Male Norms Initiative — Group Education & Community Engagement for Men, Addis Ababa

Hiwot Ethiopia, with technical support from EngenderHealth and funding via USAID/PEPFAR's Male Norms Initiative, ran a community-based programme with young men aged 15–24 in three low-income subcities of Addis Ababa — Gulele, Kirkos and Bole. Participants were assigned to one of three arms: interactive group education combined with community engagement (GE+CE), community engagement alone (CE), or a comparison group with no intervention. Group sessions used participatory curricula to challenge inequitable gender norms and address the drivers of intimate partner violence (IPV) and HIV risk.
An independent quasi-experimental evaluation led by PATH and Ethiopia's Miz-Hasab Research Institute surveyed 809 men at baseline (May–June 2008) and re-surveyed 645 (89% retention) six months later. In the combined GE+CE arm, self-reported IPV perpetration in the past six months fell from 53% to 38%; in the CE-only arm it fell from 60% to 37%; the comparison group showed negligible change. GE+CE participants were twice as likely as comparison-group men to shift toward more gender-equitable attitudes on a standardized scale. The six-month follow-up window and reliance on self-reported perpetration are notable limitations acknowledged by the evaluators.

Read the full analysis: https://menengageafrica.org/mea-network/menengage-ethiopia/