Community groups are a cornerstone of CARE's approach to development, and we use many permutations to get to the outcomes we seek. Women-only VLSAs, men’s care groups for children, mixed producer groups, groups for community leaders: you name it, and we’ve tried it somewhere. Recently, we took a look at our data on community groups across 3 multi-country projects and their data sets, to see what was most effective for empowerment and for other development outcomes.
The answer might surprise you: involve men, but put women in charge.
Groups that had roughly equal numbers of men and women participating, but women leaders were most successful. The next most successful was balanced participants and balanced leaders. Groups without women leaders were least successful.
Looking at the Sustainable Dairy Value Chain, Pathways, and Link Up projects funded by the Gates Foundation, we examined hundreds of groups to see what we could learn.
What have collectives accomplished for women’s economic empowerment?
- 175% better income: Women in these programs get a 9.8% increase in income, compared to a 5.6% increase in income in communities without them. Women in predominantly female groups see a 28% higher income than women in groups with few women.
- Doubled women’s control over income: women in collectives (of any composition) are nearly twice as likely to have control of their income as women without access to collectives.
- Improve equity in household labor: Women in collectives with gender balance get an additional 4 hours of help with work at home than women in the status quo. Women in female-dominated groups get an additional 2 hours of support from others.
- Created equity in access to resources: Women in gender balanced groups have access to 100% of the resources that men can access.
- Improve production by 10-12%: Women in collectives produce 90-92% of the amount men produce, compared to 80% in the status quo.
What have we learned?
- Put women in charge: In general, the groups that are most successful at meeting both women’s empowerment and development goals are mixed gender groups with women leaders. In some instances, having men and women lead gives better outcomes, but the groups with male leaders consistently score the lowest on both development and empowerment outcomes.
- Include Men: Women’s-only groups are generally less successful than those that have a balanced gender mix, especially for development outcomes like improving income.
- Acknowledge tradeoffs and pick your goals: Different group compositions get us to different results. Women in mixed gender groups with mixed gender leaders will get 4 extra hours of help from their families a day for household chores, but they are also more likely to accept gender-based violence. Mostly male groups have the highest success at production.
- Focus on women getting equal benefits: Even in groups that are the most successful for women and women’s empowerment, men still get higher benefits than women do. The difference is not huge, but it is still there, and something we need to overcome.
Want to learn more?
Look at the full report.