Women Empowerment Through Self-Help Groups: The Bittersweet Fruits of Collective Apple Cultivation in Highland Ethiopia

Abstract

This paper deals with the impact of self-help groups (SHGs) in apple production on empowering women in the Chencha district of Southern Ethiopia. Impact is traced on the basis of a cross-sectional survey among SHG members and nonmembers, using propensity score matching. Apart from the attitudinal changes among SHG and non-SHG women, we also scrutinize differences in male attitudes concerning the status of women. The results point towards positive and significant impacts of SHG participation on empowerment at the community level, which suggests that SHGs offer an effective space for women to share information and raise awareness about their rights. This could in turn be harnessed collectively to negotiate more "room to maneuver" in the community. At the same time, however, the data hint at negative effects from group participation at the household level. The attitudinal differences between treatment and control group indicate more conflictive relations between spouses, arguably due to an intensified fight to assert control over household resources. Hence, the evidence is consistent with a potential "backlash effect" from husbands.

Can Women’s Self-help Groups Contribute to Sustainable Development? Evidence of Capability Changes from Northern India

“…In our pilot work, this concern did not emerge as a significant issue -rather women tended if anything to have stories which showed how men came to support the program when they could see the potential benefits for the household that it brought. 3 Further related discussions of self-help groups can be found inAlemu et al (2018) Fafchamps and Ferrara (2012), Hasan (2017), Parida (2010),Seebohm (2013), Vinahagamoorthy (2017) andWeber (2014).…”

Self-Help Groups

“…The fourth, more recent and more disparate tradition, Economic Development features development specialists, anthropologists, and economists studying developing countries with large, very poor populations. Microfinance as a tool to alleviate poverty in developing countries has developed since the 1970s, and microcredit groups especially for women and how they contribute to empowerment are widely studied (e.g., Alemu et al 2018). The research of this tradition is sufficiently removed as to make it inappropriate to include here.…”

Exploring synergies and trade-offs among the sustainable development goals: collective action and adaptive capacity in marginal mountainous areas of India

“…Collective action can increase access to the resources needed to sustain smallholder livelihoods in the face of disturbance and change by shaping institutional processes for managing common-pool resources (e.g., water, forests, pastures, etc. ), resolving resource conflicts, reducing the cost of adaptive actions, and mediating the link between smallholders and external information and resources (Agrawal 2008;Cox 2014). Research shows how institutions can shape the social networks crucial for collective action to enhance adaptive capacity (and vice versa), enabling smallholders to work together to identify, discuss and solve problems, and be empowered to lobby for institutional change (Gupta et al 2010).…”

“…Results indicate that women engaged in SHGs expressed greater control over household finances, increasing household investment in education, housing (target 1.2) and nutrition for children (target 2.2). Collective action can also support equitable resource access (targets 1.4, 2.3 and 5a and b) by reducing the cost of physical capital for farming (Bijman 2016), and empowerment to lobby for improved water, energy and transport infrastructure (Alemu et al 2018). Results also indicate that collective action can increase income through improved irrigation for cash crops (targets 1.1, 1.3), whilst reducing risk by supporting crop diversification (target 1.2) and smoothing consumption (target 2.1) (Swain and Wallentin 2009).…”