Publication: Can Women’s Self-help Groups Contribute to Sustainable Development? Evidence of Capability Changes from Northern India
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Published
2020-04-15
ISSN
1945-2829
Date
2020-05-19
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This paper offers an evaluation of a supported women’s self-help program with over 1.5 million participants in one of the poorest rural regions of the world (Uttar Pradesh, India). Methodologically, it shows how indicators from the direct capability measurement literature can be adapted for program evaluation in a low-income country setting. Unique data on capabilities across a range of dimensions are then developed for some 6000 women and used to estimate a number of propensity score matching models. The substantive empirical results of these models indicate that many of the capability indicators are higher for program members, that the difference appears robust, and that there are significant benefits for those from scheduled tribes and lower castes. The discussion highlights two points. First, human development improvements offered by multi-strand programs can help to explain the paradox as to why nearly 100 million women (in India alone) have participated in self-help programs despite modest global research evidence for micro-finance impacts on nominal incomes. Second, results argue strongly for the use of capability measures over agency measures focused solely on household decision-making to assess women’s empowerment when structural causes of disempowerment, external to the household, are present and significant.
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Publication Can Women's Self-Help Groups Contribute to Sustainable Development? Evidence of Capability Changes from Northern India(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-09)This paper investigates a women's self-help group program with more than 1.5 million participants in one of the poorest rural areas of Northern India. The program has four streams of activity in micro-savings, agricultural enterprise training, health and nutrition education, and political participation. The paper considers whether there is any evidence that program membership is associated with quality of life improvement. Using new data on a variety of self-reported capability indicators from members and non-members, the paper estimates propensity score matching models and reports evidence of differences in some dimensions as well as significant benefits to those from the most disadvantaged groups—scheduled castes and tribes. The paper considers robustness and concludes that for some dimensions, there is evidence that the program has contributed to sustainable development through improvements in the quality of life.Publication Economic and Social Impacts of Self-help Groups in India(2009-03-01)Although there has been considerable recent interest in micro-credit programs, rigorous evidence on the impacts of forming self-help groups to mobilize savings and foster social empowerment at the local level is virtually non-existent, despite a large number of programs following this pattern. The authors use a large household survey to assess the economic and social impacts of the formation of self-help groups in India. They find positive impacts on empowerment and nutritional intake in program areas overall and heterogeneity of impacts between members of pre-existing and newly formed groups, as well as non-participants. Female social and economic empowerment in program areas increased irrespective of participation status, suggesting positive externalities. Nutritional benefit was more pronounced for new participants than for members of pre-existing groups. Evidence of higher consumption - but not income or asset formation - by participants suggests that at the time of the survey, the program's main economic impact had been through consumption smoothing and diversification of income sources rather than exploitation of new income sources. Evaluation of such programs in ways that allow heterogeneity of program impact can yield highly policy-relevant insights.Publication Collective Action and Community Development : Evidence from Self-Help Groups in Rural India(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-07)In response to the problems of high coordination costs among the poor, efforts are underway in many countries to organize the poor through "self-help groups" (SHGs) -- membership-based organizations that aim to promote social cohesion through a mixture of education, access to finance, and linkages to wider development programs. The authors randomly selected 32 of 80 villages in one of the poorest districts in rural India in which to establish SHGs for women. Two years of exposure to these programs increased women's participation in group savings programs as well as the non-agricultural labor force. Compared to women in control villages, treated women were also more likely to participate in household decisions and engage in civic activities. The authors find no evidence however, that participation increased income or had a disproportionate impact by women's socio-economic status. These results are important in light of the recent effort to expand official support to SHGs under the National Rural Livelihood Mission.Publication Longer-Term Economic Impacts of Self-Help Groups in India(2009-03-01)Despite the popularity and unique nature of women's self-help groups in India, evidence of their economic impacts is scant. Based on two rounds of a 2,400 household panel, the authors use double differences, propensity score matching, and pipeline comparison to assess economic impacts of longer (2.5-3 years) exposure of a program that promoted and strengthened self-help programs in Andhra Pradesh in India. The analysis finds that longer program exposure has positive impacts on consumption, nutritional intake, and asset accumulation. Investigating heterogeneity of the impacts suggests that even the poorest households were able to benefit from the program. Furthermore, overall benefits would exceed program cost by a significant margin even under conservative assumptions.Publication Self-Help Group Members as Banking Agents for Deepening Financial Inclusion(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-03)Due to the limited penetration of bank branches across rural India, access to formal financial services has been a pipe dream for millions of rural poor for decades. However, with the advent of branch-less banking channels and advancements in technology, this situation has improved considerably over the past decade. In 2013-2014, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) and German agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) jointly implemented a proof of concept entitled self help group (SHG) members as Business Correspondent (BC) Agents under the rural financial institutions programme (RFIP) and successfully demonstrated that SHG members as banking agents or customer service points (CSPs) could deliver last mile banking services to the rural community in a cost-effective and sustainable manner. It was in this context, that the Bank Sakhi (female banker friend) model - a gender focused variant of the traditional BC model, was adapted by National rural livelihood missions (NRLM) and piloted in seven states - via special funds made available under the dedicated funding line created under the National rural livelihoods project (NRLP) in 2015-2016. This pilot initiative was scaled up by several State rural livelihood missions ( SRLMs), which charted different pathways to improve formal financial access for rural women-led households, and promoted linkages with public and private and non-bank financial institutions.
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The short-term nature of the experiment reduces the extent to which the results can be generalized.Publication Reforming Village-Level Governance via Horizontal Pressure(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-01)How can patrimonial local-level governance be reformed? Debates on this topic have focused largely on the possibility of reform via pressure from above (superordinate leaders) or below (citizens). This paper tests whether horizontal pressures from civil society leaders can reform local governance in a context where neither of these mechanisms operates effectively. The study analyzes an experimental intervention in Zimbabwe intended to reduce abuse of power by village heads. Analytic leverage comes from the fact that the 270 study villages were randomly assigned to two variants of the intervention, one in which only village heads were trained on the framework governing village leadership, and one in which civil society leaders were trained alongside village heads. 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