The Malawi Early Grade Reading Activity (MEGRA) is a multifaceted educational development approach intended to enable sustained literacy among children, promote a literate community, and help the country increase economic growth and reduce poverty. The USAID/Malawi funded program was implemented starting August of 2013, by RTI (Research Triangle Institute) International. The MEGRA educational program was implemented alongside a Feed the Future project called Integrating Nutrition in Value Chains (INVC) and a Global Health Initiative project called Support for Service Delivery Integration (SSDI), both of which were also expected to affect the success of learners in school. Through this interconnected strategy, USAID/Malawi aimed to have a greater impact on outcomes of interest (such as learning reading scores) than would otherwise be possible through one project alone. The key elements of the MEGRA reading intervention involved: • Conduct teacher training, including practicums • Provide scripted lesson plans to teachers • Provide in-service teacher support and mentoring (or coaching) • Provide rewards for high-performing teachers and schools • Develop and distribute books, story cards, letter cards, and bookshelves • Organize reading fairs and other events to engage parents, caregivers, and the community in learner learning • Invite parents to participate in their learners’ classrooms and/or become engaged in extracurricular activities • Ensure a supportive policy environment by attending the Basic Education Technical Working Group and writing Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) to gain necessary Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology(MoEST) support and buy-in • Facilitate the extension of school instructional time In order to test possible complementary or multiplier effects of the MEGRA reading intervention and the INVC and SSDI activities, all three interventions were implemented in and evaluated for four distinct treatment levels: • Treatment Level 1: Three focus districts (Balaka, Machinga, and Lilongwe Rural) that provide an opportunity to evaluate the impact of a fully-integrated development approach with multiple activities across sectors, including MEGRA, INVC, and SSDI, on early grade reading outcomes. • Treatment Level 2: The district (Salima) where MEGRA overlaps with only the SSDI intervention. This serves as a test ground for the hypothesis that synergies between education and health initiatives catalyze changes that are greater than the sum of their parts. • Treatment Level 3: The district (Ntcheu) where MEGRA overlaps with only the INVC intervention. This serves as a test ground for the development hypothesis that synergies between education and agricultural livelihood and nutrition initiatives catalyze changes that are greater than the sum of their parts. • Treatment Level 4: Five districts (Blantyre Rural, Mzimba North, Ntchisi, Thyolo, and Zomba Rural) that only receive the MEGRA initiative. These districts are used to test the MEGRA theory of change that education support leads to improved literacy and general education outcomes. MEGRA was implemented at the zonal level, at baseline in 2013, where zones were randomly selected in each of the four levels to implement the MEGRA intervention (taking into account areas where INVC and SSDI were already working). However, since INVC and SSDI were not randomly assigned at baseline, the evaluation can only be able to determine whether EGRA is better than no EGRA and whether EGRA plus INVC and SSDI is better than no treatment. While MEGRA expected to include both treatment and comparison schools in each district at each level, at baseline, it was unable to because the SSDI and INVC activities were already underway. As such, the program found that in the Level 2 district, Salima, it was impossible to select comparison zones that were not already contaminated with the SSDI intervention because SSDI was already working across the entire di

This data was collected in 2021 in Mali for the Girls Leadership and Empowerment Through Education (GLEE) Midterm Evaluation. This includes data from an Adolescent Survey, Director Survey, and School Inventory.

