Evaluation of the Changing the River's Flow for Young People (CTRF4YP) Programme: A Gender Norms Transformative Programme in Zimbabwe

"Although there has not yet been a complete about turn in negative cultural practices in the communities, there have been very good stories to take home. With community leaders continuing in the same vein, communities will eventually eliminate harmful practices affecting young people in the community."

Implemented in hard-to-reach areas in Zimbabwe's farming and mining communities, Changing the River's Flow - A Gender Transformative Programme for Young People (CTRF4YP) used a community dialogue model in an effort to change the attitudes of parents and leaders and support them to address negative gender norms that fuel gender inequality. SAfAIDS and Sonke Gender Justice hoped to transform gender roles and promote more gender-equitable relationships between young men and women in order to reduce HIV and gender-based violence (GBV) and to promote positive sexual reproductive health and rights (SRHR). These organisations commissioned an independent consultancy firm, Primson Management Services, to conduct an end-of-project evaluation of CTRF4YP; this report shares the results.

Detailed at Related Summaries, below, CTRF4YP activities were conducted over a 2-year period (2015-2017) and included:

• The school component: For example, youth for gender transformation (Y4GT) clubs consisted of 30 members in each school (15 boys and 15 girls) who underwent several gender norms transformation, HIV, and SRHR sessions. Trained teacher and student community gender norms transformation facilitators (CGTFs) within each school led these sessions.
• The community component: Fatherhood clubs, supervised by facilitators, were created across all the four project districts (Nyanga, Seke, Chiredzi, and Hwange), consisting of 30 father participants in all 24 communities, to promote active fatherhood and positive parenting. Community dialogues, supervised by the CGTFs, encompassed sessions on gender and its linkages to HIV, GBV, and SRHR outcomes.

The evaluation used a mixed-method approach, including: a literature review; a gender balance scorecard that was administered in 17 schools to 340 in-school participants of 34 groups (17 males and 17 females); a one-on-one questionnaire that reached a total of 665 respondents; 62 key informant interviews at national, district, and school community levels; and 28 focus group discussions (FGs), consisting of 248 participants across all four districts.

Key findings include:

Relevance: The evaluation found that CTRF4YP was relevant to key national and community development needs, including addressing culture and negative gender norms that are deep seated, particularly in rural farming and mining communities. Such norms lead to harmful practices, such as child marriages, teenage pregnancies, GBV, and child pledging. In turn, the practices lead to negative health outcomes like HIV and maternal mortality. There is generally low knowledge on inequitable gender norms, HIV, and SRHR within the communities, which also leads to an increase in harmful practices that expose young people to risk. The programme is aligned to key national development priorities enshrined in various policy and strategic documents, and it contributed to the development and production of the National Adolescent Sexual Reproductive Health (ASRH) Strategy 2016-2020.

Effectiveness: The CTRF4YP was graded as satisfactory, as most results were achieved in the stipulated time, but with a few challenges encountered in implementation. Examples of positive results:

• Objective 1 - strengthened capacity of SAfAIDS and its four local partners by Sonke on gender norms transformation theory (including work on engaging men and boys), programme implementation, and monitoring and evaluation (M&E) - was achieved. The CTRF4YP programme also resurrected the Men Engage Network, which has 25 members (vs. a target of 10 members).
• Objective 2 - strengthened capacity of 720 young people (10-24 years), both females and males, in and out of school, to practice equitable gender norms - was achieved, with most targets reached. For example, 87% of young people involved in the programme could identify unequal gender norms, which was statistically significant. The programme reportedly helped reduce dropouts, risky sexual behaviours, teenage pregnancies, drug abuse, violence, school absenteeism, and negative disciplinary issues. There has also been transformation of policies in schools, as boys and girls are now being treated equally in performing school chores (general cleanliness). However, challenges were noted with limited training, resource materials, and time to do sessions due to competing regular timetables at the school.
• Objective 3 - strengthened capacity of 300 community leaders (including religious and traditional leaders) and 200 parents to reduce harmful cultural and religious practices that promote inequitable gender norms, risk for HIV, and GBV among young people - was met. Targets on identification of inequitable gender norms, HIV linkages, and comprehensive knowledge on HIV and SRHR were either achieved or narrowly missed. For example, findings showed a 29% increase in interviewed persons indicating that their community leaders denounce inequitable gender norms and practices. The increase was significant in Seke (reaching 86% from a baseline of 54%) and Chiredzi (reaching 91% at endline from a baseline of 33%). The programme recorded impact especially around the fatherhood clubs (e.g., fathers now accompany their wives to antenatal, delivery, and postnatal services). The communities have also witnessed a sharp decline in domestic violence, child pledging to appease spirits, and harmful practices linked with manhood and womanhood initiation ceremonies.
• Objective 4 - undertaken policy advocacy and provision of technical input into national policy review and development processes - was met (e.g., by holding a national level-sensitisation meeting and contributing to the national ASRH policy report, 2016-2020).
• Objective 5 - evidence generated to promote innovation and learning on gender transformation to address HIV and GBV prevention among young people - was met (e.g., by holding a symposium that attracted 140 delegates and conducting five surveys).

However, CTRF4YP faced resistance by communities and its leaders at inception due to the programme appearing to compromise their deep-seeded culture. Later on, as community leaders began to lead most activities, people began to warm up to the programme. The strategy involved making inroads by working with community leaders and communities; the programme was related to cultural issues, and community leaders are key custodians for culture. Overall, effectiveness of partnerships in CTRF4YP was highly satisfactory due to the diversity of skillsets and presence of local partners at the district level. However, there was divided attention among partners due to the demands of competing programming work.

Efficiency: There was demonstrable optimum use of resources for achievement of results.

Sustainability: The evaluators deemed the continuation of the project as "moderately likely, with strong buy-in of relevant structures at national, sub-national and community levels. Community ownership and buy-in meetings were hosted with local government authorities and traditional and religious leadership during the CTR4YP design and this continued afterwards. There was also active participation of programme beneficiaries....However, the backdrop is that the number of facilitators trained in the programme is limited and this can affect the spread of the programme to cover the vast communities."

Select recommendations for CTRF4YP and/or similar future interventions:

• Consider scaling up the CTRF4YP model to more communities to saturate current intervention districts, additional districts, and even beyond Zimbabwe.
• Increase the number of community gender transformation facilitators, both in school and in the community, to ensure knowledge and skills are cascaded to a larger proportion of the community.
• Establish more teacher facilitators at each school, including the guidance and counselling (G&C) teacher, and ensure that the District Education Officers (DEOs) and school heads are more actively involved to ease the development of CTRF4YP-inclusive calendars.
• Increase the number of sessions and participants in holiday camps.
• Hold trainings at decentralised points in order to limit the distances that participants need to travel to reach their centre.
• Add income-generating activities (IGAs) or other material support to make participation in the programme more appealing to the community.
• Improve visibility and recognition in the community by providing items like tee-shirts/caps and information, education, and communication (IEC) materials.