What We Learn about Girls’ Education from Interventions That Do Not Focus on Girls

Jul 19, 2026

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This review synthesizes evidence from 267 educational interventions across 54 low- and middle-income countries to evaluate how programs that may not target girls still affect girls’ access and learning. General interventions deliver average access and learning gains for girls comparable to girl-targeted approaches, with similar impacts for girls and boys. Many strong access interventions reduce household constraints, and many learning gains come from improving teachers’ pedagogy. Girl-targeted efforts are most compelling when addressing constraints that are uniquely or most strongly faced by girls.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages24

Reading Time1 h 0 min

Introduction

Research questions and study approach

How evidence is categorized and analyzed

Pub lic Disclosure Authorized Pub lic Disclosure Authorized The World Bank Economic Review, 36(1), 2022, 244–267 [https://doi.org10.1093/wber/lhab007](https://doi.org10.1093/wber/lhab007) Article What We Learn about Girls’ Education from Interventions That Do Not Focus on Girls David K. Evans and Fei Yuan Abstract What is the best way to improve access and learning outcomes for girls? This review brings together evidence from 267 educational interventions in 54 low-and middle-income countries – regardless of whether the interventions specifically target girls – and identifies their impacts on girls. To improve access and learning, general interventions deliver average gains for girls that are comparable to girl-targeted interventions. General interventions have similar impacts for girls as for boys. Taken together, these findings suggest that many educational gains for girls may be achieved through nontargeted programs. Many of the most effective interventions to improve access for girls relax household-level constraints (such as cash transfer programs), and many of the most effective interventions to improve learning for girls involve improving the pedagogy of teachers. Girl-targeted interventions may make the most sense when addressing constraints that are unique to, or most pronounced for, girls. JEL classification: I21, I24, J16, O1 Keywords: education, girls, effect size, impact evaluation, economic development 1. Introduction Investing in girls’ education has been called “the world’s best investment” (Sperling and Winthrop 2015) . But how can policymakers do so most effectively? Evidence on what works to improve the quality of education is accumulating at an unprecedented rate (World Bank 2018b) .1 In recent years, hundreds of impact evaluations in low- and middle-income countries have demonstrated the effectiveness – or lack thereof – of a range of interventions at improving education outcomes, for girls and boys David K. Evans (corresponding author) is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Global Development, Washington, DC, USA; his email address is [devans@cgdev.org. Fei Yuan](devans@cgdev.org. Fei Yuan) (corresponding author) is a doctoral student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, MA, USA; her email address is [fyuan@g.harvard.edu. The order of authors was determined](fyuan@g.harvard.edu. The order of authors was determined)[ ](fyuan@g.harvard.edu. The order of authors was determined)[alphabetically](alphabetically). The research for this article was financed by Echidna Giving, the Umbrella Facility for Gender Equality at the World Bank, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The authors thank Eric Edmonds, Deon Filmer, Erin Ganju, Markus Goldstein, Pamela Jakiela, Oni Lusk-Stover, Mary Obelnicki, Owen Ozier, Pauline Rose, Dana Schmidt, Craig Silverstein, Lexie Wagner, Kim Wright-Violich, Louise Yorke, and various seminar audiences and anonymous referees for feedback and suggestions. The authors also thank Amina Mendez Acosta, Tara Siegel, Danielle Sobol, and Shikhty Sunny for excellent research assistance. A supplementary online appendix is available with this article at The World Bank Economic Review website. 1 Specifically, fig. S4.1 in World Bank (2018b) demonstrates the rapid growth of studies that examine learning outcomes. Studies that examine access outcomes have also grown. © The Author(s) 2021 . Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / THE WORLD BANK. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License ([http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please [contact journals.permissions@oup.com](contact journals.permissions@

FAQs

What does the review evaluate about girls’ education?

It examines impacts on girls’ access and learning outcomes across a large set of educational interventions, including both girl-targeted and general programs.

How do general interventions compare with girl-targeted interventions for girls’ outcomes?

General interventions produce average gains for girls comparable to those from girl-targeted interventions, and impacts are similar for girls and boys.

Which types of interventions appear most effective for improving girls’ access and learning?

Effective access interventions often relax household-level constraints, while effective learning interventions frequently improve the pedagogy of teachers. Girl-targeted interventions are most sensible when addressing constraints that are unique to girls or most pronounced for them.

Jul 19, 2026

Upload by Aria