific contribution and added value which Girl Hub brings to this field?
6.2.3 How effective are the governance structures at all levels?
6.2.4 Have stated objectives been delivered within the timeframe agreed?

6.3 Impact

6.3.1 What benefit is there to the intended beneficiaries over and above other programmes in this area?
6.3.2 Does sufficient complementarity exist with existing institutions and programmes both within DFID and externally and is duplication avoided?
6.3.3 Is the project sustainable?

6.4 Learning

6.4.1 Is Girl Hub innovative in its approach? If so, in what way is it different to other similar interventions?
6.4.2 How robust is the review and evaluation process?
6.4.3 What lessons have been learned?
6.4.4 Is this an appropriate model for DFID to use in the future?

7. Outline methodology

7.1 The review will involve a number of elements, including:

  • a review of evidence from the files and information systems of Girl Hub, DFID and Nike Foundation, including financial information;
  • a review of Girl Hub’s monitoring and evaluation framework and techniques;
  • interviews with Girl Hub, DFID and Nike Foundation;
  • interviews with governments, intended beneficiaries (both direct and representative), DFID, civil society and peer organisations in the UK and recipient countries; and
  • an on-the-ground case study in Rwanda.

8. Timing and deliverables

8.1 The review will be overseen by Commissioners and implemented by a small team from ICAI’s consortium. The review will take place during the final quarter of 2011, with a final report available during the first quarter of 2012.

Footnotes

  1. ↩ http://girlhub.org/about-us/
  2. ↩ www.nikefoundation.org/what_we_do.html
  3. ↩ http://projects.dfid.gov.uk/project.aspx?Project=201086 (accessed November 2011).
  4. ↩ www.ungei.org/whatisungei/index.html
  5. ↩ AGI at a glance – where we are, The Adolescent Girls Initiative, The World Bank, 2010, http://go.worldbank.org/ET4S6TEXY0.
  6. ↩ Herz, B. and G. B. Sperling, What Works in Girls’ Education: Evidence and Policies from the Developing World, Council on Foreign Relations, April 2004.
  7. ↩ Hlanze, L., Economic returns to investment in adolescent girls: Making the case for DFID Ethiopia, DFID, December 2010.
  8. ↩ New Lessons: the power of educating adolescent girls, Population Council, 2009, www.popcouncil.org/pdfs/2009pgy_newlessons.pdf.
  9. ↩ Africa’s Future is Female, ONE, September 2010, http://one.org/international/documents/africasfuture/africasfuture_en.pdf.
  10. ↩ Measuring the Economic Gains of Investing in Girls, World Bank, August 2011, www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/IW3P/IB/2011/08/08/000158349_20110808092702/Rendered/PDF/WPS5753.pdf.