Associated Investigators: Khandker Wahedur Rahman (BIGD), Jeffrey R. Bloem
Country and Implementing Partner: Bangladesh, Shakti Foundation for Disadvantaged Women
Financial inclusion can potentially increase autonomy, bargaining power, and privacy for women. Since transaction costs pose a barrier to financial access, a reduction in these costs may increase women’s access to financial products, and in turn, facilitate WEE. However, there is no existing evidence that explores the mediating role of transaction costs between DFS and WEE. This RCT will investigate whether a reduction in direct as well as indirect transaction costs positively impacts WEE. The study also will examine whether women perceive the benefits of reduced direct versus indirect transaction costs differently. Ultimately the study has the potential to inform the design of future DFS solutions to optimize transaction costs for increased financial inclusion and WEE.
Associated Investigators: Diego Ubfal (World Bank), Andrew Brudevold-Newman (World Bank)
Country and Partner: Burkina Faso, L’Occitane Group, Laboratoires M&L
The shea butter production industry in Burkina Faso offers women a unique opportunity to pursue equal economic participation. However, inefficiencies in the industry impact female producers. This RCT will explore whether digitized payment services and automated quality traceability systems improve WEE in this context. More specifically, the study will evaluate whether these interventions reduce delays in payments and leakages of funds, improve women’s privacy and safety, and incentivize women to invest in higher-value production. WEE-DiFine funding supports lab-in-the-field experiments to assess whether bargaining power plays a mediating role on these impacts. The study aims to inform the development of payment digitization and product traceability programs in Burkina Faso and beyond.
Associated Investigators: Michael R. Carter (UC Davis), Nathaniel Jensen (ILRI), Sam Owille (The BOMA Project)
Country and Partner: Kenya; The BOMA Project
Periodic droughts strike pastoralist communities in Kenya and pose a threat to household wealth, especially for vulnerable women. Ultra-poor graduation programs, in conjunction with access to digital insurance, can be a promising solution to protect women’s assets. To evaluate this theory, the research team launched a five-year RCT in 2018 to assess the integration of index-based livestock insurance (IBLI), a digitally-enabled insurance mechanism, into BOMA Project’s Rural Entrepreneur’s Access Project (REAP) in Samburu County, Kenya. WEE-DiFine funding supports insurance contracts for women and a third round of data collection. The findings of this research aim to inform solutions for actors interested in designing programs with durable impacts on women.
Associated Investigators: Jeremy Shapiro (Busara Center), Samantha Horn (Carnegie Mellon Univ.), Aditya Jagati (Busara Center), Nicholas Owsley (Busara Center)
Country and Partner: India; Dvara Money
Can DFS, by reducing the burden of mental accounting, prompt women to save more? This pilot study tests the impact of a digital mental accounting intervention on women’s savings, goal-setting behavior, and intra and inter-household bargaining power. Researchers will randomly assign a sample of women to one of two groups. Women assigned to the treatment group will receive a digital savings account within a mobile application called Spark that will allow them to categorize and label their financial information. Women assigned to the control group will receive the Spark application with a standard savings account. The evidence generated from this study is expected to inform a future large-scale field experiment with implementer Dvara Money, as well as influence the design of DFS interventions.
Associated Investigators: Nathan Fiala (Univ. of Connecticut), Annekathrin Schoofs (RWI and Univ. of Passau), Rachel Steinacher (Innovations for Poverty Action)
Country and Partner: Tanzania, Innovations for Poverty Action
Financial products that target women often fail to consider gender-specific constraints, discouraging take-up. Household dynamics pose one such poorly-understood constraint. The research team launched a randomized controlled trial (RCT) in 2019 to better understand the role of household dynamics on the take-up, usage, and effects of e-savings accounts offered to female entrepreneurs in Tanzania. WEE-DiFine funding supports semi-structured interviews to validate and elucidate the results of the midline survey, and to potentially inform next steps in the experiment design. Ultimately, the project aims to understand how women can make more independent financial choices, and whether this independence leads to improved labor market decisions and economic empowerment.
BIGD’s Women’s Economic Empowerment and Digital Finance (WEE-DiFine) Initiative focuses on generating evidence on the causal impact of digital financial services (DFS) on women’s economic empowerment (WEE). Sign up for the latest updates on the Initiative.
