There is little evidence on how to support ultra-poor people with disabilities to adopt sustainable livelihoods. The Disability-Inclusive Graduation (DIG) program targets ultra-poor people with disabilities and/or women living in rural Uganda, and is an adaptation of an ultra-poor graduation model that has been shown to be effective in many contexts but not previously evaluated for people with disabilities. The DIG program works with project participants over a period of 18 months, during which participants receive unconditional cash transfers for 6 months, training, access to savings-and-loans groups, and a capital asset that forms the basis of their new livelihood. The program is also adapted to address specific barriers that people with disabilities face. Eligible households are clustered by geographical proximity in order to deliver the intervention, with eligibility based on household screening to identify the ultra-poor through proxy means testing. Clusters are randomly selected prior to implementation, resulting in 96 intervention and 89 control clusters, with the primary outcome of the trial being per-capita household consumption. A baseline household survey is conducted before the start of the intervention (November 2020), followed by an endline survey with participants with disabilities at the end of program implementation (July 2022), and a second endline survey for all participants (October 2023). These activities are complemented by a process evaluation using qualitative and quantitative methods to understand program implementation, mechanisms, and context.
Authors: Kipchumba, Elijah; Davey, Calum; Marks, Sarah; Mugeere, Anthony; Chen, Shanquan; Banks, Lena Morgon; Islam, Kazi Eliza; Shakespeare, Tom; Kuper, Hannah; Sulaiman, Munshi
Type: Journal Article
Publisher: Springer Nature
Year: 2024
