In Sub-Saharan Africa, multiple interrelated challenges hinder the potential of girls and young women. Girls and women are more likely to live in poverty than men, have less access to education and health services, and rarely benefit from productive economic opportunities. Restrictive social...

We develop a framework to assess when social programmes should prioritize expanding coverage versus improving targeting accuracy. Rather than treating universalism and targeting as a binary choice, we derive a practical rule-of-thumb based on observed eligibility rates and programme quotas to...

One-quarter of married, fertile-age women in Sub-Saharan Africa report not wanting a pregnancy and yet do not practice contraception. We collect detailed data on the subjective beliefs of married, adult women not wanting a pregnancy and estimate a structural model of contraceptive choices. Both...