Learning about Women’s Groups: The evidence from South Asia

Since the 1970’s, women’s groups have been a popular approach to promoting women’s economic empowerment in South Asia. One of the earliest and most well-known groups is India’s Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA). SEWA’s approach has been expanded globally through women’s trade unions and cooperatives. Women’s groups are broadly defined as groups of individual women from a community convening with a common purpose. They include self-help groups (SHGs), livelihoods groups and producer collectives as well as groups formed with social action, health, and empowerment objectives.

A review of women’s groups in South Asia shows that groups can positively affect women’s savings, civic inclusion (meaning participation in political and social life), and social capital, but are less successful in improving incomes and labor market participation, especially among programs operating at scale. A recent evaluation of a self-help group credit program in rural India shows that groups can reduce the reliance on high-interest credit from informal moneylenders, as members borrow from the group’s pooled savings.

Yet, despite their growing popularity, little is known about the implementation models of women’s groups. Where information is available, it is often incomplete. Moreover, there is no systematic review of what works, what doesn’t, and why, across the spectrum of women’s groups models. Most evaluations, for example, use broad terms such as women’s groups or SHGs, without describing the wide variation in who is a member, why the groups were organized and how they function.

To address this gap, the South Asia Gender Innovation Lab partnered with the Evidence Consortium on Women’s Groups to map implementation characteristics of women’s groups in South Asia, focusing on groups that seek to improve economic outcomes.

What types of groups exist in practice: where to look?

The team used program and operational documents to document the types of groups that operate in South Asia. In previous reviews, the team relied only on research studies, which had very limited - if any detail – on implementation. To develop the typology, the team created a coding framework that tagged characteristics, such as program design, key activities, costs, and many more. Additional details on the typology can be found here.

So, what do women’s economic groups in South Asia look like?

The team’s extensive review highlights that women’s economic groups in South Asia vary along three axes - group membership, organizing purpose, and group modality.

1. Women’s economic groups have different membership structures linked to program requirements, organizing purpose and context. Open groups are informal – anyone is free to participate – whereas more formalized groups have closed membership, meaning that meetings and key activities are restricted to group members. Groups that have a focus on livelihoods tend to be open, except for those with additional savings and credit services, which are often closed for meetings and other activities. Savings and credit groups are mostly comprised of women, while livelihoods programs included both women and men, especially outside of India.

Closed group membership was reported by 45 percent of the groups, while 31 percent were open. Additionally, 47 percent included groups with only women, while 47 percent were mixed gender. Notably, government-supported groups focused on financial inclusion were consistently all-women, while livelihoods-focused or NGO-run groups often included both women and men.

2. Most women’s economic groups are organized to cover three key themes – livelihoods; savings and credit; and poverty alleviation.

The team defined the primary organizing purpose of a group as why the group was formed – for example, to improve women’s livelihoods or access to savings and credit. Secondary objectives ranged from addressing violence against women to conservation.

Livelihood groups primarily engage group members in trainings that promote economic opportunities. The types of training provided vary by demand and program needs, and include trainings for business skills, and livelihood generation. Trainings also target specific sectors, such as fisheries, cash crops, and livestock, or groups – for example, landless farmers or young women. Livelihood groups also often provide members with investments or linkages to markets. Seventy-one percent of the groups list livelihood generation as its primary purpose and 10 percent list it as a secondary purpose – in line with our focus on economic groups.

Savings and credit groups seek to provide women access to loans and credit, for example, to cover business and emergency needs. Poverty alleviation groups provide asset or cash transfers to the ultra-poor – often as part of ‘graduation programs’ – and are generally linked with closed savings groups. The latter show promising results for improving women’s labor force participation, income, and asset ownership.

3. Programs differ in whether and how they invest in group dynamics. These investments are linked to the primary organizing purpose and the extent to which the group dynamic can help achieve economic outcomes. Building on an existing framework, we observed that groups work in three ways: First, the group serves as a logistical convenience, for example to deliver a training by convening people. Second, groups actively invest in their own cohesion, for example to build strength through collaboration for collective enterprises. Third, groups are a vehicle to organize the wider community, such as through engaging in collective action for a broader issue that affects members and their families.

The team learned a lot about the implementation of women’s groups in South Asia. Women’s groups offer both direct and indirect pathways to economic empowerment, making them an exciting tool for policy practitioners and implementers seeking to further women’s economic interests in South Asia. Understanding the group structure, dynamics, and organizing purpose is essential for interested stakeholders to design effective projects and interventions that can positively impact women’s economic outcomes.

However, program documents are not sufficient to learn about on-the-ground implementation. Applying lessons from impact evaluations and cost-effectiveness analyses of women’s economic groups requires common reporting indicators to ensure that lessons learned can guide the scale-up of impactful women’s group programs.

The South Asia Gender Innovation Lab (SAR GIL) has recently launched a podcast - Stories from the Field, that unpacks impacts of women’s groups in South Asia through beneficiary stories.

This feature story was written Thomas de Hoop, Sapna Desai, Najaf Zahra and Chinmaya Holla