The Malawi Early Grade Reading Activity (MEGRA) is a multifaceted educational development approach intended to enable sustained literacy among children, promote a literate community, and help the country increase economic growth and reduce poverty. The USAID/Malawi funded program was implemented starting August of 2013, by RTI (Research Triangle Institute) International. The MEGRA educational program was implemented alongside a Feed the Future project called Integrating Nutrition in Value Chains (INVC) and a Global Health Initiative project called Support for Service Delivery Integration (SSDI), both of which were also expected to affect the success of learners in school. Through this interconnected strategy, USAID/Malawi aimed to have a greater impact on outcomes of interest (such as learning reading scores) than would otherwise be possible through one project alone. The key elements of the MEGRA reading intervention involved: • Conduct teacher training, including practicums • Provide scripted lesson plans to teachers • Provide in-service teacher support and mentoring (or coaching) • Provide rewards for high-performing teachers and schools • Develop and distribute books, story cards, letter cards, and bookshelves • Organize reading fairs and other events to engage parents, caregivers, and the community in learner learning • Invite parents to participate in their learners’ classrooms and/or become engaged in extracurricular activities • Ensure a supportive policy environment by attending the Basic Education Technical Working Group and writing Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) to gain necessary Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology(MoEST) support and buy-in • Facilitate the extension of school instructional time In order to test possible complementary or multiplier effects of the MEGRA reading intervention and the INVC and SSDI activities, all three interventions were implemented in and evaluated for four distinct treatment levels: • Treatment Level 1: Three focus districts (Balaka, Machinga, and Lilongwe Rural) that provide an opportunity to evaluate the impact of a fully-integrated development approach with multiple activities across sectors, including MEGRA, INVC, and SSDI, on early grade reading outcomes. • Treatment Level 2: The district (Salima) where MEGRA overlaps with only the SSDI intervention. This serves as a test ground for the hypothesis that synergies between education and health initiatives catalyze changes that are greater than the sum of their parts. • Treatment Level 3: The district (Ntcheu) where MEGRA overlaps with only the INVC intervention. This serves as a test ground for the development hypothesis that synergies between education and agricultural livelihood and nutrition initiatives catalyze changes that are greater than the sum of their parts. • Treatment Level 4: Five districts (Blantyre Rural, Mzimba North, Ntchisi, Thyolo, and Zomba Rural) that only receive the MEGRA initiative. These districts are used to test the MEGRA theory of change that education support leads to improved literacy and general education outcomes. MEGRA was implemented at the zonal level, at baseline in 2013, where zones were randomly selected in each of the four levels to implement the MEGRA intervention (taking into account areas where INVC and SSDI were already working). However, since INVC and SSDI were not randomly assigned at baseline, the evaluation can only be able to determine whether EGRA is better than no EGRA and whether EGRA plus INVC and SSDI is better than no treatment. While MEGRA expected to include both treatment and comparison schools in each district at each level, at baseline, it was unable to because the SSDI and INVC activities were already underway. As such, the program found that in the Level 2 district, Salima, it was impossible to select comparison zones that were not already contaminated with the SSDI intervention because SSDI was already work

The Malawi Early Grade Reading Improvement Activity (MERIT) is a five-year USAID activity designed to provide technical assistance and resources to the GOM to strengthen the reading performance of Malawian learners in Standards 1–4. Key to the Activity’s design is the USAID/Malawi education strategic plan of 2012 that aims to increase the reading skills of 5.58 million Malawi primary school students through: (i) improving reading instruction in the primary grades; (ii) increasing parental and community support for student reading; and, finally, (iii) improving the policy environment for reading. That strategic plan was the basis for the USAID/Malawi Early Grade Reading Project and the design of MERIT, its current flagship activity in support of early grade reading. MERIT directly supports the CDCS Development Objective 1, Social development improved through enhanced quality and availability of essential social services as indicated by sustained improvement of reading gains of students enrolled in Standards 1 to 4.

