The Population Council’s Girl Innovation, Research, and Learning (GIRL) Center, with funding from the Children Investment Fund Foundation, is implementing a longitudinal cohort study to assess the Matasa Matan Arewa (MMA), an acronym for young women of the north, and Matasa Matan Arewa Plus (MMA+) interventions. The MMA interventions are being implemented by the Adolescent 360 (A360) program among married adolescent girls in northern Nigeria with focus on contraceptive use and economic and reproductive health empowerment. The A360 program is led by Population Services International, Inc., with BRAC USA supporting the human capital components and the Society for Family Health leading the implementation in Nigeria.
Using a mixed-method approach, this study will provide an in-depth understanding of the longer-term impacts of the MMA intervention in Nigeria. It will assess the stop/restart/switch patterns of contraceptive use over the short and long term. The study will also unpack the pathways to program impact on a range of empowerment dimensions (i.e., reproductive, economic, and general empowerment) and how they may differ in A360 and government-implemented models compared to a control. The study will be conducted in selected states in northern Nigeria: Kano, Jigawa, and Kaduna.
The research activities, including training of research assistants who will be collecting the baseline data, started in January 2023, with the baseline data collection taking place between the fourth week of January and the second week of February 2023. The baseline data will be collected among women in cohort 1 and 2, representing control and intervention participants respectively.
As of March 2023, the baseline and midline (follow-up I and follow-up II) surveys have been concluded. The team is currently working on a comprehensive report to present the major findings from the three waves of data collection.The principal investigator for the study is Karen Austrian and it is coordinated by Matthew Alabi.
