Women Economic Empowerment Intervention: Economic, Health and Women Empowerment Outcomes

The main female member of the selected ultra-poor household (referred to as the beneficiary) received a wide range of services and support. The components of the support package are as follows:

(i) Enterprise Development Training
(ii) Conditional loan
(iii) Supporting assets
(iv) Coaching
(v) Consumption Allowance
(vi) Health and Social Support
(vii) Savings Advice
(vii) Community Resource Mobilization

The main female member of the selected ultra-poor household (referred to as the beneficiary) received the support package. The components of the support package are as follows:

Enterprise Development Training

Each beneficiary receives training from BRAC on the productive asset, they select. This training aims to help beneficiaries learn how to maintain and care for their asset purchased through loans. The programme beneficiaries can select either of the following assets: livestock rearing, poultry rearing, or agriculture. The speciality on which the beneficiary will be trained is done in consultation with BRAC staff since the geographical setup and surroundings of participant households, their prior experience in managing an enterprise, as well as the physical capability of the women, need to be taken into account. Once training selection is finalized, participants receive a three-day long classroom training. Later in the program cycle, they receive another seven days of refresher training.

Conditional loan
Upon completion of the enterprise training, beneficiaries receive a conditional loan of a maximum of BDT 15,000, which is about 86\% of the annual per capita income of selected ultra-poor households, for purchasing productive assets.\footnote{The interest charged (20\% declining method and the flat rate is 8\% if all instalments are paid on time) on UPG loans is lower than the traditional microfinance interest rate (27\% declining method and the flat rate is 12\%).} The loan is typically disbursed within 21 days of training. Beneficiaries are allowed a two-month grace period for repaying the loan, and the loan must be entirely repaid within one year or 11.5 instalments. After successfully repaying the loan, beneficiaries are encouraged to take regular loans from BRAC’s Microfinance programme.
Free supporting assets or Input}

Each beneficiary received additional assets for free to support their enterprise with a maximum value of BDT 1000.\footnote{For small enterprises (i.e., land cultivation), the ceiling for input was BDT 2150.} These additional assets are referred to as input.\footnote{If someone received a cow, she got poultry, medicine for the cow and tree seedlings as inputs.}

Coaching

The beneficiaries also receive bi-weekly coaching through one-to-one home visits and group visits. \footnote{The participants received 12 home visits and 12 group visits.} These visits cover asset monitoring, checking household well-being, training on financial management and asset diversification, and discussion on social issues (e.g., child marriage, dowry, human trafficking). The module on dowry and domestic violence includes advice on the consequences of these issues and potential strategies to tackle them. It also includes a reminder of the legal ramifications of these practices.\footnote{1-5 years jail sentence and/or 50,000 BDT fine as per Bangladeshi law for Dowry. 6-month jail sentence and 10,000 BDT fine for domestic abuse, with more stringency for repeated offenders.}

Consumption Allowance

Each beneficiary receives a consumption allowance of BDT 210 (in cash) per week to support their daily expenses during the program cycle.\footnote{The allowance amount is 15\% of baseline income of our sampled households. The duration of the allowance varies across asset categories—24 weeks for small enterprises; 36 weeks for livestock, and 52 weeks for agriculture/nursery. The amount of allowance (Tk. 30 per day) is calculated as follows. Ultra-poor households target by the credit-based model generally consist of 4 members (as per the baseline survey of this study) According to Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) 2016 (BBS 2019), per capita per day rice consumption in rural areas is about 433 gram. Hence, each ultra-poor household requires about 1700 gram of rice per day. BRAC decided to help them purchase around 1 kg of rice per day through the allowance. The price of this amount of rice is Tk. 27. Hence, BRAC provided consumption allowance of Tk. 30 per day.}

Health and Social Support

For severe morbidity, the programme beneficiaries and their household members receive financial assistance. In the case of mild illnesses, beneficiaries are referred to nearby health centers for treatment. Moreover, the programme staff check on potential social issues (e.g., school drop-outs, intra-household conflicts, etc.) and if any issue is identified, they refer the household to the relevant department/programme of Government or NGO for support.

