This brief offers evidence on how COVID-19 has affected women’s savings groups in sub-Saharan Africa – with a specific focus on Nigeria and Uganda – including how these groups have helped to “mitigate the pandemic’s negative consequences.” In a savings group, members pool their savings, lend out these funds and share the resulting profits. In addition to providing financial services, the groups encourage women’s leadership and otherwise assist in “social and economic development at the community level.”
The findings from the study include the following:
(1) “Households with a female member in a savings group in Nigeria and Uganda have coped with the crisis better than those not in savings groups.” Households in Nigeria that have a female savings group member, for example, were more likely to have money saved and less likely to have suffered food insecurity.
(2) “Women’s savings groups have shown the potential for resilience during the pandemic.” Despite pandemic lockdowns, many savings groups continued to function by meeting virtually and adopting mobile money. They also “made and distributed personal protective equipment, built handwashing stations, and created community action plans to prevent the spread of COVID-19.”
(3) “Savings groups contributed to community response and provided women a platform for leadership.” Groups served as networks to spread awareness about the pandemic and share information on community issues that sharpened while people were confined to their homes, such as “child marriage, child labor, the importance of sustaining girls education, and violence against women and children.”
While savings groups contributed to resilience during early portions of the pandemic, they also experienced challenges such as depletion of savings and the inability of the “most marginalized women” to participate in digital meetings and money transfers.
The authors propose that governments, researchers, and other partners invest in tracking savings groups to assist in the monitoring of “key vulnerability indicators” as well as investigating how the pandemic has changed members’ livelihood options.
This is a summary of a brief by Eva Namisango, Thomas de Hoop, Chinmaya Holla, Garima Siwach, Sybil Chidiac, Shubha Jayaram, Jenna Grzeslo, Munshi Sulaiman, Emily Janoch, Grace Majara, Olayinka Adegbite, Leigh Anderson, Rebecca Walcott, Krishna Jafa, Sapna Desai, Osasuyi Dirisu, Tabhita Mulyampiti, Julia Hakspiel, and David Panetta; published by Evidence Consortium on Women’s Groups; March 2021; 23 pages; available at https://www.findevgateway.org/paper/2021/03/evidence-review-womens-groups-and-covid-19-impacts-challenges-and-policy-implications.
By Aakansha Shenoy, Research Associate
Sources and Additional Resources
Evidence Consortium on Women’s Groups homepage
https://womensgroupevidence.org/
Additional research summaries
https://www.microcapital.org/?s=wrap
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