January 2026 - BRAC Institute of Governance and Development

The Creative Club: Nurturing Future through Play and Creativity

Posted on 26 January 2026 | by BIGDAdmin | Leave a Comment

The lives of adolescents in the coastal areas of Teknaf and Ukhiya are marked by challenges. Growing up in these regions, young people often face limited opportunities, economic struggles, and social pressures that leave little space for play, creativity, or simply enjoying the freedom of being young.

Adolescence itself is a bridge between childhood and adulthood, a time when emotions, ambitions, and identities are constantly evolving. It is a time filled with curiosity and imagination, but also uncertainty and pressure. For adolescents in vulnerable or resource-limited communities, this stage of life can feel especially overwhelming.

The Creative Club of BRAC Institute of Educational Development (BRAC IED) was designed out of the belief that adolescents deserve safe, joyful, and creative spaces to navigate these years. It’s more than an after-school program; it is a safe space where young people can explore who they are, build resilience, and learn skills that prepare them for the future.

A Safe and Playful Space for Adolescents

The Creative Club provides adolescents with an inclusive, playful environment that celebrates this stage of life. Here, creativity and play are not treated as luxuries but as essential tools for growth. Through art, storytelling, music, games, and mindfulness practices, adolescents are encouraged to express themselves freely and without any judgment. This club offers a way for adolescents to process emotions, connect with peers, and build confidence. It becomes a safe ground where young people learn that their voices matter and that their ideas have value.

The Heart of the Program: Bondhu Apa

The Creative Club is built on human connection, and that connection is made possible by the Bondhu Apa. These are young women from the community, usually aged between 20 and 30, who receive special training to guide adolescents to process their hardship through the club’s activities. The role of Bondhu Apa is more than that of a facilitator. They are mentors, role models, and listeners who are there for these adolescents. In this age, when it feels nothing is working according to them, the adolescents find a person to share their thoughts with: their Bondhu Apa.

Their training includes not only facilitation skills but also short-term courses on psychosocial support. This equips them to respond empathetically to the challenges adolescents face, be it managing anxiety, navigating peer pressure, or coping with family struggles.

Adolescents often describe their Bondhu Apa as someone they can trust, someone who understands them in ways others might not. The Creative Club feels safe and empowering because of this relationship of trust.

The Pillars of the Creative Club

The Creative Club rests on three main pillars that work together to support adolescents in every way, helping them grow academically, emotionally, socially, and in their relationship with the environment.

1. Creative Expression: Unlocking Potential

The adolescent phase is full of imagination, and the Creative Club provides an outlet for this energy. Sessions include drawing, painting, crafts, storytelling, drama, and other playful explorations. These fun activities are powerful tools for self-discovery.

Through art and play, adolescents learn to articulate their emotions, build critical thinking skills, and develop leadership. The joy of creating something with their own hands instills confidence and increases their ability to shape the world around them.

2. Environmental Consciousness: Building Climate Resilience

Many adolescents in Bangladesh, particularly those in coastal areas, are forced to face the harsh realities of environmental vulnerability. The Creative Club integrates environmental learning into its curriculum. Through hands-on and engaging methods, adolescents participate in gardening, recycling, and upcycling projects. They create crafts from discarded materials, learn the value of reducing waste, and develop a stronger connection with nature. These practices do not just teach sustainability; they empower adolescents to see themselves as part of the solution. They gain resilience and a sense of agency, knowing they can contribute to their community’s adaptation to climate challenges.

3. Well-being: Learning to Feel and Heal

The most important pillar of the Creative Club is its focus on well-being. Adolescence can be a turbulent time, filled with stress, identity struggles, and emotional ups and downs. Adolescents learn to identify and regulate their emotions through mindfulness practices, group discussions, and playful healing activities. They practice empathy, develop stronger interpersonal skills, and learn the importance of self-care. The activities help them to build resilience, which leaves adolescents with not only greater emotional balance but also stronger social bonds and a hopeful outlook on life.

