Integrated Graduation Program and its Effect on Women and Household Economic Well-being: Findings from a Randomised Controlled Trial in Burkina Faso

Abstract

Throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, poverty alleviation programmes have struggled to reach the ultra-poor. To address this challenge, a growing number of agencies are adopting a ‘graduation approach’ to moving out of extreme poverty into food security and sustainable livelihoods. This study examines the effects of an integrated graduation programme (combining the economic strengthening component with the child well-being sensitisation component) on the economic well-being of women and households in the Nord region of Burkina Faso. Repeated-measures data were collected at three time points from 360 female adult caregivers in a three-arm cluster-randomised controlled trial conducted among the poorest households in the region. Results of multilevel random-intercept mixed-effectsmodels suggest significant effect of the two intervention arms on increased return from market activities and greater assets owned by the women. Results also show an increase in expenditure on children, although not at the same rate as the increases in womens’ income and profits. Findings provide strong support for the expansion of the graduation approach to help the ultra-poor in different settings. Findings also point to the importance of taking into account existing social relationships within households and suggest the added value of addressing these intra-household dynamics through appropriate programme strategies.

Acknowledgements

We are immensely grateful to everyone who participated in the conception, design and implementation of the study, particularly, Dr. Leyla Ismayilova (Principal Investigator for this study) from University of Chicago, Jo Sanson, Alexice Tô-Camier, Rachel Nanema, and Yerefolo Malle from Trickle Up, Josh Chaffin from the Women’s Refugee Commission, Traoré Marie-Renée from ADEFAD (Aide aux Enfants et aux Familles Démunies), and the members and affiliates of the Child Protection in Crisis (CPC) Learning Network, including Algassimou Diallo, Mark Canavera, Dr. Fred M. Ssewamala, and Dr. Lindsay Stark. We are very thankful for the guidance and support from the local Community Collaborative Board in Burkina Faso. We are thankful to Aubrey Blaker and Niamh Costello for their assistance with reviewing the literature. We are immensely grateful to Dr Joachim De Weerdt and Dr Els Lecoutere from the Institute of Development Policy (IOB) at the University of Antwerp for their feedback on the conceptualization of this paper and initial analyses. We are also thankful to Kayla M. Luttrell for her edits on the final version of the manuscript. Our special gratitude goes to all the children and families who agreed to participate in this study.

The study was implemented through partnership between Trickle Up, Women’s Refugee Commission (WRC), and Aide aux Enfants et aux Families Démunies (ADEFAD), and University of Chicago (PI: Dr. Leyla Ismayilova).

The study protocol was approved by the University of Chicago Internal Review Board (IRB13-1481) and the Burkina Faso Ministry of Scientific Research and Innovation Ethics Committee for Research in Health (ECRH). The study is registered with ClinicalTrial.gov (ID: NCT02415933).

Both the dataset and the data analyses codes are available upon request from the lead author.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary Materials

Supplementary Materials are available for this article which can be accessed via the online version of this journal available at https://doi.org/10.1080/00220388.2019.1677887

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. For detailed description of how each measure was constructed and calculated, please see Supplementary Materials attached to the main manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

The study was funded by the Children and Violence Evaluation Challenge Fund, a joint initiative funded by the Bernard van Leer Foundation, the Oak Foundation, the UBS Optimus Foundation, and an anonymous donor; hosted by the Network of European Foundations (NEF); and co-funded by the Child Protection Working Group (The United Nations Children’s Fund/UNICEF). Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official view of the funding sponsors. The lead author received the Visiting Scholar funding from the Institute of Development Policy (IOB) at University of Antwerp to conceptualise the paper, conduct preliminary analyses and present original results.