C'est la vie!: Mixed impacts of an edutainment television series in West Africa

Edutainment is a promising tool for changing behavior at scale, yet little is known about how to maximize impacts. We undertake an experimental evaluation of a popular West African television series, C’est la vie!, delivered through film clubs targeted at adolescent girls and young women in rural Senegal. We examine impacts on violence against women and girls and sexual and reproductive health. Results show C’est la vie! improved knowledge on both domains three months after film clubs ended, as well as violence-related attitudes nine months later, however, had no impact on behaviors. We investigate design components intended to strengthen impacts, generally finding no additional impacts from post-screening discussions, engaging men, and podcasts. Our findings suggest that edutainment is an engaging way to reach viewers on sensitive themes, however more evidence is needed on how to effectively deliver edutainment content for sustained behavior change at scale. • Using a cluster randomized control trial, we evaluate a popular West African TV series. • We examine impacts on violence against women and girls (VAWG) and sexual and reproductive health (SRH). • We find short term knowledge gains in both domains and improved medium term VAWG attitudes. • We find no impact on behaviors. • We find no additional impacts from post-screening discussions, engaging men, and podcasts.