Making groups work for women in pastoral communities through group cohesion and spousal support trainings in Ethiopia

2026-04-01

2026-05-31

The following are the main primary outcomes of interest. This is mainly because we will be collecting data approximately six months after the intervention and these are the outcomes we expect to realistically alter through our intervention.
- Members’ labor/time contribution to the MSE work and overall time use
- Decision-making power in the MSE: attending meetings; speaking at meetings
- Trust in fellow MSE members (particularized trust)
- Attitude towards working in a group/MSE
- Gender attitude and norms (measurement based on (Dhar et al. 2019))
- Soft skills
o Intrapersonal: Personal initiative; Perseverance/grit; Problem solving
o Interpersonal: Expressiveness; Interpersonal influence; Negotiation; Collaboration

Time allocation to the MSE and overall time use: one of the main outcomes of interest we aim to alter through our training interventions is time use, both members’ time allocation to the MSEs, other and income generating activities and chores. We will measure time use using the standard survey instrument used by the World Bank’s Living Standard Measurement Survey (LSMS) with slight adjustments to the pastoralist and agro-pastoralist setting, where people’s lives revolve around livestock.

Decision-making power in the MSE: another main outcome of interest is decision-making power of MSE members in general and female members in particular. We aim to capture decision-making power by members’ participation in the monthly MSE meetings, both attending the meetings and contributing ideas.
Trust in fellow MSE members (particularized trust): as in many social relationships, trust is key in group-based businesses (Schilke et al. 2021) and is one of the main outcomes we aim to alter by intervention. Increased levels of trust in the intentions, efforts and resource management activities of members and leadership committees is key to running a successful MSE. Our qualitative scoping exercise has also revealed that some MSEs struggle with trust, including in the management committee, which in turn affects both their contribution to the MSE and the morale of the management committee (feeling untrustworthy could kill morale, lower motivation and discourage taking initiative). It is with this in mind that we incorporate training topics that aim to build trust.

Attitude towards working in a group/MSE: our intervention also aims to instill a positive attitude towards working in a group in general and towards the MSEs specifically. If members understand the importance of working in groups and hold a positive attitude towards the MSEs and the opportunity it presents, members’ will likely increase their contribution to the MSEs, which in turn could lead to higher production and higher income.

Gender-role attitude/norms: the mixed-sex MSEs under the LLRP resent a good opportunity to understand how training interventions can shape gender attitudes (norms). Gender attitudes and norms are important determinants of individual’s economic outcomes. Strict social norms can lead to sub-optimal allocation of resources: for example, allocating women MSE members’ time to traditionally female tasks because of societal expectations could hinder MSEs from exploiting its individual members’ unique skills. Our scoping exercise showed, for example, while only about 1% of the MSEs’ chairpersons in mixed-sex groups are women, in majority of cases the cashier are women. These arrangements are likely in contradiction with the natural talent distribution in a given society and hence leaving MSEs in suboptimal use of their members’ talents. By highlighting the benefits of identifying members’ talents and allocating them to their best uses rather than resorting to norm-driven task assignment, we aim to alter gender-role attitudes and ultimately role assignments in the MSEs. To measure changes in gender-role attitudes, we adopt survey instruments from Dhar et al. (2019).

Soft skills: our training intervention will also cover topics that aim to improve MSE members’ intra- and inter-personal soft skills such as personal initiative, perseverance, problem solving, effective communication, collaboration and negotiation skills. In doing so, we aim to improve coordination among MSE members and enhance efficiency and productivity of MSEs. A study by Campos et al. (2017) suggests that soft skills training interventions outperform traditional hard-skill training interventions in increasing sales and profits of small businesses. We expect soft skills to be even more essential in group-owned businesses as they can improve collaboration. We will adopt survey instruments from various existing studies to measure the different dimensions of soft skills. We will then construct an index by aggregating the response to the various dimensions of soft skills.

The following are secondary outcomes of interest as the likelihood of their realization after approximately four months post intervention could be difficult although not impossible.
- Individual income (from other income generating activities than MSE) and income/dividend from the MSE.
- MSE revenue (if members start contributing more time and start working more efficiently following improvements in group cohesion, their revenues could increase even in the short run).

Individual income: we will also examine the effects of the training intervention on income from other income-generating activities and from the MSE. This is with the assumption that, if, following the training, MSE members start changing their time-use and their newly acquired soft skills, they could already start seeing change in their income relatively shortly. However, given the project timelines, we will only be able to measure any change in income approximately six months post the intervention, which could be too short of a time frame to observe meaningful changes in income.

MSE revenue: again, even though the evaluation timeline is too short, we will still examine the effects of the training on MSE revenue and capital. If, for example, the MSE members increase their contribution to the MSEs following the training, it could lead to higher revenue even in the short run.

The experimental design is as follows. The existing 360 MSEs supported by the Lowland and Resilience Project of the World Bank Group are randomly split into three: T1, where they receive the raining via tech-led modality; T2, where they receive the same training using huma-led modality; and C, where they serve as comparison groups. Furthermore, the MSEs in T1 and T2 are further randomly assigned to two groups where one group receives the spousal support training and the other remain as comparison for the spousal support. The spousal support sample is further split into two where one receives an additional edutainment component and the other remain as a comparison.

Not available

Randomization is done using stata, in office.

Randomization is done at the MSE level (cluster randomized design).

Yes

360 clusters (MSEs).

2160 MSE members

120 MSEs per treatment arm for the group cohesion and soft skills training; 60 MSEs per arm for the spousal support training. And, 30 MSEs per arm for edutainment.

SN Outcomes MDE 1. Time allocated for the MSE 0.594 hours 2. MSE members’ decision-making power 0.310 points 3. Female MSE members perceived equitable decision making within MSE 0.071 points 4. Male MSE members perceived equitable decision making within MSE 0.074 points 5. Attitude towards working in groups 0.726 points 6. MSE members’ gender attitude 0.607 points 7. MSE members’ soft skills 1.13 points 8. MSE revenue 59,000 Birr