A Curriculum Designed for Growth

The Creative Club runs on a six-month curriculum built around five thematic areas: co-creation, creative expression, connection with nature, communication and collaboration, and continuing curiosity.

Each week, adolescents gather for interactive one-hour sessions led by their Bondhu Apa. Activities might include designing their own creative projects, experimenting with new art forms, or exploring ways to sustainably reuse materials.

The sessions culminate in a community exhibition known as a mela. At this event, adolescents showcase their creations to parents, teachers, peers, and community members. For many, this is their first public recognition, a moment of pride that affirms their abilities and contributions.

Impact That Extends Beyond the Club

The Creative Club is not just about what happens during the sessions. Its effects extend into adolescents’ homes, schools, and communities.

Improved Academic Engagement: Adolescents who participate often show improved attendance and better focus in school. The confidence and discipline gained through creative activities spill over into their academic lives.
Emotional Resilience: Adolescents become better at coping with stress and managing conflicts. They gain tools to navigate challenges more calmly and positively.
Social Connection: The club fosters friendships and strengthens bonds between adolescents from different backgrounds. This is especially important in contexts where social cohesion is fragile.
Climate Responsibility: Participants develop sustainable habits and spread these practices to their families and communities, becoming small-scale champions of environmental change.

The Creative Club has helped adolescents find hope and belonging in places often marked by instability.

Why Creative Spaces Matter

The story of the Creative Club underscores a larger truth: education goes beyond the classroom. For adolescents to truly thrive, they need environments that honour their creativity, nurture their well-being, and prepare them for the challenges of a rapidly changing world.

Adolescents in host communities often lack a dedicated space to express and showcase their creativity. Having a Creative Club provides them with a much-needed platform where their voices, ideas, and talents are valued. Such spaces allow them to explore their potential, build confidence, and connect with peers through shared interests. Beyond recreation, a Creative club fosters critical thinking, problem-solving, and collaboration; skills that are essential for their growth and future opportunities. This is why a creative space matters deeply to adolescents, giving them room not only to create but also to belong. Too often, adolescents are burdened with responsibilities beyond their years. They face societal stigma, disrupted schooling, and limited opportunities for play or self-expression. The Creative Club reclaims this lost space for them, reminding them that joy, creativity, and self-discovery are not optional extras but fundamental rights.

A Scalable and Adaptable Model

What makes the Creative Club so powerful is its adaptability. Rooted in local communities, it blends traditional crafts with modern problem-solving, environmental learning with cultural practices, and personal growth with collective responsibility.

This flexible model can be scaled to different contexts, whether urban schools, rural villages, or refugee camps. Its success lies in its participatory nature; adolescents co-create their own learning journeys, making the space truly theirs.

A Glimpse Into the Future

The vision of the Creative Club is bold yet simple: to help adolescents grow into confident, resilient, and compassionate citizens. By nurturing creativity, instilling environmental responsibility, and prioritizing well-being, the club is shaping a generation that is not only prepared for academic success but also equipped to tackle social and environmental challenges head-on.

In the words of one facilitator, “The Creative Club is not just about making art. It is about making meaning.” And in the smiles of adolescents who rediscover joy, in the hands that proudly showcase recycled crafts at the mela, in the quiet moments of mindfulness where a young person learns to breathe through anxiety—we see the essence of what this club is all about.

Conclusion

The Creative Club of BRAC IED is more than a program. It is a movement that recognises the power of play, creativity, and community in shaping young lives. It tells us that when adolescents are given the right environment, they do not just survive the challenges of adolescence; they thrive.

In every drawing, every recycled craft, every shared laugh, and every mindful pause, the Creative Club is cultivating resilience, sparking imagination, and building hope. And that is its true essence.

Tasnina Momo is a Senior Officer, Marketing and Communications of BRAC Institute of Educational Development (BRAC IED), BRAC University.

