FAQ

SPRING was a pioneering business accelerator which supported ventures in East Africa and South Asia to foster adolescent girls’ socio-economic empowerment, market inclusion and increase their wellbeing. A five-year programme, SPRING was funded by DFID, USAID and DFAT.

SPRING was sector-agnostic, drawing from all industries. SPRING focused on products and services that would help girls keep safe, learn, earn, and save without harm — which means that the industries offering products and services in this sector had an obvious connection. However, other sectors such as transport, nutrition, energy and technology all had significant benefits for girls and were able to contribute to SPRING’s goals.

SPRING was funded by the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Australian Department for Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT).

SPRING was implemented by a consortium led by Palladium. Headquartered in London during its implementation, SPRING was locally-led and globally supported, with expert representatives in London, San Francisco and New York.

Now that the programme has come to a close, the evaluation team at Tetra Tech International Development has taken over and will be carrying out independent monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) for the programme until 2022. We are currently sharing lesson learning through webinars, conferences, and one on one meetings. If you would like to know more about the work of the evaluation team, please read this blog.

SPRING was designed not just by understanding girls and their needs, but businesses and their needs. HCD was a key feature of SPRING’s offering. 

Human-Centred Design is the process of gaining a deep understanding of people to design new solutions. Because the methodology starts with understanding users’ needs, challenges, desires, and behaviours, it is a generative and empathic process—providing substantive, iterative opportunities for business growth and evolution.

As a methodology, HCD typically has 5 steps:

EXPLORE: Perform research. Talk to users. Ask them questions.
SHARE: Categorise what you heard. Find patterns. Synthesise it into a coherent story.
IDENTIFY: Find opportunities for intervention. Create design challenges. Ask “how might we…?”
IMAGINE: Brainstorm solutions. Generate new solutions. Think bigger.
BUILD: Create prototypes. Build products and services. Do it quickly. do it again. It is an ongoing and iterative journey

When girls have the freedom to learn, earn, and save without harm, their health and wellbeing increases, they can make their own decisions and take control of their own lives. SPRING worked with businesses to support the development of products and services that would help adolescent girls generate income, enhance productivity, facilitate access to capital and credit, and store wealth. Because when one girl achieves to transform her life, she inspires others to do the same – that is the Girl Effect.

Created by the Nike Foundation, in collaboration with the NoVo Foundation, United Nations Foundation, and Coalition for Adolescent Girls, the Girl Effect is driven by hundreds of thousands of supporters who believe in the potential of 250 million adolescent girls living in poverty. This 2-minute video sums it up.

For more information, visit Girleffect.org