By: Bashir Hassan Abubakar
The African Hub for Community Progress Initiative in Nigeria (AfriHUB), in partnership with the World Bank-assisted Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment – Accelerated Funding (AGILE-AF) Project Bauchi , has officially commenced activities under the Project’s Social Norms Component with a high-level one-day inception meeting in Bauchi State.
Speaking at the event, the Bauchi State AGILE Project Coordinator, Hajiya Ladi Hamma Mohammed, emphasized that sustainable educational progress requires looking beyond infrastructure development to actively reshape the social, cultural, and community-level factors influencing girls’ retention and completion rates.
She noted that the collaboration with AfriHub will leverage local insights, evidence-based interventions, and vital traditional and religious leadership to challenge harmful practices and champion the educational aspirations of adolescent girls.
Echoing these sentiments, the Component Lead, Zainab Lawal Hassan, highlighted that the comprehensive AGILE-AF framework intertwines community sensitization with critical elements such as Conditional Cash Transfers (CCT), life skills education, alternative learning pathways, and infrastructural upgrades.
She stressed that addressing these multi-layered economic and cultural barriers demands absolute transparency, strong stakeholder coordination, and genuine community ownership.
Furthermore, the Executive Director of AfriHub, Dr. Sabaatu Elizabeth Danladi, explained that the inception meeting served as a crucial platform to review the project’s Terms of Reference, validate workplans, and align all stakeholders on clear implementation strategies to ensure measurable, long-term impacts for girls across the state.
