Impact of savings groups on women’s empowerment in the peri-urban area of Gatumba in Burundi

1. * University of Burundi
**International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Ethiopia.
mpact of savings groups on women’s
empowerment in the peri-urban area
of Gatumba in Burundi
Armel Michel Ndayikeza*, Arcade Ndoricimpa*, Jean-Claude Nyamweru*,
Esther Leah Achandi**, Charles Kabwigiri*

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Context
• Women are still not empowered on a number of dimensions (eg. Household
decision-making, women do not have control over productive resources such as land
and credit (Pedro, 2011; Curtis, 2013).
• A number of cultural and social norms do not favor women: Need for increased
women’s empowerment [several positive effects (Duflo, 2012; Cunningham et al.,
2015)]
• In contrast to male earnings, female controlled finances are more likely to be
spent on household expenses, such as utilities and food, as well as on child
welfare including school tuition and medical care
• It enables them to save and manage household expenditure and to improve food
security, health care and the overall welfare of their families, thereby reducing
poverty

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Context (cont.)
• Financial inclusion is key to empowering women.
• Women, especially in rural areas do not have access to financial services from formal financial
institutions.
• Account penetration for male is double the female’s (Banque de la République du Burundi, 2017).
• Barriers to women’s financial inclusion: lower levels of education and income, lack of collateral,
legal, time and mobility constraints as well as cultural constraints and an overall lack of gender
parity.
• Coping strategy: Savings and loans associations, more suitable to addressing the needs of a mostly
poor and vulnerable population
• Women in Africa are more represented in those savings groups than men, because they are more
likely to have lower incomes, are less educated, and are more likely to operate in the informal
sector (Triki and Faye, 2013).
• Savings groups are a pathway to women’s financial inclusion (Hendricks and Chidiac, 2011): They
help women to build financial capacity, develop and scale models for financial inclusion, hence
reducing gender gaps in access and control of financial resources.

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Context (cont.)
• Introduction and spread of savings and loans groups in Burundi (Care International)
• Savings groups are organized under an umbrella of a Non-Governmental
Organization (NGO) such as CARE International, World Vision, etc. or a Church
affiliation such as Mothers’ Union with Anglican Church.
• Different parallel programs to the savings group members: literacy, financial
education, entrepreneurship, small business skills, and management of savings and
assets (Mothers’ Union).
• A wide coverage of savings and loan groups in Burundi.

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STUDY OBJECTIVE
• To examine the impact of savings groups on women’s empowerment in the peri-
urban area of Gatumba in Burundi.
• Gatumba: The area has a high incidence of poverty, and often experiences natural disasters such
as floods, as such it is one of focus areas of interventions for NGOs.

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CONTRIBUTION
• Existence of a number of studies in Africa (Ksoll et al., 2015; Bannor et al.,
2020; Beyene and Dinbabo, 2019): only few have a focus on women’s
empowerment.
• Scarcity of such studies in fragile post-conflict countries such as Burundi
• Annan et al. (2013), study on Burundi.
• This study differs from Annan et al. (2013): Annan et al. (2013) focused on
risks facing children, the focus in this study is on women’s empowerment.

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Conceptual framework

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DATA
• A baseline survey : 441 women (29% had just joined the Mothers' Union
(MU) savings groups, 33% had just joined other savings groups, and 38%
were not in any savings group and did not intend to join one).
• The endline survey: 290 women. Most of the women that we could not
reach in the endline survey were from the control group (63) and other
SGs (57), but we also lost individuals from Mothers’ Union (32).
• Attrition test bias: For almost all the variables, there is no significant
difference in the mean of observable characteristics between the 2 groups
(non-attriters and attriters).

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Methodology
• A quasi-experimental research design is used since the treatment was
not randomized
• The treated group: women in a savings groups
• The control group: women not participating in any savings group

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Model
• The base model is the following difference-in-differences (DiD) model:
𝑦 = 𝛽0 + 𝛿0𝑑2 + 𝛽1𝑑𝑇 + 𝛿1𝑑2 ∗ 𝑑𝑇 + 𝑋𝜃 + 𝜀
• where 𝑦 is a measure of women empowerment (income, freedom to purchase,
freedom to engage in business, responsibility in the community, saving, and
investment),
• 𝑑2 is a dummy variable equal to one for endline observations and 0 for baseline
observations, and
• 𝑑𝑇 is equal to unity for women in a savings group and 0 otherwise.
• The parameter of interest is 𝛿1, the difference-in-differences estimator. If it is
positive and significant, it implies that the treatment (joining a savings group) has
had a positive impact of the outcome of interest.
• 𝑋 is a vector of control variables and 𝜀 is an error term.
• 3 Treated groups

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Results: Any Savings Group

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Results: Mothers’ Union’s SGs

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Results: Other SGs

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Conclusion
• Results indicate that after a period of one and a half years of membership
is a savings group, income and savings increase.
• The results show no significant effect on more direct measures of
empowerment, i.e. freedom to purchase, freedom to engage in business
and responsibility in the community, as well as investment.
• In addition, the results shows no significant difference in terms of
outcomes between Mothers’ Union savings groups which provide literacy
and entrepreneurship training to its members and other groups.
• It is plausible that it takes more time for saving groups to have an impact
on investment, and the indicators of women’s empowerment.

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Conclusion (Cont.)
• Policy makers should encourage the population, in particular women, to
join savings groups.
• Further research: Investigate whether savings groups have a more
significant effect on women’s empowerment when men are involved in
the groups’ activities ( “couple approach”)

16. THANK YOU