TESFA project (Towards Improved Economic and Sexual Reproductive Health Outcomes for Adolescent Girls) was launched in 2010 which targeted ever-married adolescent girls’ economic status and reproductive health. The project envisioned to mitigate the effects of early marriage among ever-married adolescent girls in two woredas, Farta and Lay Gayint, of South Gondar zone in the Amhara regional state of Ethiopia. The project aimed to reach five thousand adolescent girls having marital history under the age of 19 in 25 kebeles in the two woredas, with the goal of achieving measurable positive change in their economic empowerment and sexual and reproductive health status. The project operated through four programmatic arms: Economic empowerment only (EE only), Sexual and reproductive health only (SRH-only), Economic empowerment with sexual and reproductive health (combined) and a delayed implementation arm (Delayed comparison).

This sustainability assessment (Ex-Post Evaluation) was conducted in the areas where TESFA project was implemented for three years to improve economic (EE-only), and sexual and reproductive health (SRH-only) outcomes for ever‐married adolescent girls (10 - 19 years old). The Ex-post evaluation is conducted four years after the completion of TESFA project to assess the sustainability and auto-replication of original girls groups formed by TESFA project. Qualitative approach with purposive sampling method was employed in this sustainability study. Ever married girls groups from the former TESFA project SRH and EE arms, SAA group members (Adult male and female community members) in the SRH Arm, and different level government officials such as Kebele Officials, Health Extension Workers (HEW) and experts from different government offices were participants in the study. Detail information about the group was pulled from archived documents at field office and mapping exercise was done by identifying the girl groups with the help of CARE field office and SAA members in each kebele prior to the focus groups and key-informant interviews.