Closing the Mobile Gender Gap: What We Learned Three Years After Distributing Smartphones in Malawi

Posted on 20 January 2026 | by BIGDAdmin | Leave a Comment

As the digital technology revolution continues to race ahead, its benefits remain unevenly shared. In many low-income countries, women are significantly less likely to own smartphones and use the internet than men. [1] These inequities constrain their economic opportunities, limit access to services, and reinforce or even worsen gender inequality—itself a significant barrier to economic development. [2]

What are effective strategies to close the mobile gender gap? In a large-scale randomized study in southern Malawi, we tested the benefits of providing smartphones and digital training at no upfront cost to women from low-income households. At baseline, participants did not own a mobile phone, and household ownership was just 30%.

To assess the impact of such an approach, and whether it worked any better than simply providing participants with the equivalent value in cash, we partnered with the Institute of Public Opinion and Research and the Girls Empowerment Network of Malawi to implement the following study. Working with village development committees in the poorest regions of Blantyre, we recruited 1,500 women and randomly assigned participants to one of four groups:

Control (n = 300): No intervention.
Cash (n = 400): Participants attended individually and received an unconditional cash grant of USD 70, the equivalent value of the smartphone. Participants also received empowerment training emphasizing women’s control of valuable household assets and were encouraged to use the funds to support personal or household well-being.
Individual Smartphone (n = 400): Participants attended individually and received a smartphone with certificate of ownership, SIM card, and start-up credit. They also received the same empowerment training, plus instruction in how to use the smartphone. This session covered basic functionality (e.g., powering on/off, charging, calling, SMS); using mobile money; accessing the internet and Google Play; and downloading, signing up for, and sending a WhatsApp message.
Couples Smartphone (n = 400): Participants received the same package as those in the Individual condition, but their husbands also attended the smartphone distribution and training session and were encouraged to recognize women’s property rights over the smartphones.

Throughout this post, we refer to these treatment groups as: Control, Cash, Individual, Couples, and Smartphone groups (when we pool Individual and Couples into a single group).

We followed participants in the study for nearly three years. Here’s what we learned.

Smartphones and Training Outperform Cash in Building and Sustaining Women’s Digital Skills

We track participants’ digital capabilities over the course of the study. Women in the Smartphone conditions scored 0.46 standard deviations (SD) higher on a Digital Capabilities Index than those in Control, and 0.40 SD higher than Cash. These effect sizes point to large, meaningful differences in digital skills: smartphone recipients reported more frequently making calls and sending and receiving SMS, accessing the internet and WhatsApp, and using a phone for income generation.

The smartphone intervention also increased mobile money use. Women in the Smartphone conditions scored 0.34 standard deviations higher on a Mobile Money Index than those in Control, and 0.24 SD higher than those in Cash. The Mobile Money Index reflects not only self-reported use (e.g., having a mobile money account and frequency of use), but also actual use of mobile money in an incentivized choice task. [3]

These results suggest that smartphone access, combined with a single hands-on training, can help women from low-income households build and sustain digital skills they are unlikely to acquire on their own. The Cash group, despite experiencing significant economic uplift in the first year of the program due to the cash grants, saw little improvement in their own digital capabilities—but their husbands did, a pattern we discuss below.

Among the Smartphone Conditions, the Individual Treatment Proved Most Effective

Our pre-registered expectation was that the Couples treatment would lead to the largest gains in women’s digital capabilities. Specifically, we expected this intervention to increase male support for female mobile phone ownership and encourage intra-household digital knowledge sharing and cooperation.

However, the largest gains in women’s digital capabilities compared to Control occurred in the Individual treatment, which significantly outpaced the Couples, even as the latter also led to substantial gains.

What accounts for this difference? It does not appear to be a function of access; at midline and endline smartphone ownership and possession were remarkably similar among participants in the Individual and Couples treatments, even as both experienced substantial handset attrition. And there is some evidence that, as intended, the Couples treatment led to a positive shift in women’s mobile phone control.

