Abstract
ABSTRACTFinancial products and services empower women to grow businesses, survive shocks, accumulate wealth, and take more control over their finances. The BOMA Project supports ultra-poor women in northern Kenya through business and savings groups and a digital financial product. Participants substantially increased income and savings, leading to increased household decision-making power, and education and nutrition expenditure. However, BOMA also observed that illiteracy, innumeracy, and unfamiliarity with technology were barriers to full uptake of the digital product. BOMA’s experience highlights the need for simpler tools designed thoughtfully for the target population, and time for participants to learn to use them.
Highlights
Northern Kenya suffers from poverty rates as high as 70%, well above the national average of 45% (World Bank, 2018)
90% of residents rely on livestock raising as the source of both food and income, but the increased severity of droughts and decreased dependability of weather patterns in recent years have contributed to the instability of the pastoral lifestyle
Herding is traditionally a male activity, and as water scarcity takes men and their herds further from home in search of water and grazing land, men spend more time in satellite camps, away from their homes and their families. These same gender norms have created a system under which men have greater authority in household decision-making, ownership of assets, and control over financial resources
Summary
Northern Kenya suffers from poverty rates as high as 70%, well above the national average of 45% (World Bank, 2018). Research suggests that households with access to financial institutions, services, and products are better able to manage their incomes and make decisions around expenditures, and they are more likely to hold and invest savings, so that they become more resilient to economic shocks (Ruiz 2013; Schaner 2016). This has particular implications for specific groups, including pastoral and agricultural communities and women, whose characteristics compound the effects of financial exclusion. BOMA is working with the Government of Kenya to advance the adoption of a poverty graduation approach there
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