Fighting fragility: Helping half a million girls stay in school in Mozambique

Ana António (name changed for privacy), a girl from Northern Mozambique, had all the odds stacked against her. Married at the age of 13, she had to leave school, only to be abandoned by her husband with a baby in her arms shortly after. Her baby died within a year. Consumed with grief and illness, Ana could not go back to school.

Her life turned around five years later. She heard about the “Eu Sou Capaz” Program (which means “Yes, I Can” in Portuguese) through community activists who counseled her to go back to school. Ana decided to return to school in 2023, with support from her parents and the community. Once back at school, she received a uniform, guidance, and emotional support from Eu Sou Capaz.

At age 19, Ana attends the 6th grade in Monapo, Nampula Province, and has gotten her life and dreams back.

“If it weren´t for the support I received from my parents, the Eu Sou Capaz counselors, and my community, I would have given up, but here I am, and now I know that I can do it. If I can, so can many other girls that have gone through the same.” Ana António 6th grade student, Monapo, Nampula Province

Empowering girls is key for Mozambique to overcome fragility

Empowering girls and women is key to creating inclusive societies and reducing poverty. This is critically important in a fragile setting like Mozambique, where conflict, climate shocks, widespread gender-based violence, and high rates of child marriage and early pregnancies place an extreme burden on women and girls and, thus, on families.

The country has championed initiatives and reforms to protect and empower girls and women, including passing a law in 2019 that prohibits the marriage of children younger than 18 years old. Despite government efforts to educate communities on the new law and its consequences, social norms take time to change, and Mozambique still grapples with one of the highest child marriage and early pregnancy rates in the world. Nearly half of the girls marry before 18, and 46% of girls between 15 and 19 years of age are either mothers or already pregnant. While almost all girls enroll in the first year of primary school, more than half drop out by the fifth grade, in early puberty.

Although basic education is free in Mozambique, for families like Ana’s, sending girls to school is still prohibitively expensive. Many cannot afford school supplies, uniforms, or transportation. Additionally, within these families, girls often bear the brunt of household chores or are married off early to alleviate their families’ poverty. This exacerbates the difficulties faced by their families, communities, and the country as a whole. The more girls experience gender-based violence and health risks, the less they can lead productive lives and contribute to their community’s resilience.

To address these challenges, in 2021, the Government of Mozambique launched a program called “Eu Sou Capaz” with support from the World Bank through the Harnessing the Demographic Dividend Project. The program aims to provide better opportunities for education and access to services for adolescent girls and young women. Specifically, Eu Sou Capaz helps young girls stay in school through incentives, such as providing school uniforms and bicycles to girls in selected primary and secondary grades. The program also helps girls who are out of school by providing life-skills training and mentoring in community safe spaces for themselves, their families, and their community leaders.

Schools covered by the program have seen a decreasing trend of school dropout rates since 2022 in Grades 5, 6, and 7. Since the program started, these schools have also seen an increase in the Gender Parity Index – measuring the relative access to education of males and females – from 0.82 in 2021 to 0.84 in 2022 due to an increase in girls’ enrolment and school attendance.

The program intended to assist 300,000 girls, but it has already surpassed this goal, assisting nearly half a million girls in the selected districts.

In Nampula province, where Ana lives, the Eu Sou Capaz has had a ripple effect, with some schools registering zero dropouts and others welcoming back girls who had left school.

“In Muezia and Mulepane localities in Nampula District, all the 221 girls benefiting from Eu Sou Capaz and enrolled in Grades 5 to 7 remained in school. This means zero dropouts,” said Elódia Chiure, Service Provider Provincial Coordinator for the program in Nampula.  “Netia and Itoculo Primary Schools, in Monapo District, welcomed back 626 girls, ” she added.

This 5-year project (2021-2025) is implemented by the National Institute for Youth under the Secretariat of State for Youth and Employment in partnership with service providers and in coordination with the Ministry of Education and Human Development. The World Bank is committed to supporting Mozambique in expanding and improving social protection and jobs for girls, women, and youth. Girls and young women in Mozambique will gain greater access to education and economic empowerment opportunities in the coming years thanks to the newly approved East Africa Girls’ Empowerment and Resilience program (EAGER), which will scale up the Eu Sou Capaz approach, with a stronger focus on preventing gender-based violence.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of The World Bank Group.