AdLAB – Adolescent Learning, Action, and Benchmarking

Supported by the World Bank and the Government of Nigeria, AGILE aims to increase access to secondary education for adolescent girls by expanding school infrastructure, providing conditional cash transfers and scholarships to reduce financial barriers, and delivering life skills and digital literacy training. The implementation research, conducted by Oxford Policy Management in Nigeria, aims to design test, and evaluate feedback mechanisms that capture input directly from adolescent girls to enable real-time adaptation of interventions. The study will generate evidence on how to implement adolescent health and wellbeing programs effectively at scale, ensuring activities are acceptable, effective, and contextually appropriate.

The research is being implemented in three Nigerian states in close collaboration with national and state government ministries, youth organizations, and other stakeholders. It will deliver not only process documentation but also practical, scalable tools and evidence to strengthen adolescent engagement, support program adaptation, and inform policy development. These products are designed to have lasting impact on the AGILE project, broader adolescent health and education initiatives in Nigeria, and global learning on youth empowerment.

This implementation research is focused on improving youth-friendly healthcare services in Madagascar and is linked to the Madagascar Pandemic Preparedness and Basic Health Services Delivery Project. Conducted in close collaboration with the Ministry of Health and other stakeholders, this study aims to adapt, validate, and pilot systematic tools for measuring service quality and user experience for adolescents accessing youth-friendly health centers.

The research will develop and test a systematic approach for collecting and using data on the quality and user experience of adolescent health services in Madagascar. It will adapt and validate existing tools from WHO; pilot these tools in selected facilities to assess feasibility, usability, and acceptability; identify barriers and enablers to integrating these tools into existing health information systems; and develop strategies for scale-up and sustainability, ensuring that feedback from adolescents is used to improve service delivery.

This technical assistance project in Mauritania aims to strengthen youth engagement in implementation research on adolescent health and nutrition. It focuses on equipping and supporting national civil society organizations (CSOs) to meaningfully involve adolescents and young people throughout research processes that affect them, particularly in the context of the INAYA-Elargi project, to improve adolescent access to health services.

By building CSO capacity through targeted technical assistance, resources, and structured methodologies, the project makes youth engagement more systematic, impactful, and contextually grounded. It seeks to ensure that youth participation is ethical, inclusive, and sustained across the full research cycle – identifying barriers to health and nutrition services, co-creating solutions, and validating findings – so that research and policy decisions better reflect the needs and perspectives of young people.

This initiative is designed to strengthen the capacity of young Cambodian researchers and produce actionable evidence to guide policy and program decisions on adolescent health and well-being in Cambodia. Through a participatory approach, the research will identify evidence gaps, develop policy briefs on priority adolescent health topics, and translate findings into practical recommendations for decision-makers.

The project provides mentorship and training in adolescent health, stakeholder engagement, and research methodologies to a cohort of young researchers. These researchers will lead the development and implementation of policy briefs, as well as the dissemination of findings through advocacy materials and stakeholder consultations. By empowering young researchers and fostering collaboration among government, civil society, and youth organizations, the project aims to advance adolescent health outcomes and reinforce Cambodia’s evidence ecosystem for lasting impact.

This landscape analysis focuses on generating a gender‑responsive understanding of adolescent health and nutrition in Chad, with particular attention to the system‑level factors shaping service delivery, access, and uptake. Anchored in national priorities and ongoing investments supported by the Government of Chad and the GFF, the study aims to ensure that future strategic directions are grounded in service delivery realities and responsive to adolescents’ lived experiences across diverse contexts.

The analysis seeks to assess adolescent health and nutrition outcomes and service coverage; identify key implementation bottlenecks and enabling factors across governance, financing, workforce capacity, service delivery platforms, data systems, and coordination; and explore adolescents’ and stakeholders’ perspectives on the acceptability and feasibility of existing services. Findings will be translated through participatory co‑creation processes into a set of prioritized, evidence‑informed, and gender‑responsive strategic directions to inform the development of Chad’s next national adolescent health and nutrition strategy.

This implementation research focuses on understanding the context‑specific enablers and barriers to the introduction of HPV vaccination in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with a particular emphasis on health system readiness and service delivery integration. The study is closely linked to ongoing efforts to strengthen routine immunization and adolescent health services and is conducted in collaboration with national and sub‑national stakeholders.

The research aims to assess facility readiness for HPV vaccine introduction; examine healthcare providers’ perceptions of HPV vaccination across both health facilities and the school health system; and explore practical strategies for integrating the HPV vaccine into the routine immunization package. A qualitative study design was used, drawing on semi‑structured interviews conducted in three provinces over a three‑month period.

This implementation research focuses on generating actionable learning on how priority adolescent health interventions are being delivered across multiple service platforms in Liberia, including primary health care facilities, community outreach, and schools. Embedded within ongoing investments supported through the IFISH project, the study is conducted in close collaboration with the Liberia Ministry of Health, the World Bank, and the Global Financing Facility, with the aim of strengthening implementation and improving adolescent health outcomes.

The research will document and analyze current implementation processes; assess key implementation outcomes such as feasibility, acceptability, fidelity, early uptake, and adolescent engagement; and identify contextual factors influencing performance across platforms. Adolescents and youth will be engaged as partners throughout the research process, including through co‑creation and sense‑making activities, and findings will be translated into practical, evidence‑informed recommendations to support implementation strengthening, scale‑up, and sustainability of adolescent health interventions in Liberia.

This implementation research focuses on understanding the barriers and facilitators influencing adolescents’ access to and use of primary health care (PHC) services in Tajikistan. Led by the World Bank in partnership with the GFF and national counterparts, the study aims to generate context‑specific, policy‑relevant evidence to inform the strengthening of adolescent‑responsive PHC services. It addresses persistent gaps in service utilization related to sociocultural norms, financial constraints, and health system readiness, with particular attention to mental health, sexual and reproductive health, and preventive care.

Using a mixed‑methods implementation research design, the study integrates national survey platforms with qualitative inquiry to examine both demand‑ and supply‑side determinants of adolescent PHC use. It assesses facility readiness, provider practices, and adolescents’ experiences and perceptions of care, while applying implementation research frameworks to identify feasible strategies for improving service delivery. Findings will be translated into actionable recommendations through stakeholder engagement and co‑creation processes, supporting policy reforms and service adaptations to improve equity, quality, and sustainability of adolescent health services in Tajikistan.