Female dropout rates in Ethiopia's primary schools are extremely high (11% for grades one-to-four in the 2000/2001 school year), but the USAID-financed Community Schools Grants Program (CSGP) is reversing the trend. One of the CSGP partners, World Learning, Inc., initially relied on School Committees to address the problem. However, in late 1997 the teachers of the Mudula School found a new approach. They formed a Girls' Advisory Committee to monitor girls' participation at the school and to intervene where necessary. When girls dropped out of school, the Committee would take action, making home visits and trying to persuade parents of the girls to send their child back to school again. Based on the Mudula experience, the Girls' Advisory Committee (GAC) has become a feature of almost all the 720 CSGP schools in the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region (SNNPR), and was adapted to the 700 CSGP schools in Tigray region. In the 2000-2001 school year, 60% of the USAID-supported CSGP schools in the south and 80% in the Tigray region had reduced the female repetition rate below the national average of 11% in grade four.

A shining example of a Girls Advisory Committee success is Genet Abebe. Genet was a 13-year old fifth grade student at Wandara School in Damot Gale district of Wolaita Zone in southern Ethiopia when she was abducted while returning home from school one day. Genet had some spunk and tried to escape, but sadly, she was caught again. Over the next several weeks her abductors shifted her to three different locations to disorient the search party. Meanwhile her school's Girls Advisory Committee (GAC) sprang into action. It mobilized the School Committee for a search and reported the case to the District Police and the district Women's Affairs Office. GAC members talked to the girl's parents and advised female students of the school to take precautionary measures while going to and from school.

After a few weeks, Genet was able to smuggle a letter to her parents informing them of her whereabouts. Her father contacted the District Police and accompanied them when they went to retrieve her. The criminals were put in jail.

Genet was widely considered "ruined" by many people in her community, and some even suggested that she return to her abductor's family. She refused, and with the support of her family and the GAC, she applied to the school to continue her education. The School Committee recognized her strength of spirit and interest in education, and she re-entered fifth grade. She is now continuing her education without fear, thanks to the USAID-supported CGSP and its Girls Advisory Committees.

In most communities participating in the CSGP, Girls' Advisory Committees meet once a month. USAID's NGO partners provide the GAC with training and support to enable them to provide awareness education to students of different age groups. For example, seven-to-ten year old students are trained in basic hygiene and health in cooperation with the district health bureau. Older students are trained on the effects of AIDS, rape (often from abduction) and early marriage. Committees also undertake general community sensitization on the importance of education for girls and on prevention of harmful practices, including early marriage, abduction and genital cutting. Given success with the program to date in reducing girls' dropout rates, in FY 2002-2006 USAID will expand the CSGP approach to eight regions of the country.