Back in 2021, Population Services International’s Adolescents 360 (A360) program decided to develop a gender strategy to provide a framework for its commitment to and actions on gender equality. With support from Kore Global – a gender equality and social inclusion advisory firm – the gender strategy development process gave the A360 team an opportunity to come together and define priority areas and strategies to support adolescent sexual and reproductive health (ASRH) and girls’ agency in decision-making. At the heart of A360’s approach to gender equality is ensuring that gender is integrated across all programs and interventions rather than being a standalone consideration.
As part of the gender strategy design, A360 took inspiration from the socio-ecological model to create a framework that outlines how the gender strategy contributes to girls’ agency and gender equality at each level of society, from the individual to the state level.
A key result of the gender strategy was the establishment of a Gender Champions Network, composed of Gender Focal Points selected from among A360 staff in each of the three country offices of Ethiopia, Kenya, and Nigeria, as well as Gender Consultants, appointed to provide technical advice and support to A360 staff. In addition, country roadmaps to localize the gender strategy were created and implemented with the oversight of senior management.
Fast forward to 2024, three years into strategy implementation, a lot had changed, and it felt like the right moment to pause and reflect on both achievements and sticking points, as well as to consider which activities should be prioritized going forward. To this end, A360 enlisted Kore Global to facilitate a participatory strategy refresh process with the Gender Champions Network.
The overall vision of the gender strategy is that adolescent girls are able to define and act on their goals. In order to achieve this, A360 will ensure adolescent girls have improved health, resources and agency and generate and share gender-related learning to inspire others to adopt similar approaches.
The revised gender strategy reflects A360’s changing context and new priorities, including a stronger focus on integrating it into government policy and processes across the three countries. It outlines key priorities at each level of the socioecological framework as well as the specific country-level activities for Ethiopia, Kenya, and Nigeria. For instance, at the individual level, the focus is on providing girls with SRH knowledge and resources, training girls in crucial life skills, supporting their economic empowerment, and enhancing their access to gender-based violence response services.
Household-level activities involve engaging male partners and parents to support girls’ choice, voice and agency. At the community level, religious and community leaders are engaged and mobilized to support girls’ contraception uptake. When it comes to health facilities, A360 supports healthcare providers by improving their capacity to deliver gender-responsive and adolescent-friendly SRH services as well as their capacity for survivor-centered GBV response and referral pathways. Finally, at the state level, the major focus is on institutionalizing A360’s interventions and ways of working into government policy and programming, providing capacity development of, and regular engagement with, state counterparts.
In addition to these priorities, the team identified the strategy enablers that support the implementation of the gender strategy:
Activities related to each enabler have been defined, including ensuring gender integration across internal operations, program adaptation, and the research and learning agenda.
As a result of the strategy refresh process, A360’s gender strategy is now more fit for purpose, looking ahead to the end of the project’s current investment phase and provides a detailed and well-thought-out roadmap to achieve A360’s vision and goals to improve adolescent girls’ health, resources and agency.
Authors:
- Meghan Cutherell – Senior Program Manager, A360, PSI
- Dharini Bhuvanendra – Consultant, Strategy Team, Kore Global
- Katherine Nichol – Principal Consultant, Kore Global
