Unite for a Better Life — Gender-Transformative Coffee-Ceremony Discussion Groups, Rural Ethiopia

Unite for a Better Life (UBL) is a gender-transformative curriculum delivered through 14 two-hour participatory sessions held during the traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony, covering gender and power in relationships, healthy sexuality, HIV/AIDS, conflict resolution and household task-sharing. It was developed and delivered by EngenderHealth with Addis Ababa University's School of Public Health and the Ethiopian Public Health Association, and evaluated with support from J-PAL.
The programme was tested in a four-arm cluster-randomised controlled trial across 64 villages (six kebeles/four districts: Mareko, Meskan, Silte and Sodo) in the Gurage zone, southern Ethiopia, covering 6,770 households, with villages randomised to women-only UBL, men-only UBL, couples' UBL, or a control arm. At 24-month follow-up, the trial found no significant reduction in women's past-year physical or sexual IPV in any arm, including the couples' arm most directly targeted at joint decision-making. The men's-only arm, however, showed a statistically significant reduction in men's self-reported sexual IPV perpetration (adjusted odds ratio 0.73, p=0.014) and a marginal reduction in sexual IPV overall (AOR 0.80, p=0.062), alongside increased condom use and improved HIV knowledge in some arms.
A published cost-effectiveness analysis compared the arms' cost per outcome averted, and a later qualitative evaluation found participants reporting more gender-equitable household task-sharing and communication. Overall, UBL is a rigorously tested example where a men's-only group format outperformed a couples' format on a headline IPV outcome — a useful, honestly reported caveat for programme design rather than a uniform success story.

Read the full analysis: https://www.engenderhealth.org/program/unite-for-a-better-life