Instead, this difference may reflect a learning effect. Training women on their own in the Individual condition appears to have fostered a deeper understanding and confidence in how to use the technology. In contexts where men entered the study with stronger mobile competencies and likely were seen as the primary holders of digital expertise, the Individual model may have helped to flatten these gendered hierarchies of knowledge by creating space for women to learn autonomously, experiment freely, and become digitally proficient in their own right.

How Digital Gains Were Distributed Within Households

A large body of research focuses on the digital gender gap, but few studies directly measure changes in intra-household digital capabilities. To capture these dynamics, we independently surveyed participants and their spouses at the endline, deploying common instruments measuring mobile phone access and use, digital capabilities, and mobile money uptake and fluency. These findings offer additional insights into the impact of the smartphone distributions and training compared to cash grants.

As the Individual condition boosted women’s digital capabilities, it also significantly reduced intra-household digital inequality. The Couples treatment left inequality unchanged. Whereas in the Cash group, digital gains were disproportionately captured by men, significantly increasing digital inequality compared to Control.

These findings suggest that providing cash transfers to women—even when targeted directly to them—does not necessarily lead to greater digital equality, and may in some cases reinforce or widen existing disparities. This highlights the importance of carefully designed, gender-intentional digital interventions.

Smartphone Participants’ Digital Gains Were Attenuated by Handset Attrition

Nearly three-quarters of smartphone participants no longer had their handsets 32 months after the program began. The primary source of attrition wasn’t that participants sold them, but that many devices failed due to hardware malfunction (especially battery failure), water damage, or breakage.

Handset attrition substantially reduced digital capabilities among smartphone recipients. This points to an important structural challenge: digital gains from smartphones are only as robust as the devices that enable them. Investing in handset durability and increased use of protective cases could significantly improve the long-term impact of digital inclusion programs.

[1] GSMA, The Mobile Gender Gap Report 2023.
[2] World Bank. World Development Report 2012: Gender Equality and Development. Washington, DC: World Bank.
[3] At endline, we offered participants a choice between a fixed cash payment (~$1.17 USD) or an equivalent or larger mobile money payment. One choice was then randomly selected for payout, ensuring real stakes. This allowed us to credibly measure participants’ preferences for and capabilities to use mobile money.

This research was supported by the Gates Foundation (Grand Challenges Call to Action Grant, 2020), the Women’s Economic Empowerment and Digital Finance (WEE-DiFine) Initiative (Pilot and Greenfield Grants), Open Philanthropy, and University of Texas-Austin.

Women in Bangladeshi Politics: Between Symbolism and Reality

Posted on 20 January 2026 | by BIGDAdmin | Leave a Comment

“I joined the movement from home. My mother would scold me, but never stopped me, considering the state of the country back then. However, after the uprising, she forbade me from taking part in any other political activities. She would say, ‘If something happens to you, what will happen to us? If you face harassment on the streets, how will we show our faces? Others can go, but you don’t have to.’ Rupa (pseudonym) an undergraduate student who actively participated in last year’s July uprising, now remains hesitant to engage in active politics, as family constraints and persistent fears of insecurity continue to overshadow her political aspirations.

This individual story reflects a broader structural reality: women’s direct participation in politics is fraught with barriers and hostilities, beginning within the family and extending into every layer of society. While women have historically occupied the leadership of Bangladesh’s two major political parties, this symbolic representation has not fundamentally altered women’s structural positions within political institutions. Across local government, party organizations, and the national Parliament, women remain marginalized, controlled, and subordinated.

A recent survey by the South Asian Network on Economic Modelling (SANEM) and ActionAid revealed that 82.7% [1] of youth respondents expressed no interest in participating in politics in the future. Of these respondents, 46.28% were women. The finding underscores the pervasive disengagement of young people—particularly women—from political life.

