'Success is when adolescent girls and women have power, freedom, and agency'

Caroline Ngonze of the UN's Education Plus Initiative believes a sustainable future can only be achieved when adolescent girls and young women are safe, strong, and empowered. Research backs her up – studies have shown that when adolescent girls complete a quality secondary education they have a much greater chance of better health, more wealth, and increased well-being.

Co-led by the executive directors of five UN agencies – UNAIDS, UNESCO, UNFPA, UNICEF and UN Women – Education Plus aims to rectify gender injustices that hold back adolescent girls and young women from exercising their rights and reaching their full potential.

We spoke to Ngonze, a senior manager of the initiative that leverages secondary education to empower adolescent girls and young women in the hopes of creating more gender equality in sub-Saharan Africa.

What does IWD mean to you?

Ngonze: Personally, International Women’s Day is a day to amplify and make visible the clarion call for gendertransformative actions to end intersecting inequalities, in all their forms, that continue to leave women and girls behind and drive the HIV pandemic. As we celebrate the achievements of women and girls on this day, we reflect on how far we have come, but also how much further we must go to identify and accelerate the actions needed to ensure that those furthest behind are brought to the center of policy and programming action. This is particularly true for adolescent girls and young women, those living with disabilities, those from rural settings, low-income, and female-headed households, as well as those from marginalized groups. This is the only way we will end inequalities, end AIDS by 2030, and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

This year’s theme for IWD is 'gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow.' How could the Education Plus initiative help promote gender equality?

Ngonze: Adolescent girls and young women who are educated and empowered today are the decision-makers who will drive a sustainable future. A sustainable tomorrow can only be achieved when adolescent girls and young women are safe, strong, and empowered. In this regard, secondary education is not only a right, but a key pathway for adolescent girls and young women to be protected against HIV and to have agency and decision-making power while successfully transitioning to adulthood, among other multiple social and economic benefits.

When Education Plus was launched, the UNFPA's Executive Director Natalia Kanem said the initiative 'cohered the work of the UN with the girl at the center.” What does it mean to put the girl at the center and why is it important?

Ngonze: Putting girls at the center speaks to a gender-responsive action agenda that is human-rights based and addresses their priority demands and concerns, tailored to the specific needs, perspectives, and rights of adolescent girls and young women. Education Plus responds to the urgency of effectively addressing the alarming numbers of adolescent girls and young women acquiring HIV and dying of AIDS, among other threats to their survival, well-being, human rights, and fundamental freedoms. It works to ensure young girls complete secondary education and are protected from HIV; have access to comprehensive sexuality education; have their sexual and reproductive health and rights fulfilled; have freedom from gender-based and sexual violence; and have smooth school-to-work transitions and economic security and empowerment.

When girls finish secondary school, they have a far lesser chance of contracting HIV. Can you connect the dots on how one thing relates to the other?

Ngonze: We’ve seen that in countries in Eastern and Southern Africa where more adolescent girls complete a quality secondary education, HIV infections decrease by 50 percent or more. A growing body of evidence points to improved outcomes for adolescent girls and young women when they benefit from holistic, multi-layered interventions that tackle underlying gender-related barriers and common risk factors for acquiring HIV. Empowerment interventions targeting multiple levels were found to improve education, health, economic opportunity, social capital, gender-equitable attitudes, and violence outcomes for girls, including delayed marriage and childbearing. Access to, and completion of a quality secondary education, particularly for girls, is a powerful strategy to prevent new HIV infections, teenage pregnancies, gender inequality, gender-based violence, and child marriages — in addition to multiple other social and economic outcomes for poverty reduction and a country’s growth and stability.

Last IWD, Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of UNAIDS, said it was crucial to have women in positions of leadership. What has the data shown about the benefits of having women at the helm?

