Girls Agency Lab was established in 2023 by Dr. Aubryn Sidle and Dr. Brenda Oulo, emerging from a long-standing scholarly partnership dedicated to advancing evidence on girls’ empowerment. Our story began in East Africa, sitting with grassroots leaders and asking a simple but powerful question:
“What does success look like for girls in our communities?”

Leaders consistently identified girls’ agency as the most critical outcome. However, despite widespread recognition of its importance, there was no rigorous or standardized method to measure agency.
Addressing this gap became the foundation of our work, leading to the development of the Agentic Capacity Framework and the Adolescent Girls Agency Scale (AGAS).

Through collaboration with 17 partner organizations across East Africa, AGAS was piloted and validated with more than 11,000 adolescent girls. Since its launch, the tool has been freely accessible as an open-source resource and is currently utilized by over 50 organizations across eight countries.

With endorsement from leading academic and development institutions, AGAS has become an emerging global standard for measuring agency and informing evidence-based strategies to improve girls’ educational and life outcomes.