Discussion
ADVERSE EFFECTS
The MTBA impact evaluation offered an important opportunity to understand how a program with the same basic design performs across four contexts characterized by divergent drivers of child marriage. As the results show, at the end of the MTBA intervention, the evaluation was able to detect program impact on child marriage prevalence in India, but not in Malawi, Mali, or Niger. In intervention areas in India, the observed declines in child marriage from baseline to midline were maintained from midline to endline while in comparison areas, child marriage prevalence declined from baseline to midline and slowed from midline to endline. Although data from the other three MTBA countries showed encouraging declines in child marriage from baseline to endline, we are unable to attribute these trends to the MTBA program, indicating that observed declines may be the result of broader trends toward delayed marriage for adolescent girls occurring in these settings.Reflecting on this primary result of impact on child marriage prevalence in India but not elsewhere, we note that the MTBA program was designed to build upon the body of evidence on what program approaches work to reduce child marriage that was available during the program’s inception period in 2016 [In Niger, the program successfully increased girls’ knowledge of the legal age of marriage for girls (15 years), of the adverse effects of child marriage, and of modern contraceptive methods at the community level, however, these increases in knowledge did not appear to translate into behavior change with respect to age at marriage. Qualitative research in MTBA intervention villages in Niger has demonstrated that girls themselves often express preference for early marriage, viewing marriage as the most desirable pathway and as a rite of passage to adulthood, bringing with it the admiration of their peers, the respect of others in the community, and increased independence from their parents [Similarly, in Malawi, we found that the assumption that increased awareness of age at marriage laws and girls’ rights would lead to norms change and reduced prevalence of child marriage does not appear to hold. Through qualitative research in Malawi, we found that while knowledge of laws is high, punitive responses emphasizing enforcement of minimum age at marriage laws do not appear to influence marriage timing [In Mali, the assumption that a community-based intervention could impact child marriage prevalence did not consider the reality of highly mobile populations in this context. In some areas where the program operated in Mali—especially in rural Ségou—temporary migration is common among adolescent girls, often for the purpose of earning money to build a “trousseau” (an accumulation of personal and household items collected in preparation for marriage) [