Population Council Research that makes a difference

Few programs, even those with "girl," "woman," or "youth" in their titles, are making specific investments at the level of the adolescent girl. The poorest girls in the poorest communities are effectively excluded by current youth, gender, violence prevention, and reproductive health programs, despite their current or prospective reproductive health outcomes, such as an elevated risk of maternal mortality as the youngest, first-time mothers; high and rising HIV levels (with female to male ratios reaching 5:1 in young populations in some communities); the persistence of harmful traditional practices such as female genital mutilation/cutting; and astonishingly high levels of coerced and unprotected sex.

Youth-serving initiatives typically miss large populations of at-risk married and unmarried girls, and even when they find disadvantaged girls, they often intervene too late. Though many advocate for girls’ reproductive rights and health and for an end to gender-based violence, only rare ground-level efforts foster measurable increases in girls' health, social, and economic assets. Thus, direct engagement with these girls in ways that build their assets and the broadening constituency mobilizing behind them is the strategic and sustaining link between progressive human rights-based reproductive health policies and actual change on the ground.

In this project, the Council functions as a "Technical Secretariat" for two sets of stakeholders. The first set of partners includes umbrella organizations such as the Coalition for Adolescent Girls, the United Nations Adolescent Girls Task Force, and an emerging core of philanthropic leaders who are either currently or prepared to make investments in adolescent girls in specific countries and communities. The second stakeholder group is composed of institutions with expertise in generating evidence through data analysis and related fieldwork whose methods support the development of indicators of girls' vulnerabilities with a special emphasis on girls in urban and periurban areas.