Political Culture and Gendered Insecurity

Bangladesh’s political culture is characterized by violence, vengeance, and partisan conflict. In this environment, women’s safety and dignity are consistently threatened. Political rallies, marches, and protests expose women to harassment, intimidation, and humiliation. On digital platforms, female politicians face misogynistic abuse, ridicule, and threats. [2]

Women often feel pressured to adopt harsher, more confrontational behaviours to survive in Bangladeshi politics. Leadership traits commonly associated with women, such as empathy, negotiation, and alliance-building, are undervalued. This dynamic not only discourages women from entering politics but also undermines the distinct perspectives they could bring to political leadership.

Moreover, women politicians are often identified relationally—as “someone’s wife,” “someone’s daughter,” or “someone’s associate.” When they rise on their own merits, their success is frequently met with suspicion, gossip, and character attacks. Men’s achievements are normalized, while women’s are problematized. The aftermath of the July Uprising further revealed the fragility of women’s safety and freedom, especially for women in public spaces, as reports of harassment, humiliation, and moral policing became widespread. [3]

Structural and Social Constraints

Family and societal attitudes also impose significant barriers. Findings from the first phase of an ongoing qualitative study on youth politics in Bangladesh, conducted by BIGD, revealed that girls are frequently discouraged from joining politics and forced to endure remarks such as, “politics is bad,” “it ruins character,” or “a girl risks losing respect if she is politically active.” Women’s opinions are undervalued within families, although they differ in urban and rural contexts. Yet some young women persist against these pressures; they often do so at the cost of strained familial and social relationships.

Educational institutions, meanwhile, provide little scope for nurturing women’s political consciousness or leadership. Opportunities for female student leadership remain minimal, while campus politics is frequently reduced to domination, factionalism, and violence. Such environments dissuade women from political involvement and reinforce their disengagement.

Rethinking Women’s Political Participation

Despite decades of political rhetoric on women’s empowerment, their substantive participation in politics remains elusive. Reserved seats and electoral quotas create the appearance of inclusion but rarely translate into genuine decision-making power. Political parties often nominate women in “safe constituencies,” where party popularity ensures electoral success, while their representation sharply declines at higher levels of decision-making. Opportunities for women thus remain confined within patriarchal and opportunistic structures, producing tokenistic representation. As a result, symbolic participation risks discouraging new entrants, thereby perpetuating women’s marginalization.

However, women’s participation and success in campus elections, such as DUCSU (Dhaka University Central Students’ Union) and JUCSU (Jahangirnagar University Central Students’ Union), present a contrasting picture. Unlike national politics, where women’s legitimacy is often tied to familial or dynastic connections, campus-centric student elections tend to recognize individual capability, ideological commitment, and peer leadership. Here, women engage in direct campaigning, negotiation, and coalition-building based on merit rather than inherited privilege. Their victories tend to emerge not from tokenistic inclusion but from collective recognition and activism, indicating the possibility of how an even playing field can produce genuine leadership. Yet, this promise often fades when women attempt to transition into national or party politics, where entrenched patriarchal norms and safety concerns restrict their agency.

Ensuring women’s meaningful participation, therefore, demands structural transformation beyond quotas and reserved seats. Political culture itself must change. Parties should give access and institutionalize women’s leadership across nominations, organizational hierarchies, and decision-making forums. For younger women, pathways must include leadership training, mentorship, safeguards against political violence, and education-based incentives that recognize merit and capability. Media and cultural representations also need reimagining, portraying women not as ornamental figures but as substantive decision-makers.

At the same time, dialogue with religious and community leaders is essential to frame women’s political participation as a fundamental human right. Women’s inclusion is not a supplementary matter; it is the very foundation of democratic consolidation.

Moving Forward

Bangladesh’s history demonstrates that women have consistently stood on the frontlines during national crises—armed with sticks, holding banners, or sustained by resilience alone. Yet in written histories, their names, identities, and roles remain scarce.

It is now imperative to ensure dignified and substantive participation of women in every sphere of real politics, not merely in symbolic roles or in historical accounts. Democracy rests not only on the right to vote but also on the right to representation. That representation becomes meaningful and complete only when women (half of the population) stand as equal actors in the political process.