Savings Advice

Each beneficiary is encouraged to save with the program according to their ability. The maximum ceiling of savings is BDT 150/month or BDT 30/week with a 7.5\% annual interest rate. A general savings account was opened in the beneficiary's name with BRAC's Microfinance programme.

Community Resource Mobilization

Community resource is mobilized through forming a committee called the Village Social Solidarity Committee (VSSC). For community resource mobilization, BRAC forms a committee in each program village including well-connected and powerful people.\footnote{The aims of forming committees are to maintain or strengthen customary systems of social support for the poorest, while also providing some more systematic, community-level protection against the social and environmental risks faced by the ultra-poor.} This committee is responsible for helping the programme beneficiaries to solve several problems, for example, mobilising resources to repair the houses, install latrines, survive during unprecedented times (i.e., natural disasters, road accidents); and help to enrol children in school.

2016-06-30

2017-12-31

Household and women's income;
Household's physical, financial and natural assets;
Household consumption;
Reproductive health;
Fertility preference;
Morbidity;
Child health

This research builds on a RCT, conducted by BIGD in 2016. Randomization was done at the branch office. The research covers 88 branch offices (66 treatment and 22 control branches) in 11 districts of Bangladesh. After their selection following a rigorous process, we completed a baseline survey in July 2016, covering 8,973 eligible households (1,931 control and 7,042 treatment).

The baseline survey collected detailed information from the main female member of the household on the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of the household, including household composition, labor supply of each household member, occupation, income, assets, financial market participation, expenditures, food security, health outcomes, women's mental health (anxiety), women empowerment and women and children’s anthropometric data. This survey also collected data on IPV; however, with a limited set of questions, focusing on physical abuse and abuse for dowry. Since IPV in South Asia is often related to dowry disputes (Ambrus, Field and Torero, 2010), it included specific questions to capture this. Moreover, this survey collected data on risk (i.e., choosing lotteries) and time preferences (i.e., choosing between today's and future payoffs). Thereafter, BRAC implemented the intervention described above in the treatment branches until December 2017.

An endline survey (hereafter referred to as endline1) was conducted in January 2019, a year after the completion of the programme, in which all households in the control group and a random subsample of two-thirds of the households in the treatment group were re-interviewed. This resulted in 4,212 treated and 1,739 control households, with around 10% attrition in both treatment and control groups. The endline1 used the same modules as the baseline survey. In addition, it has an extended version of the IPV module, using five established indicators covering physical and emotional abuse.

To address our research questions, we will conduct another round of survey (referred to as endline2) covering all women who were interviewed at the baseline. Therefore, assuming a 15% attrition rate, we expect to interview approximately 6,000 treatment and 1600 control women. Using a 95% confidence level and an attrition rate of 16%, a sample size of 84 from each of the 88 branch offices with an intra-cluster correlation (ICC) of 0.12 gives a minimum detectable effect size (MDE) of approx. 10% at about 80% power for our outcome of interest (i.e., food expenditure) (Rahman et al., 2021).

BRAC selected the branch offices to implement the programme. Then, we randomly selected which branches would be treatment (i.e., where the programme would be implemented) using STATA.

Branch offices (i.e., the smallest rural geographical unit covering a radius of 6-7 km in Bangladesh.)

Yes

88 branch offices

approximately 100 ultra-poor women

8,973 ultra-poor women

To address our research questions, we will conduct another round of survey (referred to as endline2) covering all women who were interviewed at the baseline. Therefore, assuming a 15% attrition rate, we expect to interview approximately 6,000 treatment and 1600 control women. Using a 95% confidence level and an attrition rate of 16%, a sample size of 84 from each of the 88 branch offices with an intra-cluster correlation (ICC) of 0.12 gives a minimum detectable effect size (MDE) of approx. 10% at about 80% power for our outcome of interest (i.e., food expenditure) (Rahman et al., 2021).