Very Young Adolescents in Bangladesh: A review of social and behavior change programs addressing adolescent childbearing

Using evidence-based social and behavior change (SBC) approaches that engage VYAs, their families, communities, and systems can contribute to delaying very early childbearing among VYAs and lay the foundation to enable adolescents to delay childbearing as they age into later adolescence. However, little is
known about the current state of SBC programming with and for VYAs in Bangladesh. To address this gap and to support the priorities of the GoB as articulated in the National Strategy for Adolescent Health 2017- 2030 and National Action Plan to End Child Marriage 2018-2030, the United States Agency for International
Development (USAID) Bangladesh requested the Agency for All project2
to conduct a series of activities to synthesize and curate learning on VYA SBC programming that contributes to reducing adolescent childbearing in Bangladesh. To inform the development of a set of actionable recommendations for
strengthening SBC programming, Agency for All has documented the following:
• Factors that drive adolescent childbearing in Bangladesh
• Landscape of SBC programming with VYAs that aim to contribute to reducing adolescent childbearing
• Ecosystem of local organizations addressing these issues in Bangladesh