Gender Focused Multi-Faceted Anti-Poverty Programs: Low-Cost Options for Scale-up
Researchers: Michael King, Tara Bedi
Location: Uganda
Sample: 3,024 households in 252 villages
Theme: Women’s Agency and Economic Empowerment, Cost-Effectiveness and Scale, Women and Children’s Health Outcomes
Description:
Designed as a collaboration between IPA, Village Enterprise (VE) and TIME at Trinity College, the University of Dublin, this study aims to understand the impacts and cost effectiveness of additional gender empowerment and transformative relationship training for couples layered on top of a low-cost multi-faceted anti-poverty program for the ultra-poor, or ‘Graduation’ program. The study will test whether results from a female targeted graduation program in Malawi can be replicated in a different setting, with a less intensive group-based graduation program and at a lower implementation cost. The purpose is to produce comparable estimates of cost-effectiveness to act as a guide for policymakers and development practitioners.
This proposed study builds on the planned roll-out of Village Enterprise’s cost-effective graduation model in rural Uganda. The program consists of access to a savings group, business education and financial literacy training, start-up capital, business mentorship, and market linkages. It will study the impact of gender and couples cooperation training combined with a light touch community intervention on welfare outcomes, economic opportunities for women, women’s empowerment and agency, and health outcomes.
The light touch community intervention involves community champions trained to facilitate monthly community-level open sessions for all members of the community. The gender and couples cooperation training focuses on economic cooperation, planning and budgeting, communication skills, the sharing of responsibilities, time use, goal setting, gendered roles and responsibilities, positive parenting, uneven power dynamics, control, conflict and violence. The three experimental arms are:
Control: VE model without Gender Messaging
T1: community dialogues led by USAWA Community Champions
T2: T1 with training on Economic Cooperation, Addressing Power and Conflict/Violence, led by VE case managers
The interventions will be evaluated through a clustered randomized controlled trial. The study includes 84 villages per treatment arm over three cohorts, 252 villages, and 12 households per village, giving a research sample of 3,024 households. Baseline and end-line data will be collected from the two main decision-makers in the household. Outcomes include women’s agency and economic empowerment, bargaining power, mental well-being, marital satisfaction, intimate partner violence, time use, physical health and household welfare, including consumption, income and savings.
The target population consists of extremely poor rural Ugandan families living on less than $2.15 PPP per person per day, with limited access to resources and opportunities to improve their lives. Over 80% of participants enrolled in the program are female.