Ngonze: I wholeheartedly concur with this statement. Data on women’s leadership and decision-making at all levels is demonstrating their critical role in furthering progress on all fronts – in health, education, the economy, and social and political spheres. For instance, when women are meaningfully engaged in leadership and decision-making bodies, such as national and local governments, judiciary, legislature, local councils, boards etc., the resultant decisions and judgements are more inclusive and take diverse opinions into account. When more women hold ministerial positions, increased spending on health services has been reported. Companies are more profitable when more women hold senior executive positions. In the agricultural sector, when women take up leadership roles, agricultural yields have grown by 20 to 30 percent. It is evident that women’s participation in leadership and decision-making positions is central to building forward better during and post-pandemic.

How has COVID widened the gap in gender inequity, health inequity, economic inequity, lack of access to services, and the burden of unpaid care work?

Ngonze: The COVID-19 pandemic has rolled back decades-long, hard worn gains achieved in girls’ access to education in sub-Saharan Africa. For instance, the restrictions imposed to curb the spread of COVID-19 led to school closures, disruptions to health and social services, and job losses in households, driving households further into poverty. Without the protective cover of school, huge spikes in teenage pregnancies, child marriage, gender-based and sexual violence, sexual exploitation, and HIV infections were reported in many parts of the continent. Additionally, girls also took up more household chores and unpaid care work for ill family members. Even when schools have re-opened millions of girls in sub-Saharan Africa have not gone back to school due to the above factors, with a resultant increase in the gender divide.

In sub-Saharan Africa, girls account for six out of seven new HIV infections in those aged 15 to 19 years. In 2020, 4,200 young women between 15 and 24 years became infected with HIV every week. The UN says this is this a function of unequal gender dynamics – tell us why.

Ngonze: The gender inequalities in HIV infections are stark. Within the region, adolescent girls and young women are more than twice as likely, on average, to acquire HIV than their male peers – this translates to two times as likely in Malawi; three times as likely in Lesotho; and five times as likely in Eswatini as their male peers. This situation is mirrored closely in the West and Central Africa region, also. While females are biologically more susceptible to HIV, unequal gender power dynamics and harmful gender norms are the root cause, compounded by intersecting forms of discrimination based on income, education, HIV status, disability status, access to sexual and reproductive health and rights and services. Young women’s loss of livelihoods due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has also increased their susceptibility to transactional sex and higher risk-taking, stemming from economic insecurity.

Women’s health is not just caring for disease – it’s also about well-being. Can you speak about the importance of thinking more holistically about well-being over a woman’s life course, particularly in adolescence?

Ngonze: Adolescence is a critical phase in life. For girls, it can determine their life trajectories, as well as their countries’ prospects for advancing poverty reduction, gender equality, stability, and economic prosperity — and ending AIDS as a public health threat. We must therefore address the underlying structural barriers and ensure adolescent girls and young women have equal opportunities to access quality secondary education, alongside key education and health services and support for their economic autonomy and empowerment. In turn this will foster an enabling environment for them to enjoy safe and fruitful learning experiences, and to thrive and be free of HIV – among its multiple social and economic benefits – while paving their way to vibrant futures.

Despite all the progress we've seen, gender equality is still not something we’ve achieved as a global society. Why has gender equality been so difficult to achieve – and what will it take for us to achieve it?

Ngonze: The hard-won gains on progress in gender equality have been shuttered by the COVID-19 pandemic and attendant impacts. A goal-by-goal analysis by UN Women and UN DESA demonstrated that the world is off-track on all SDG goals with only one indicator under SDG5 for gender equality coming "close to target." It is the indicator on proportion of seats held by women in local government.

At the present, as we build forward better during and post COVID-19, achieving gender equality will only come about from accelerated, gender-transformative approaches that place women and girls at the center of all aspects of COVID-19 response and recovery, formulating and implementing gender-responsive laws, policies and programs, that are costed and financed sufficiently.

What does success in women’s health and well-being look like to you?

Ngonze: Success is when adolescent girls and women have the power, freedom, agency, and capabilities to make their own decisions, about their bodies, sexual and reproductive choices, their lives, and aspirations.