Project profile — Supporting Leadership, School Retention and the Achievement of Adolescent Girls in Senegal

• Senegal (100.00%)

• Basic Education: Basic life skills for youth (11231) (15.00%)
• Secondary Education: Secondary education (11320) (70.00%)
• Government And Civil Society, General: Women's rights organisations and movements, and government institutions (15170) (15.00%)

• Gender equality (principal objective)
• Environmental sustainability (cross-cutting) (not targeted)
• Desertification (not targeted)
• Biodiversity (not targeted)
• Indigenous Issues (not targeted)
• Participatory development and good governance (significant objective)
• Children's issues (not targeted)
• Youth Issues (principal objective)
• Climate change mitigation (not targeted)
• Urban issues (not targeted)
• Disability (not targeted)
• Climate Change Adaptation (not targeted)
• Trade development (not targeted)
• ICT as a tool for development (not targeted)
• Nutrition (not targeted)
• Disaster Risk Reduction(DRR) (not targeted)

The project aims to contribute to the leadership, retention and success of adolescent girls at the middle and general secondary levels through the integration of gender and child protection in the performance management of institutions and school actors in Senegal. It aims to support the creation of a protective environment for girls, promoting their academic and professional orientation, and to put in place incentives, such as performance contracts including gender indicators, for better accountability for the performance of actors in the education system. Project activities include the following: (1) supporting educational institutions to include gender in performance management; (2) providing support to educational stakeholders (teachers, institutions, decentralized structures) to make them aware of gender and the protection of adolescent girls in the school system; (3) developing performance contracts and tools for planning, monitoring and managing the performance of educational institutions to integrate the protection approach for adolescent girls in the school system; (4) ensuring awareness among community stakeholders and families on the issues of gender, health and the protection of adolescent girls in the school system, and of encouraging their educational and professional direction; and (5) developing necessary teaching aids. The project aims to reach 25,000 adolescent girls at the middle and secondary levels, 3,000 professionals in decentralized structures, 640 officers in educational institutions, 1,600 professors and 480 community stakeholders.

The expected outcomes for this project include: (1) improved performance of decentralized structures and institutions to remove barriers to the school retention and achievement of adolescent girls by including gender and child protection aspects in the educational system’s performance management; and (2) creating an educational environment that is more conducive to leadership, school retention and achievement among adolescent girls.

Results achieved at the end of the project (June 2022) include: (1) trained 5,000 education personnel in gender-responsive approaches to management; (2) trained 200 focal points in schools to establish reports on gender-based violence and mitigation measures; (3) the National Centre for School and Career Counselling developed a strategy to support girls’ leadership in schools. The project also developed and distributed 2,500 manuals and 2,000 exercise workbooks to harmonize interventions; (4) 20,000 girls directly benefitted from social-emotional health and well-being interventions; (5) 40,000 girls received leadership training; (6) delivered 22,773 financial transfers to prevent secondary school students in vulnerable situations from dropping out of school; (7) furnished 1,862 bicycles to girls to allow travel to school, in collaboration with communities; (8) built the capacity of 280 women school administrators in the subjects of gender equality, administration and finance; and (9) developed training tools and documents on gender-based violence in school.

• Proactive disclosure