In Sierra Leone, the empowerment and livelihoods for adolescents (ELA) initiative sought to enhance adolescent girls’ social and economic empowerment by providing life skills training, livelihood training, and credit support to start income-generating activities.
... See More + The Ebola crisis occurred during the project, resulting in curbed implementation. In contrast, younger girls (12 to 17 years old) who resided in communities that benefitted from the program in high Ebola disruption areas were more likely to be in school and saw their numeracy and literacy levels improve. However, as younger women spend less time with men in the presence of ELA, men likely shift their attention to older girls: the evaluation finds an increase in unwanted and transactional sex by older girls in areas highly exposed to the Ebola crisis. As the program was implemented, the Ebola epidemic hit Sierra Leone. First, in an effort to stem the spread of the disease, the government-imposed quarantines, limited travel, and closed public spaces such as markets in certain areas, which significantly impacted the economic activities of men and women. Second, schools were closed for an entire academic year. Finally, Sierra Leone’s limited health resources were diverted into caring for patients and preventing the spread of the epidemic, limiting their ability to attend to other issues such as sexual and reproductive health. These results show how safe spaces interventions can be effective even in the face of large-scale shocks such as Ebola crises as seen in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Uganda, as well as other shocks constraining economic and social life, by buffering girls from the adverse effects of crises.
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In the last several decades, Bangladesh witnessed a steady decline in forest cover. Largely driven by unsustainable logging, conversion of forest areas into settlements, pastures, croplands, wastelands, or land used for recreational or industrial purposes.
... See More + The forest cover has been declining by 2.1 percent annually in the last three decades alone. At present, only 13.20 percent of land in Bangladesh has tree cover with density of thirty percent and above. Further, the sudden influx of over 725,000 Rohingya to Cox’s Bazar caused the loss of nearly thirteen thousand hectares of forest. The Bangladesh Forest Department (BFD) faces challenge to effectively manage the remaining natural forests and prevent degradation due to high population density and incidences of encroachment. BFD also faces institutional constraints of budget and short staff.
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The share of people living in extreme poverty fell from 36 percent in 1990 to 10 percent in 2015 but has continued to increase in many fragile and conflict-affected areas where half of the extreme poor are expected to reside by 2030.
... See More + These areas are also where the least evidence exists on how to tackle poverty. This paper investigates whether the Targeting the Ultra Poor program can lift households out of poverty in a fragile context: Afghanistan. In 80 villages in Balkh province, 1,219 of the poorest households were randomly assigned to a treatment or control group. Women in treatment households received a one-off "big-push" package, including a transfer of livestock assets, cash consumption stipend, skills training, and coaching. One year after the program ended -- two years after assets were transferred -- significant and large impacts are found across all the primary pre-specified outcomes: consumption, assets, psychological well-being, total time spent working, financial inclusion, and women's empowerment. Per capita consumption increases by 30 percent (USD 24 purchasing power parity, USD 7 nominal per month) with respect to the control group, and the share of households below the national poverty line decreases from 82 percent in the control group to 62 percent in the treatment group. Using modest assumptions about consumption impacts, the intervention has an estimated internal rate of return of 26 percent, excluding non-monetized improvements in psychological well-being, women's empowerment, and children's health and education. These findings suggest that "big-push" interventions can dramatically reduce poverty in fragile and conflict-affected regions.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS8877 JUN 10, 2019
Women's empowerment programs have gained popularity in many low-income countries as a means to improve women's economic Status, health and livelihood.
... See More + Such programs vary widely, ranging from purely economic to solely focused on changing hearts and minds. The successes and failures Of economic approaches have been reviewed based on more than 100 randomized controlled trials (Buvinic and O'Donnell, 2016). Several intervention types have been documented as well proven successes, including savings, child care, conditional cash transfers, land rights, and electrification. But others have been less successful, such as financial literacy training, business training, and micro-credit. Recently, there has been an increasing focus on integrating couples-based, psychosocial components with economic strategies for improving women's empowerment. In Burkina Faso, a family coaching program regarding child protection, gender norms, and decision making was added to an economic intervention and resulted in increased women's financial autonomy, improved marital quality and reduced emotional spousal violence (Ismayilova et.al., 2017). Similarly, in Cöte d'Ivoire, adding couples' trainings on gender inequality to a savings program resulted in a significant reduction in spousal violence (Gupta et al., 2013). In this study, the authors examine the impacts of a couples' workshop that encouraged individual and joint planning for the future and discussions Of gender balance in terms Of responsibilities and access to resources. They examine the impacts Of this workshop on gender norms, decision making, and women's economic participation in rural Uganda. In some households, this intervention was combined with an economic intervention. However, due to our cross-randomized design we are able to identify the impacts of the workshop separately from those accruing to the economic intervention. The context of our study is an area where sugarcane farming represents the majority of household income. As such, economic empowerment is closely linked with the extent and nature of one's participation in sugar production and marketing. This is common in agrarian economies, where increasing women's participation in high-value agriculture is often seen as a promising pathway to economic empowerment. However, participation in production may not improve empowerment without increases in decision-making and control over income. For example, in Cote d'Ivoire, a couples training was found to increase the wife's salience in the action plan for cultivation of rubber. However, her control over income only improved if she was assigned to high-level management tasks (Donald and Rouanet, 2018). In addition to the outcomes of interest noted above, we examine not only the extent but also the nature Of women's involvement in this industry.
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