[1] https://en.prothomalo.com/bangladesh/1tha98nw6phttps://www.thebangladeshexpress.com/big-story/17679

[2] https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/281-killed-in-political-violence-in-bangladesh-since-hasinas-fall-report-9562126
https://www.tbsnews.net/bangladesh/politics/160-killed-8000-hurt-political-violence-13-months-interim-govt-rule-report
https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/389390/4-236-killed-in-last-25-years-in-political
https://www.thedailystar.net/news/bangladesh/news/political-violence-hits-four-year-high-4010186
https://online-d11.thedailystar.net/news/bangladesh/politics/news/female-politicians-facing-rise-online-violence-aug-5-samantha-sharmin
https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/election/390839/women-candidates-face-cyberbullying-in-ducsu-polls
https://bdnews24.com/politics/b85a5833f8f9

[3] https://www.prothomalo.com/bangladesh/crime/shntplla41
https://www.jugantor.com/country-news/927965
https://www.bbc.com/bengali/articles/c9839dp2lx0o
https://www.jagonews24.com/country/news/1025126

Spotlight on Caroline Wainaina

Posted on 7 January 2026 | by BIGDAdmin | Leave a Comment

Caroline Wainaina is a mid-level-career public health scientist with an interest in non-communicable diseases and improving healthcare systems. She has combined experience in laboratory research and community engagement, with expertise in qualitative research methodologies. She is currently a PhD fellow at the University Medical Center Utrecht (UMCU), focusing on maternal mental health. She works as a Research Officer, managing maternal and child health projects at the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC) in Nairobi, Kenya. With a specific focus on maternal mental health, Caroline’s work is driven by a profound commitment to women’s empowerment and a belief in the transformative power of research. Beyond her professional pursuits, Caroline finds joy and rejuvenation in an array of hobbies and interests. An avid consumer of inspirational films, music, and motivational speeches, she also loves creative outlets like interior design and cooking, which provide an artistic balance to her analytical work.

The WEE-DiFine team interviewed Caroline to delve into her passion for research, her WEE-DiFine-supported project in Kenya, and more.

Q: What motivated you to explore the link between DFS and maternal mental well-being?

My interest in this work grew naturally from my background in maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH). It began with a longitudinal study in rural Kenya evaluating the i-PUSH health insurance subsidy program, where I was struck by how access to mobile platforms gave women greater confidence and control over decisions about their health.

That insight encouraged my team and me to explore the intersection of digital financial services (DFS), women’s empowerment, and maternal mental health. This issue is especially close to my heart. While many women relied on family members for financial support, those using platforms like M-Tiba and M-Pesa often experienced greater independence and better access to care. Again and again, financial strain emerged as a major source of maternal stress.

Motivated by these experiences, we pursued the WEE-DiFine opportunity to understand better how financial inclusion can strengthen women’s well-being in low-resource settings.

Q: What is something that surprised you in your ongoing WEE-DiFine-supported study? (e.g., interesting early results)

As my team conducted this study in rural communities, several findings really surprised and intrigued us. First, we were struck by just how widespread the adoption of DFS has become, even in these remote areas. The digital revolution, with women relying heavily on DFS platforms like Fuliza [1] to access small loans and economic opportunities, was quite profound and unexpected.

We didn’t anticipate how integral services like mobile money borrowing had become to many of these women’s financial lives and livelihoods. On one hand, this new access to credit enabled some really positive impacts – increased participation in household decision-making, the ability to invest in small businesses, joining community groups, and a noticeable boost in confidence and reduced stress levels.

However, we also witnessed potential downsides and risks. Several women found themselves trapped in cycles of debt, continually taking out new loans just to repay previous ones with high fees and interest rates. There were also challenges around digital illiteracy, with some women lacking access to their own phones or the skills to use DFS independently, rendering them reliant on spouses or relatives in ways that sometimes led to lost funds.

