End line Evaluation for the Stop Early Marriages (STOM) Project

Objective:

The overall objective of the evaluation was to assess the extent to which the Stop Early Marriages project has achieved its outputs, outcomes and impact as stipulated in the project results framework. The evaluation also assessed the extent to which the project has contributed to the achievement of the DCA Malawi Country Programme (2016 to 2020) objective of: Sustainable community livelihoods development and job creation; and Communities influence decisions for building resilient communities according to DCA international strategy 2019 to 2022

Method:

The study used the DAC-OECD1 evaluation criteria which focused the evaluation approach on six aspects including: relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency (value-for-money), impact and sustainability. The approach combined both qualitative and quantitative data collection approaches to collect both primary and secondary data for the endline evaluation. These included literature review, household survey targeting primary beneficiaries (adolescent boys and girls), Key Informant Interviews (KIIs), Focus Group Discussions (FGDs), field observations, and case studies.

Key Findings:

• The project was relevant to DCA-country programme, international strategy and SGD 2030 agenda
• The project was consistent with Government of Malawi policy aspirations on issues of early marriages and youth empowerment especially: National Strategy on Ending Child Marriages (2018-2023); National Children Policy (2019), National Gender Policy, National Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Policy.
• The project was implemented in a cost-effective manner with evidence of notable value for money evidenced by cost performance index (CPI) of greater than 1 and burn rate of less than 1 across all the three project components.
• The project has delivered the following key positive impacts: increased awareness on the negative impacts of early marriages; increased knowledge of SRH; complaint structures and referral mechanisms for child abuse cases are now widely known; reduced prevalence of child marriages; community members are more willing to end child marriages including local leaders.
• The study has revealed that there is evidence that the project benefits will be sustained after the life of the STOM project. Specific Recommendations: The following are key messages from STOM endline evaluation to guide future programming and implementation. These are disaggregated by project design and project implementation recommendations. Project design
• NCA/DCA and partners should design future STOM-related interventions based on Social Behaviour Change Communication (SBCC) to address key cultural barriers and enablers related to early marriages in Ntchisi and related districts.
• In future, where budget is not incorporated for case management for any of the four types of Gender Based Violence (GBV) (emotional abuse, sexual abuse, physical abuse, economic abuse), project implementers should coordinate and refer such GBV cases to leverage the support of existing GBV case management referral structures as stipulated in the 2019 guiding document for Community-Based Complaints Mechanisms (CBCM) in Malawi [page 10].
• Future STOM-related project should replicate, and scale-up sustainable economic empowerment measures used in STOM project, especially use of VSLAs and empowerment of girls through vocational skills trainings to improve the home situation of target beneficiaries and reduce prevalence of child marriages.
• In future similar programmes, NCA/DCA and its partners should consider isolating teen mothers from their household situations by enrolling them into boarding schools or supporting them in well managed and monitored self-boarding facilities to reduce school dropouts and enhance concentration on school.
• Future interventions should consider including trainings on group dynamics to learners which would ensure proper management of groups for start-up materials and growth of small-scale businesses after graduation from skills training.
• In order to motivate girls withdrawn from early marriages, each project should be allowed to use its criteria for selecting beneficiaries that is in line with the district welfare office and where there is need to support a child based on need, the project can use the harmonised criteria. Project implementation:
• It is necessary that in future similar projects, implementing partners handling the vocational skills training (in the case of STOM – TEVETA) should ensure that the management committees of youth centres are duly empowered in the management and running of the skill centres at the project start.
• Future interventions should consider supporting paralegals and community champions with bicycles or other cost-effective transport means to address their transportation challenges when handling cases.
• In future similar projects, the replacement of dropout bursary leaners must be done jointly with head teachers of the respective schools through district selection committee. The head teacher know better the students’ needs. Further, projects of this nature should consider developing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the learners and the communities from which the learner was identified so that communities can help in enforcement of compliance. Similar interventions should replicate active involvement and capacity building of opinion leaders and gatekeepers including but not limited to: local leaders, mother groups and parents.