Tackling psychosocial and capital constraints to alleviate poverty
(2022) Nature — Vol. 605, n° 7909, p. 291-297 (2022)
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- Authors
Karlan, Dean 
Wright, Kelsey A.
- Abstract
- Many policies attempt to help extremely poor households build sustainable sources of income. Although economic interventions have predominated historically1,2, psychosocial support has attracted substantial interest3–5, particularly for its potential cost-effectiveness. Recent evidence has shown that multi-faceted ‘graduation’ programmes can succeed in generating sustained changes6,7. Here we show that a multi-faceted intervention can open pathways out of extreme poverty by relaxing capital and psychosocial constraints. We conducted a four-arm randomized evaluation among extremely poor female beneficiaries already enrolled in a national cash transfer government programme in Niger. The three treatment arms included group savings promotion, coaching and entrepreneurship training, and then added either a lump-sum cash grant, psychosocial interventions, or both the cash grant and psychosocial interventions. All three arms generated positive effects on economic outcomes and psychosocial well-being, but there were notable differences in the pathways and the timing of effects. Overall, the arms with psychosocial interventions were the most cost-effective, highlighting the value of including well-designed psychosocial components in government-led multi-faceted interventions for the extreme poor.
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Citations
Bossuroy, T., Goldstein, M., Karimou, B., Karlan, D., Kazianga, H., Parienté, W., Premand, P., Thomas, C. C., Udry, C., Vaillant, J., & Wright, K. A. (2022). Tackling psychosocial and capital constraints to alleviate poverty. Nature, 605(7909), 291-297. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04647-8 (Original work published 2022)