PROGRAM OVERVIEW

The United States strategy to empower adolescent girls ensures that adolescent girls get the education they deserve. As a part of USAID's global contribution to empower adloescent girls, USAID Pakistan is providing $70 million to new and ongoing programs that benifit 200,00 adolescent girls aged 10-19 accross the country. 
 
Announced in October 2015, USAID Pakistan is seeking opportunities to foster public-private partnerships and collaborate with other development partners to advance girls' education and empowerment. The program will serve as a platform and catalyst for broader political and social commitment to strengthen adolescent girls' education and empowerment in Pakistan. Young women in Pakistan face barriers and lack of access to education opportunities from an early age due to poverty, cultural norms, and geographic isolation. Empowering girls and ensuring them access to quality education has long-term, transformational benefits for their own future, their families and communities, and for Pakistan's economic prosperity overall. 

ACTIVITY OVERVIEW

Engage Civil Society and Communities 

Provide small grants to support innovative activities to reduce barriers, improve equitable access to quality education, and build local capacity to improve adolescent girls’ education and empowerment.

Build Skills for School and Beyond 

Support training, scholarships, and internships for talented but financially disadvantaged adolescent girls that create paths to higher education, entrepreneurship, and employment. 

Improve the Teaching and Learning Environment 

Improve reading instruction and materials, supportive policies, and community mobilization to create a culture of reading.

Bridge the Schooling Gap in Conflict and Disaster-Affected Areas 

Build and rehabilitate schools, including schools in conflict and disaster-affected areas, and provide access to basic education for adolescent girls in internally displaced or conflict-affected communities.

CURRENT LIST OF PROJECTS

• SMALL GRANTS AND AMBASSADOR’S FUND PROGRAM
• PATHWAYS TO SUCCESS
• PAKISTAN READING PROJECT
• MERIT AND NEEDS-BASED SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM
• SINDH BASIC EDUCATION PROGRAM 
• SINDH READING PROGRAM 
• SINDH COMMUNITY MOBILIZATION PROGRAM
• YOUTH WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM

RESULTS

• Engaged Communities:  Barriers that inhibit girls from accessing and completing education vary across Pakistan.  Solutions identified by communities are more targeted and more sustainable.   Since the launch of this program in Pakistan, USAID has provided 17 grants (over $3 million) to communities in Sindh, Punjab and Balochistan and worked with communities in KP and FATA to address community-specific barriers to education for adolescent girls:
  
  • In Punjab, USAID small grants have created safe learning environments, special schools and accelerated learning programs for out-of-school girls, and trained teachers.
  • In Sindh, USAID has supported functional literacy skills trainings to protect adolescents against child labor, promoted inclusion of adolescent girls with special needs in mainstream schools, provided skills training for employment in the garment industry, delivered school supplies, and conducted enrollment campaigns.
  • In Balochistan, USAID has provided school supplies and conducted enrollment campaigns.
  • In Khyber Pahktunkhwa and the Federally Administrated Tribal Areas, USAID has rehabilitated and refurbished schools damaged by conflict or used to house displaced families, and constructed boundary walls to increase safety and latrines to promote privacy for girls.
• Empowered Female Teachers: Teachers make the biggest impact on what students learn in the classroom.  With a female teacher in the classroom, parents are more likely to send their daughters to school.  Since the launch of this program in Pakistan, USAID has trained nearly 1,880 female teachers on instructional techniques that encourage active participation and help build students’ confidence.
• Developed Girls’ Reading Skills:  Reading is the foundational skill upon which all future learning – and earning – is built.  USAID reading programs have reached over 382,000 girls since the launch of this program.
• Increased Girls’ Access to Education, particularly in Crisis-affected Areas:  Since the launch of the program in Pakistan, USAID support helped enroll or re-enroll over 37,000 girls in school in FATA, KP, and Sindh and built or rehabilitated over 158 girls or co-ed schools.

Related information:

White House Fact sheet on LGL Pakistan
White House Press Release on US PAKISTAN Joint Statement
USAID Washington Press release on LGL Pakistan 

VIDEO ON GIRLS EDUCATION:  In Her Shoes

STORIES ON GIRLS EDUCATION:  

#16Days: In Pakistan, Shaheen Traded Sewing Shoes for an Education

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