Research output
Papers
Belief-based poverty traps and the effects of material and psychological development interventions
Mark Treurniet and Robert Lensink
We study how development interventions can affect economic outcomes via agency beliefs. We model an agent who is uncertain about her agency, and focus on the situation that the agent underestimates her agency. Material development interventions increase the agent’s initial wealth, but may negatively affect her beliefs about her agency, thus decreasing effort and final wealth, and potentially generating a belief-based poverty trap. Instead, psychological interventions can increase beliefs about agency, thus turning the effect on effort and final wealth. A combination of both interventions can combine the positive effects of increased initial wealth and increased agency beliefs.
Training materials
"Progress with your goals" training material
Claire Stein, Nhung Vu, Linh Dieu Nguyen, Ha Thanh, Truong Nguyen Duy, Huong Trinh Thi Thanh, Nina Hansen, Travis Lybbert, Mark Treurniet and Robert Lensink
Microfinance has emerged as a crucial tool in empowering women to engage in economic activities, with recent evidence suggesting that outcomes can be improved through tailored curriculums. In the context of a collaboration project between the University of Groningen and TYM Microfinance in Vietnam, we designed a training aimed at enhancing women's empowerment. Our training curriculum aims to empower participants to effectively save and achieve their goals, by focusing on goal-setting, self-efficacy, and communication. Two versions of the training have been developed, integrating either an independent or interdependent framing. This document contains training materials including facilitator guidelines, and the participant handbook, which provide further insights into the framings and session activities.
The stories in this manual mainly focus on three friends who live in the same community: Hawi, Bontu and Chaltu. Because they are close and can often be seen chatting together, they have earned the nickname “the three birds”. The modules share a little background of each woman’s life. Each woman will begin to grow and change a little because of the events that happen to them in this training material, and so will their families. This growth and change is the process of empowerment.
The purpose of this manual is to support rural women in Ethiopia as they work individually and collectively towards empowerment. This is done by modules that provide training for women to engage them in structured discussions about their lives and help them to build skills for enhancing their individual and collective empowerment in their day-to-day activities including in improved agricultural practices for ensuring food and nutrition security of their household.
Each Session begins with a story about women in Ethiopia and some aspect of their lives. Each story is intended to highlight a situation or problem often experienced by women in Ethiopia and provides opportunities for women to draw on their own experiences and reflect on them while learning and practicing new things, based on the domain of belief revision in psychology. At the start of each session, facilitators read and explain the stories to the group and create full mutual understanding among the group members. In total there are 8 main sessions. Each session is expected to take between 1.5 to 2 hours to complete, starting with reading the story, followed by a group discussion about the story based on questions provided, and concluding with a group exercise. It is important that the facilitator follows the steps to encourage and empower women and enable maximum participation and learning.
| Last modified: | 14 October 2024 1.52 p.m. |