The project, titled ‘Gender Focused Multi-Faceted Anti-Poverty Programs: Low-Cost Options for Scale-up’, will be led by Dr King, with Dr Tara Bedi, in partnership with Village Enterprise. The study will examine whether adding gender empowerment, household cooperation and relationship training to a low-cost Graduation programme can improve women’s agency, household decision-making and economic outcomes.
The research will build on earlier experimental evidence from Malawi and will test whether similar impacts can be achieved in a different setting and at lower implementation cost. The study will generate evidence for policymakers and development practitioners on how anti-poverty programmes can be designed to better support women’s economic empowerment, household cooperation and cost-effective scale-up.
The funding was awarded by Innovation for Poverty Action (IPA) and the Gates Foundation.