So while the proliferation of digital finance presented new economic opportunities, it also exposed certain vulnerabilities, especially for the most marginalized women lacking resources and technological know-how. Seeing both the empowering and disempowering dynamics play out so vividly on the ground was really eye-opening. It underscored how critical it is to pair financial inclusion efforts with education, digital literacy training, and robust consumer protection measures.

Q: What challenges did you experience during your project? How did you overcome them?

One of the primary challenges we encountered during our project was the recruitment of eligible participants. We initially targeted women with children aged 12 months and below, but we faced difficulty meeting this criterion. As a solution, we broadened our inclusion criteria to encompass women with children aged below two years. Another challenge during the participant observations was the absenteeism of respondents for an extended period of time. It became impossible to complete the observation exercise, so we had to wait until the respondent returned to the study site. There was also the challenge of heavy rainfall, which affected the field team’s access to respondents’ homes. In such cases, the team rescheduled interviews and went to homes that were more accessible as they waited for the weather to improve. Additionally, we encountered a sensitive situation when one respondent experienced the loss of her newborn. This deeply impacted both the respondent and the team member who had been observing her. In response, we rescheduled the observation exercise until the respondent was emotionally ready to continue. To support the mental health of the field interviewers, I assessed them monthly through a mental health assessment tool. The women who needed psychological support were referred to the psychosocial counselor at the local public health facility.

Q: How did your team integrate the measurement of women’s economic empowerment into your study guides? (Please explain any innovative methods for readers who may be unfamiliar!)

We used the EMERGE website to access tools that have been used to measure women’s economic empowerment (WEE). We defined the initial themes or sections of the qualitative tool using the five levels of WEE measurement outlined in the Longew framework. This included welfare (access to basic needs), access (access to economic resources and opportunities), knowledge (conscientization on gender roles, gender norms), participation (women participating in decision-making at home and in the community), and control (women have equal control over resources).

Q: In a prior post, you describe how your team uses the “deep hanging out” method. In what ways can this methodology complement quantitative measures of women’s economic empowerment?

“Deep hanging out” is an ethnographic technique where researchers fully immerse themselves in the lives of the study population through participant observation. This method offers an unfiltered glimpse into the population’s daily realities and enables researchers to capture behavior change in real-time, validating insights from survey interviews. By combining this rich qualitative data with our quantitative measures, we aimed for a holistic understanding of how DFS impacts women’s economic empowerment.

Q: How has the WEE-DiFine initiative supported you in your work? (e.g., coaching)

The WEE-DiFine team has been supportive throughout the project. They have been available to offer support on any issues that arise, for example, when we had to change timelines. The team has also supported me in guiding the finalization of the project outputs.

Q: What impact do you aim to create with your research in the next five years? (e.g., at the community level and policy level.)

Over the next five years, I aim for my research to drive tangible impacts at both the community and policy levels. At the community level, the findings from this study are already informing the integration of women’s economic empowerment and DFS components into other projects. This expanded inclusion means more communities across Kenya will benefit from the insights and learnings gained through our work.

Moreover, I envision the outputs we’ve developed – a policy brief, scientific paper, and blog – contributing substantively to broader discussions on enhancing women’s financial inclusion and addressing gender inequalities. By providing evidence-based recommendations, I hope our research will influence policies and initiatives aimed at creating an enabling environment for women’s economic empowerment through digital finance and other avenues.

Q: Is there anything else you would like to share with WEE-DiFine’s readership?

The role of men in the successful empowerment of women. It is important to consider empowerment programs for men that focus on how they can best support women’s empowerment in their communities.

The World Health Organization defines mental health as a “state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and can make a contribution to his or her community. The mental well-being of women is critical to successful empowerment and productivity and, therefore, should be included in interventions aimed at empowering women.

[1] Fuliza is an overdraft facility launched by Safaricom in 2019 that allows M-Pesa users in Kenya to complete transactions even when they don’t have enough money in their M-criterionPesa accounts, with overdraft fees applying.