Essays om hvordan grasrot-sparegrupper fungerer

Linda Nakato fra Handelshøyskolen ved UiA disputerer for ph.d.-graden med «Essays on the performance of savings groups» mandag 30. august 2021.

Hun har fulgt doktorgradsprogrammet ved Handelshøyskolen ved UiA.

Doktorgradsarbeidet er finansiert av FAHU Foundation i Danmark.

Slik oppsummerer Linda Nakato selv avhandlingen:

Essays on the Performance of Savings Groups

In this dissertation, I have researched on how interventions, both internal and external, influence the performance savings groups.

Savings groups are informal grassroots financial associations where self-selected members pool money into a common pool and borrow from the pool at an interest. In other words, individuals form groups, consolidate their own funds from which interested members can take a loan at a pre-determined interest.

Below is a summary of the three research papers that form this dissertation:

Pro and con financial institutions

The first study looks at how the performance of these savings groups is influenced when they develop relationships with formal financial institutions in the form of opening a joint savings account or taking a loan as a group.

The results show that having a savings account with a formal financial institution significantly enhances the performance of groups, as evidenced by the increase in savings per member and the return on savings, while having a loan from a formal financial institution to a large extent, has a negative effect on the performance of savings groups.

Financial education

The second study exploits the uniqueness of savings groups to address the question of whether financial education affects the financial behavior of the group members.

The findings show that financial education is consistently associated with higher savings per member, a higher fund utilization rate, and a higher return on savings.

Thus, the findings suggest that, indeed, savings groups provide a viable channel through which financial education can be offered.

Gender

The third study delves into the composition of the group in terms of gender and how this influences the group’s profit-generating capacity.

The results suggest that male membership negatively impacts the profit-generating capacity of savings groups. Moreover, gender inequality in a country strengthens the observed relationship.

These findings highlight the need to thoroughly appraise gender-based interventions aimed at the savings groups to avoid harming some aspects of their core operational model.

Further, they also show that contextual factors should be accounted for before rolling out interventions.

Findings

Taken together the findings from this research have important policy implications for governments and development organizations interested in using savings groups to tackle multi-dimensional poverty in a cost-effective way.

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