The Girl Roster

Girls—especially the most socially and economically marginalized—are often cited as key beneficiaries of health and development initiatives. However, unless they are subject to specific, intentional recruitment efforts, they are likely to receive a disproportionately low, even negligible, share of the benefits. Good intentions aside, some “youth”, “adolescent”, or “girls’” programs do not apply targeted, evidence-based practices and therefore reach fewer girls than they intended or could. Some programs, whether intentional or not, end up directing the majority of benefits to those who are better off and not to those most in need.

The Girl Roster was developed by the Population Council, in close collaboration with the Women’s Refugee Commission and other operational organizations of the Girls in Emergencies Collaborative. The tool is a user-friendly, efficient, and cost-effective way to collect program-relevant information about girls in the community using a mobile phone-based questionnaire (and where resources do not permit, paper and pencil). It enables its users to see a fuller view of girls’ lived realities in defined program areas, comprised of easily walkable or travelable communities. Within those boundaries, the identified girls are sorted into meaningful segments by age; school-going; marital, and childbearing status; and living-arrangements (living with two, one, or neither parents/guardian). The process of implementing the tool, as well as the information collected itself, helps local practitioners, with additional community dialogue and engagement, design prototype or modify existent programs serving different segments of girls.