Education for Marginalized Children in Kenya (EMACK) is an initiative of the Ministry of Education (MOE) and the Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) and is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The original EMACK project was initiated in 2006 to increase quality educational opportunities for pre-primary, primary, and lower secondary school children who had been historically marginalized by cultural practices and poverty in Coast Province (CP), North Eastern Province (NEP), and informal settlements of Nairobi. From 2006 to 2012, as a part of the EMACK project, AKF developed and implemented a package of interventions focused on learner engagement and achievement at the classroom level in order to improve learning outcomes and learner transitions from pre-primary to lower secondary school. By 2012, EMACK had reached 767 informal and formal schools in 23 districts across Nairobi, CP, and NEP, benefitting nearly 425,000 people, including 400,000 children (215,426 boys and 183,706 girls), 4,000 teachers, and 11,000 orphans and vulnerable children. In 2012 EMACK refocused its interventions towards building improved readiness of children (before and as they enter primary school) and ensuring schools, especially the lower primary standards (standards 1 through 3) are ready to support children’s learning and development. This refocus, EMACK II, complements the USAID education strategy (April 2011 – 2015) and has been developed by AKF in collaboration with USAID. The overall goal of the re-aligned EMACK II (Oct 2012-Sept 2014) program is to “enhance equitable access and improve learning outcomes in Kiswahili, English and Mathematics for children in primary grades 1, 2 & 3. To achieve the re-aligned EMACK II goal, AKF identified the following four revised strategic objectives (SOs): 1. Improved teaching and learning in Kiswahili, English and mathematics in primary grades1, 2 and 3 in target areas of CP, NEP and the informal settlements of Nairobi directly benefiting over 269,000 children attending 800 schools (formal and informal). 2. Improved effectiveness, efficiency and accountability of school management, and improved parents’ and communities’ participation to support reading outcomes in primary grades1, 2 and 3 in CP, NEP and the informal settlements of Nairobi in 800 schools (formal and informal). 3. Strengthened MOE delivery systems at the cluster and district levels to enhance learning outcomes in Kiswahili, English and mathematics in primary grades1, 2 and 3 at the national level, in 8 counties [4 in CP, 1 in Nairobi, and 3 in NEP], and in 28 districts [14 in CP, 2 in Nairobi, and 12 in NEP]. 4. Increased equitable access to education for 120,000 children in crisis and conflict environments in specific areas of CP, NEP, and the informal settlements of Nairobi. AKF plans to achieve these through improving the quality of teaching and learning in the classroom, establishing a cadre of trained trainers, and education officials as well as increasing the engagement and participation of the parents and communities so they become more accountable, effective and efficient in providing sustained support to the lower primary (grades 1, 2 and 3) education.

This dataset is the first of two datasets needed to calculate the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI). It is part of the 2015 Feed the Future Malawi Interim Survey in the Zone of Influence. The survey was designed to monitor program performance by periodic assessments of a number of standardized indicators. A total of 1,021 households were interviewed, which provided data for the target sample size of 1,007 households and ensured the sample is representative of the seven districts covered in the interim assessment. This dataset contains Module G data from the primary adult (18+) female decision maker within each household (for the sub-sample of households with a primary adult female decision maker). The unique identifiers for this file are pbs_id + idcode.

Strengthening Early Grade Reading (SEGREM) was a three-year USAID Malawi-funded activity aimed at improving literacy levels of learners in Chiradzulu, Dedza, and Mchinji districts. The Program reviewed existing supplementary readers to be used in standards 1-4. It also used literacy instruction, teacher training and community mobilization models that have been tested in Malawi and have helped to improve literacy levels of learners, improve large class management, provide quality and relevant supplementary readers, and ensure community support. In January 2015, a baseline study was conducted to determine the baseline on the student reading abilities. During the reading assessment, learners were asked to name letters of the alphabet, identify initial sounds, read familiar words, read a passage and answer comprehension questions orally; for Chichewa, learners were also asked to read syllables.

This dataset is the second of two datasets needed to calculate the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI). It is part of the 2015 Feed the Future Malawi Interim Survey in the Zone of Influence. The survey was designed to monitor program performance by periodic assessments of a number of standardized indicators. A total of 1,021 households were interviewed, which provided data for the target sample size of 1,007 households and ensured the sample is representative of the seven districts covered in the interim assessment. It includes all of the 24-hour time allocation data from Module G6, the time use questionnaire, and thus each respondent in Module G has multiple records—one for each of the 18 time use activities (17,064 records ÷ 18 activities = 948 WEAI respondents). The unique identifiers are pbs_id + idcode + activity.

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