Adolescent360 (A360) Gender Strategy and Technical Support

While adolescence is a critical time for girls to build the agency and resources they need to make healthy and safe transitions to adulthood, too often they face insurmountable challenges. As girls enter adolescence, they encounter more pronounced gender roles and gender discrimination, which severely limits their access to assets as well as access to modern contraception.

Launched in January 2016 by PSI, Adolescents 360 (A360) aims to respond to this challenge by increasing access to and uptake of voluntary modern contraception among adolescent girls (15-19 years old) in Ethiopia, Nigeria, Tanzania and Kenya. Funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, A360 seeks to reimagine and redefine the way sexual and reproductive health programs are designed and delivered for adolescent girls and young women. 

Gender equality is essential in order for adolescent girls to fully realize their sexual and reproductive rights, therefore, Kore Global has been working with the A360 team to support efforts to ensure gender equality is integrated through the project design and implementation. Since 2020, Kore Global has provided a range of technical support services including: 1)conducting a learning review of the program’s approach to life skills interventions; 2) leading the development of a multi-country gender strategy; 3) providing ongoing technical support on thematic issues including gender equality and MNCH; and 4) providing quality assurance and technical oversight of a network of in-country gender specialists. 

The Life Skills review covered key programmatic approaches and components including content, facilitation, M&E and risk mitigation. The purpose of the review was to quality-assure the life skills component, identify opportunities to strengthen it, and cross-pollinate good practices across the global portfolio.

The gender strategy development process was participatory and collaborative, bringing together a core multi-country team across the A360 geographies. The resulting gender strategy will provide A360 with a roadmap to take the project’s existing interventions, make further adaptations to become more gender transformative, strengthen their effectiveness, and integrate these interventions into government health systems for scale and sustainability. As part of the process of operationalizing the Strategy, Kore Global is providing ongoing support to A360 to ensure gender equality considerations are integrated as their program model evolves. Kore Global is working as a thought partner to apply best practice on gender responsive programming throughout A360’s human centered design process.