Gender and Learning Evidence Fund / Portfolio /
Girl Move Academy
Mozambique Nampula and Sofala provinces
girlmove.org (opens in a new tab)-
Lead partner -
Collaborating partner
What we do
Co-created by Girl MOVE and the Girl Movers' movement, and integrated by the Ministry of Education and Culture into the national education system, this in-school mentorship programme pairs students from Grade 9 (mentors) with Grade 6 (mentees) in a dual impact model.
The question we are testing with the Fund
How might near-peer mentoring circles contribute to shifts in girls' agency, vocational clarity and gender beliefs, and how might these shifts interact with learning outcomes?
What's new in this work
In Nampula, we pair learning assessments (EGRA/EGMA) with surveys on gender beliefs, agency and vocational clarity, to study how these interact with learning outcomes, and whether this differs for boys.
EGRA: Early Grade Reading Assessment. EGMA: Early Grade Mathematics Assessment.
In our words
Our hope is
Shonyl Chemane, Girl Move
Read the full transcript
Our hope is that the youth in Mozambique stays in school, progresses and completes their education, ready to build and transform their community and the country. We already know that the programme improves learning, vocational and changemaking skills. Now we want to understand what lies behind those results: how the mentoring relationship and gender interact with learning and staying in school. What we learn will feed into a programme the Ministry of Education is already expanding across the country.
Timing helper
Play the recording and press T (or the button) as each line starts.
The partnership
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Lead partner
Girl Move Academy
Leads the study, which is embedded in its 2027 randomised controlled trial, through its Mozambique-based team in Nampula and Maputo. Girl Move designs the research, measures learning outcomes alongside girls' agency, vocational clarity and gender beliefs, and together with the Girl Movers' movement, supports the Ministry in implementing the mentorship programme in schools.
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Collaborating partner
Ministry of Education and Culture
The in-school mentorship programme is the Ministry's own, led at central, provincial and district level and now rolling out across all 11 provinces. The Girl Movers' movement already works with the Ministry's Reform Office on education and gender policy, and this study will add to that work.
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Collaborating partner
Yale University
Yale is the academic research partner on the programme's randomised controlled trials. Professor Costas Meghir of Yale worked with Girl Move on the 2025 trial in Sofala, and is working with us on the ongoing trial in Nampula (2026) and the 2027 trial in which this study is embedded.
Who we are
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Cláudia Saída
Senior Manager, Education Cluster
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Professor Costas Meghir
Douglas A. Warner III Professor of Economics, Yale University
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Júlia Nihipo
Transformative Education Project Manager
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Margarida Horta e Costa
Project & Systemic Impact Manager
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Djeci Sambane
Policy Innovation & Gender Inclusion Specialist
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Vânia Cassambai
Community Mobilisation and Engagement Specialist
The rest of the cohort
See the whole portfolio-
Teaching at the Right Level Africa
How might we design TaRL classrooms where gender no longer predicts participation, engagement or learning outcomes?
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Kizazi
How might we adapt government coaching, supervision and school leadership systems to ensure boys and girls learn, participate and progress equitably?
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Centre for Girls' Education
How might we identify what most drives secondary school transition to guide government investment in effective support?
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Center for Evidence Synthesis, Support & Development in Africa
How might we integrate peer-assisted learning into existing gender clubs in Oromia to improve foundational learning and retention for girls and boys?
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Girl Child Network
How might we integrate gender clubs with TaRL+ accelerated learning to improve foundational literacy, numeracy, and Grade 6-to-7 transition rates in ASALs?