Country: Kenya
Sector: Livelihoods, Women’s Empowerment
Background:
An international NGO aimed to assess the long-term impact of its women-led Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs) program on household resilience, asset accumulation, and gender relations three years post-intervention.
Approach:
We applied a contribution analysis method, tracing pathways between participation in VSLAs and observed outcomes.
A mixed-methods approach included household surveys with 800 past VSLA members, FGDs with women and their spouses, and key informant interviews with community leaders.
We also used recall-based income and shock-response profiling to assess resilience.
Findings:
Over 65% of participants reported increased savings and diversified income sources. Households in the program were twice as likely to report recovering quickly from financial shocks, such as illness or crop failure. Women reported improved decision-making power in the home, though tensions with spouses emerged in some cases where financial dynamics had shifted. Many groups evolved into informal cooperatives or joint businesses.
