Business Games for farmers and micro-entrepreneurs in Zambia

Last registered on January 02, 2025

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Business Games for farmers and micro-entrepreneurs in Zambia
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0014863
Initial registration date
December 30, 2024

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
January 02, 2025, 7:31 AM EST

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Affiliation

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
Leibniz Institute for Economic Research (RWI)
PI Affiliation
German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA) and University of Goettingen
PI Affiliation
German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA) and University of Goettingen
PI Affiliation
University of Zambia, Department of Agricultural Economics
PI Affiliation
German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA) and University of Goettingen

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2024-09-02
End date
2025-12-31
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
While most livelihoods in developing countries depend on small businesses and smallholder agriculture, farmers and micro-entrepreneurs often lack the necessary financial management knowledge and skills to manage their businesses successfully and earn adequate incomes. We propose a rigorous impact evaluation of the Business Games, a simulation-based, three-day training program for farmers and micro-entrepreneurs, in Zambia. The Business Games aim to help farmers and micro-entrepreneurs develop their financial knowledge and skills, farm and business management practices, and ultimately their livelihoods and employment outcomes. The features of the intervention allow our study to provide evidence on the effects of a skills training intervention (i) in Southern Africa, a region where newer evidence is lacking, (ii) a skills training intervention that is low-cost and innovative, an area where further evidence is needed, and (iii) an intervention based on the psychologically well-founded experiential learning approach, which has not yet been evaluated rigorously.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Beber, Bernd et al. 2025. "Business Games for farmers and micro-entrepreneurs in Zambia." AEA RCT Registry. January 02. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.14863-1.0
Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
The Business Games (BG) are simulation-based learning formats focusing on business and financial knowledge that were developed by the German Sparkassenstiftung for International Cooperation (DSIK) and are implemented with different target groups around the world. DSIK generally works with local implementing organizations and uses a train-the-trainer approach to qualify trainers for their task. This rigorous impact evaluation analyses the effects of the Farmer Business Game (FBG) and the Micro Business Game (MBG) in Zambia, where they are implemented in cooperation with local non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The interventions that are part of this study will be implemented in four provinces of Zambia (Northwestern, Copperbelt, Eastern, Muchinga) by five NGOs.
Both the MBG and the FBG have a duration of three days and consist of so-called Know-How Sessions, where participants learn key management and financial education concepts, and multiple simulation rounds. During the simulation rounds, the participants work in teams to manage a (farm or non-farm) business and compete with the other teams. At the end of each round, the participants receive feedback and discuss the outcome of the round based on their management decisions, such as opting for a certain crop, investing in business assets, or deciding to purchase or forego insurance.
Intervention Start Date
2024-09-02
Intervention End Date
2024-10-23

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Knowledge acquisition; access to finance and financial behavior; business and farm management practices; economic well-being and employment
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
We will construct indices for groups of related outcomes to reduce the number of hypothesis tests.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Intervention(s): The Business Games (BG) are simulation-based learning formats focusing on business and financial knowledge that were developed by the German Sparkassenstiftung for International Cooperation (DSIK) and are implemented with different target groups around the world. DSIK generally works with local implementing organizations and uses a train-the-trainer approach to qualify trainers for their task. This rigorous impact evaluation analyses the effects of the Farmer Business Game (FBG) and the Micro Business Game (MBG) in Zambia, where they are implemented in cooperation with local non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The interventions that are part of this study will be implemented in four provinces of Zambia (Northwestern, Copperbelt, Eastern, Muchinga) by five NGOs.
Both the MBG and the FBG have a duration of three days and consist of so-called Know-How Sessions, where participants learn key management and financial education concepts, and multiple simulation rounds. During the simulation rounds, the participants work in teams to manage a (farm or non-farm) business and compete with the other teams. At the end of each round, the participants receive feedback and discuss the outcome of the round based on their management decisions, such as opting for a certain crop, investing in business assets, or deciding to purchase or forego insurance.
Outcomes: Our evaluation considers program effects on the following outcomes: (i) knowledge acquisition; (ii) access to finance and financial behavior; (iii) business and farm management practices; (iv) economic well-being and employment.
Explanations: the objective of the BG is to help micro-entrepreneurs and farmers improve their livelihoods through responsible financial behaviors as well as improved business and farm management practices. We choose outcomes covering the entire results chain from knowledge acquisition (measured for financial literacy and knowledge of basic accounting principles etc.), over access to finance and financial behavior (for example, loan applications and access to loans, loan sustainability, bank account ownership, saving patterns, use of insurance), business and farm management (for example, separating business and household finances, planning and forecasting, sound agricultural decision-making), to economic well-being and employment (for example household income and assets, own employment status, employment of others and employment conditions).
Experimental Design: DSIK work with several NGOs as implementing partners of the BG across Zambia. This evaluation covers 35 BG and 35 control locations implemented by five NGOs in four provinces of Zambia (Northwestern, Copperbelt, Eastern, Muchinga). The NGOs collaborate with local groups, such as cooperatives or farmer groups, saving groups, women’s and youth groups etc., to recruit a maximum of 25 participants for each planned BG (for a given date and approximate location). To ensure a comparable control group, the NGOs were asked to suggest one pair of groups as potential participants for each planned BG. The groups were supposed to have similar economic conditions but be located at least 5 kilometers apart. For each pair, one group was then selected randomly for participation in 2024 (treatment), with the other group being earmarked for participation in 2025 (control). Individual participants were invited accordingly by the NGOs and their partners to participate in the BG (treatment), or an information session and an interview (control). The baseline survey was then conducted on the morning of the first training day for the treatment group. The control group were assembled on a separate day where they received a short introduction to the BG from an NGO representative, were informed that they could participate in the BG in one year’s time, and were then asked to participate in the baseline survey. A brief financial decisions questionnaire was conducted on day 3, at the end of the BG, for the treatment group, and directly after the baseline survey for the control group.
The BG are conducted by a minimum of two trainers from the respective NGO who are certified regularly by DSIK. Both the Micro Business Game (MBG) and the Farmer Business Game (FBG) have a duration of three days and consist of so-called Know-How Sessions, where participants learn key management and financial education concepts, and multiple simulation rounds. During the simulation rounds, the participants work in teams to manage a (farm or non-farm) business and compete with the other teams. At the end of each round, the participants receive feedback and discuss the outcome of the round based on their management decisions, such as opting for a certain crop, investing in business assets, or deciding to purchase or forego insurance. The contents of both games are similar to a large extent, but also contain applications that are specific to farm and business management, respectively.
To assess the effects of the treatment on immediate knowledge acquisition, we will use data from the financial decisions questionnaire conducted at the end of the BG. To assess longer-term effects on knowledge acquisition as well as treatment effects on all other outcomes, we will rely on the endline survey, which is scheduled approximately for July 2025, 10-11 months after the intervention.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Randomization done remotely by research team using STATA software.
Randomization Unit
Pairwise randomization at the group level.
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
70 groups
Sample size: planned number of observations
1540 individuals
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
35 groups treatment, 35 groups control, approx. 22 participants per group.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Minimum detectable effect size is 0.07, assuming 70 clusters with 22 participants each, default intra-cluster correlation of 0.5, power of 0.8.
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
GIGA Ethics Committee
IRB Approval Date
2024-08-27
IRB Approval Number
08/2024
IRB Name
University of Zambia Humanities and Social Sciences Research Ethics Committee
IRB Approval Date
2024-09-03
IRB Approval Number
2024 – AUG – 041; REC: 2035225
Analysis Plan

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