GCRF Accelerating Achievement for Africa's Adolescents Hub

In thirty years' time there will be half a billion adolescents in Africa. Like youth everywhere, they possess huge potential to thrive. But more than half are trapped in cycles of poor nutrition, poverty, low education, violence and unemployment. They also have the world's highest rates of early fertility, with adverse long-term outcomes for adolescent parents and their children. Such inter-generational disadvantage creates risks not only in the region but also to global stability.

The SDGs and African Union's Agenda 2063 challenge us to take a radical new approach. The UK's Global Challenges Research Fund provides a unique opportunity to do this. The Accelerating Advantage Hub will find the combinations of services with the greatest positive impacts for Africa's adolescents and their children. We need to move beyond services focused on single outcomes, towards 'super-accelerator' impacts across multiple SDGs of health, education, violence prevention, gender equality and economic stability. With our government partners we will test combination services - for example of cash transfers, malaria prophylaxis, parenting programs, business skills and violence prevention - to identify the leanest and most effective policy packages.

The Hub has been planned with African governments and international agencies including the UN Development Program, African Union, UNICEF and the World Health Organisation. They have told us that 'evidence as usual' is not enough. When we make a personal investment, like buying a computer, we want to know not only whether it is the most efficient, but also whether it is good value for money and whether we will like to use it. Governments need the same information about services: their effectiveness, their cost-effectiveness, whether they can be delivered through existing health, education and welfare systems, and whether they will be accepted by service providers and by adolescents. The Hub will conduct large-scale studies and use existing data in Angola, Cote D'Ivoire, DRC, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Somalia, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia & Zimbabwe. All projects will include cost-effectiveness to assist budget decisions. In short, we will provide African policy-makers with the evidence they need and want to do the best for adolescents.

The Hub will also train and support frontline workers to improve services for adolescents across Africa. We will turn evidence into training modules, freely accessible manuals and support materials. We will deliver practitioner training in 34 African countries by working with NGO partners selected for wide regional coverage, for example Paediatric Adolescent Treatment for Africa, the International Rescue Committee, Clowns without Borders and the International AIDS Alliance. Skills-building for young researchers in Africa and the UK is built into the Hub's work. We will support 45 promising young academics and dedicated African policymakers to focus their careers on improving the lives of adolescents and their children.

The Hub's work is planned with adolescents themselves. Too many services have failed because they do not appeal to teenagers' aspirations and immediate goals. The Hub will work directly with adolescent advisory groups in Eastern, Western and Southern Africa to co-develop approaches that are not only effective, but also meaningful and fun for those who will use them.

We aim to reach 20 million adolescents and their children with effective combinations of services to meet their needs. Between our direct countries of research and our NGO partners, the Hub will actively engage with policymakers, practitioners and adolescents across East, West, Southern and Central Africa and including fragile and war-torn states. We have a common goal: to transform the potential of Africa's adolescents into a thriving future for the continent.