Impact Evaluation of an After-School Extra-Curricular Sex Education Programme in Burundi

Abstract

In this thesis I study the impact of an extracurricular after-school programme on sexual empowerment aimed at adolescents in Burundi, on five main outcomes: knowledge on sexual and reproductive health, mastery to face difficulties in life, sex and gender based violence, attitudes towards the opposite sex, and having a voice of their own to discuss and express their thoughts with adults or peers. For this, I used Propensity Score Matching with Differences-in-Differences on a three wave panel, as well as Lee Bounds to control for attrition bias. Immediately after the intervention ended, the programme had a positive and significant effect on students' knowledge on the subject. There was also a significant effect on boys' mastery to face difficulties in life. What is more, older students (form 15 to 19 years of age) and those who actively participated also had significant effects on having a voice of their own to discuss and express their thoughts. However, the statistically significant results do not remain four months after the intervention ended. The results suggest that including boys in interventions on sexual and gender empowerment is key, as men are seen as having more freedom to act in society, so they may also have the power to apply gender-progressive views. This means that, changing their knowledge and attitudes towards sex and gender biases could be a first step to achieve sex and gender empowerment. However, this might have been too short an intervention to have long lasting effects or affect gender views.