It has been well documented that Social Safety Nets (SSN) have a significant and, in some cases, sizable effect on school enrollment and attendance of adolescent girls. Table 4 provides an overview of the evidence of the impact of SSNs on education of girls and women. Conditional cash transfers (CCT) have been effective in reducing the gender gap in those countries where school enrollment rates among girls were lower than among boys (100). School feeding (SFs) has also demonstrated some positive impacts on enrollment and attendance (101-105) as well as serving as a hunger reduction intervention. However, distance to school remains a barrier for improving school enrollment for girls. A reduction in the distance to the nearest secondary school by 1 km has an increased probability of 8.6% that girls attend school (106). However, the cost of building new schools in remote areas exceeds the cost of providing CCT. Comparing the cost-effectiveness of demand-oriented CCT with supply-oriented projects, CCT are a substantially more cost-effective alternative of increasing girls’ school enrollment (106).
Social safety nets and maternal diets
SSN …show more content…
For women, it is important to ensure the achievement of universal access to safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene by ensuring open defecation-free communities. These same facilities should be provided at home, and complemented with behavior change communication on sanitation and hygiene for women caregivers. For adolescent girls, schools should have safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene with adequate hand washing infrastructure, menstrual hygiene management facilities, and separate toilets for boys and