Integrating a Gender-Transformative Approach into the Husbands Schools Program in Niger

The Husbands’ Schools intervention (known as “École des Maris”) was first piloted in 2007 in Zinder, Niger by UNFPA. The program engaged men as “model husbands” to promote women’s use of maternal and reproductive health services and encourage healthier behaviors within couples. While the program demonstrated success in improving health outcomes and has since been scaled within and beyond Niger, evidence suggests that the Husbands’ Schools have had limited impact on transforming deeply entrenched gender norms and unequal power dynamics between men and women.

There is a growing need for interventions that engage men in maternal, newborn, and child health that are designed with care to avoid reinforcing unequal decision-making, strengthen women’s agency to seek care, promote joint decision-making, and foster more equitable gender relationships. Agency for All was a USAID-funded project (2022-2025) that aimed to generate evidence on effective social and behavior change strategies to convert intention into action and improve health by developing culturally relevant concept of agency. The initiative intended to strengthen evidence on approaches to foster empowerment and increase the agency of local partners to generate and utilize evidence.

In Niger, the project partnered with Wadata, another USAID-funded project, to design, implement, and evaluate a gender-transformative adaptation of the Husband’s Schools in Zinder to transform the underlying gender inequities and promote agency in health and beyond.