Piloting social protection and WASH interventions to keep adolescent girls in school in Zimbabwe

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The project aims to test an innovative pilot activity, layering Social Protection and WASH interventions targeting adolescent girls who have been disproportionately affected by coping mechanisms adopted during lockdown, to support their return to school after the several waves of school closure in Zimbabwe. This pilot will directly inform the future policies and programming of the Ministry of Public Service, Labor and Social Welfare (MPSLSW) and other relevant ministries and strengthen their capacities. The pilot will be directly layered over the BEAM fee waiver program of government to test whether complementary social protection and WASH interventions are successful in bringing adolescent girls back to school and incentivizing them to stay in school. It will therefore test the effectiveness of complementary measures to the national BEAM program, beyond the fee waiver for vulnerable children, by focusing on gender dimensions and targeting vulnerable adolescent girls within the BEAM caseload. The pilot will be overseen jointly with MPSLSW and relevant ministries and knowledge generation and policy dialogue will be undertaken on the findings and recommendations from the pilot towards strengthening government capacity.