Impact Evaluation of Take-Up of an Insurance-Based Financial Package for Drought Risk Mitigation among Pastoral Households

Last registered on June 22, 2026
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Impact Evaluation of Take-Up of an Insurance-Based Financial Package for Drought Risk Mitigation among Pastoral Households
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0018945
Initial registration date
June 16, 2026

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
June 22, 2026, 6:55 AM EDT

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

Locations

Country
Ethiopia
Region
Country
Kenya
Region

Primary Investigator

Name
Marcos Sugastti
Affiliation
University of Edinburgh
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Karlijn Morsink
PI Affiliation
Utrecht University
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PI Name
Nathan Jensen
PI Affiliation
University of Edinburgh
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PI Name
Kelvin Shikuku
PI Affiliation
International Livestock Research Institute
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PI Name
Tagel Gebrehiwot
PI Affiliation
Globe Research Consultancy Service
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PI Name
Hyuk Harry Son
PI Affiliation
Northeastern University
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PI Name
Anouk van Veldhoven
PI Affiliation
Utrecht University
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Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2024-01-01
End date
2028-01-31
Keywords
Finance & Microfinance
Additional Keywords
Index insurance; livestock insurance; drought risk; pastoralists; field experiment; randomized encouragement; Ethiopia; Kenya
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
This study evaluates the impacts of take-up of an insurance-based financial package designed to mitigate drought risk among pastoral households in Ethiopia and Kenya. The package combines subsidized index-based livestock insurance, a mobile banking account, an enrollment bonus, and savings incentives. We use a randomized encouragement design based on two sets of community-level interventions (an information campaign and an agent-incentive scheme) that were designed to shift the probability of package take-up. Our main estimand is the local average treatment effect of take-up on six outcome categories. Productivity, investment, and resilience are pre-specified as primary outcome categories. Financial inclusion, mental health, and intra-household conflict are secondary outcomes in this analysis. We draw on household survey data collected at baseline and two midline rounds, merged with administrative records on insurance sales.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Gebrehiwot, Tagel et al. 2026. "Impact Evaluation of Take-Up of an Insurance-Based Financial Package for Drought Risk Mitigation among Pastoral Households." AEA RCT Registry. June 22. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.18945-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention Start Date
2024-03-01
Intervention End Date
2027-12-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Productivity, investment, resilience
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Financial inclusion, mental health, intra-household conflict
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
The experimental design is described in detail in previously registered trials: AEARCTR-0013843, AEARCTR-0013841, and AEARCTR-0016218.
The first encouragement treatment is an information campaign. It consists of a clustered randomized controlled trial where communities are randomly assigned to either the control arm or one of three treatment arms. In the treatment arms, participants receive one or both informational interventions through videos. Both videos have a similar component that discusses the product’s attributes and procedures. The consumer value video continues by using vignettes to describe the value of the insurance-based financial product for pastoralists with different attributes (e.g., their attitudes to risk, their worry about drought, their likelihood of experiencing losses, their savings constraint). The customer care video, after the product attributes and procedures component, describes the customer care system and uses vignettes to explain how perceptions and actual contract non-performance can be addressed through the system. The informational intervention was cross-randomized with an intervention focusing on gender targeting.
The second encouragement intervention acts on the incentive schemes for agents who offer the financial package. Communities are randomly assigned to one of four different schemes: control (basic sales incentive), additional sales incentive, renewal incentive, and knowledge incentive.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Randomization done in STATA
Randomization Unit
Community level (kebele in Ethiopia and sublocation in Kenya)
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
393 communities
Sample size: planned number of observations
3143
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
Information intervention: 166 communities control, 66 communities consumer value video, 75 communities customer care video, 86 communities both videos.
Agent-incentive intervention: 93 basic sales incentive communities; 100 basic sales incentive + additional sales incentive communities; 100 basic sales incentive + renewal incentive communities; 100 basic sales incentive + consumer knowledge incentive communities
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) Institutional Research Ethics Committee (IREC)
IRB Approval Date
2024-01-30
IRB Approval Number
ILRI-IREC2023-76
Analysis Plan

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