World Development 108 (2018) 115–130

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World Development
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/worlddev

Women’s participation in environmental decision-making:

Quasi-experimental evidence from northern Kenya
Tara Grillos
Department of Political Science, Purdue University, 100 N University St., West Lafayette, IN 47907, United States

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Greater inclusion of women is widely believed to improve environmental decision outcomes. Pastoralism
Accepted 16 March 2018 faces increased vulnerability to climate change, and pastoralist women are both disproportionately
affected by severe drought and underrepresented in formal decision-making processes. Increased partic-
ipation by women in decision-making thus promises to offer a win–win solution: greater gender equality
Keywords: as well as enhanced resilience to persistent drought. This quasi-experimental study evaluates an inter-
East Africa vention that aimed to increase drought preparedness in northern Kenyan pastoralist communities
Kenya
through the empowerment of women at the household and community levels. It uses a difference-in-
Environment
Gender
differences design combined with matching estimation to causally isolate effects of the intervention.
Women At the community level, there was an increase in women’s political awareness and participation in formal
Participation decision-making processes, but that participation did not translate into meaningful outcomes. At the
household level, however, there was a large and positive effect on actions taken to better prepare for
drought (which mostly took the form of pre-emptive livestock sales). Given the entrenched gender roles
related to livestock sales in this setting, this finding is encouraging and warrants further research.
Ó 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction solution: tasking women with alternative income-generating

Developing countries are particularly vulnerable to the impacts
of climate change (Thomas & Twyman, 2005). Kenya is among the
world’s most water-scarce nations (UNEP, 2008), and water avail-
ability is expected to decrease further in the wake of climate
change. Extreme drought has already increased in frequency
(Opiyo, Wasonga, Nyangito, Schilling, & Munang, 2015). Eighty
percent of Kenya is comprised of arid or semi-arid lands, where
drought is particularly prevalent. The 2009 drought risked the lives
of nearly 10 million Kenyans (Nzau, 2013).
While pastoralist institutions have traditionally been quite resi-
lient to environmental change, factors including global climate
change have called into question their continued viability (López-
i-Gelats, Fraser, Morton, & Rivera-Ferre, 2016). Women, in particu-
lar, are vulnerable to increasing climactic variability (Cutter, 1995),
and they are typically excluded from decision-making regarding
purchase and sale of livestock, the primary source of wealth in pas-
toralist communities (Fratkin & Smith, 1995). They do, however,
often exercise some control over secondary livestock products, like
milk (Kettel, 1992). The perceived need for income diversification
and the rigidity of traditional gender roles offers up a potential
E-mail address: tgrillos@purdue.edu
activities may provide them with more power over household
decisions while allowing men to continue their traditional roles
as pastoralists.
At the community level, there is some evidence that greater
inclusion of women in decision-making processes may lead to
more environmentally favorable outcomes (Agarwal, 2001, 2009;
Leisher et al., 2016). In Kenya, a new constitution has created
opportunities for women in politics, resulting in greater potential
for legitimizing greater inclusion of women at the community level
as well. Thus it is tempting to conclude that there is a win-win to
be had in which women’s empowerment at both the household
and community level may have beneficial spillover effects for the
entire community in the form of enhanced drought resilience.
This paper evaluates the impact of a non-governmental organi-
zation (NGO) intervention in northern Kenya, which aimed to
improve drought resilience through enhancing women’s participa-
tion in decision-making at the household and community levels.
The NGO, which I will refer to as YARI,1 had previously provided
financial grants to pastoralist women along with training to start
small businesses. With funding from a major donor on the theme
1
The actual NGO name is withheld here, by request of the organization itself. The
pseudonym YARI is derived from the Swahili word tayari, which means ready or
prepared.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2018.03.017
0305-750X/Ó 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
116 T. Grillos / World Development 108 (2018) 115–130
of governance for drought resilience, YARI aimed to strengthen its
previous work with a community level intervention geared at open-
ing up new decision making spaces for women and preparing them
to take advantage of those spaces. The intervention also included a
workshop directed at men, which aimed to persuade them of the
importance of women’s work for livelihood diversification.
2. Pastoralism, women, and vulnerability
2.1. Pastoralism and climate change vulnerability
Vulnerability can be defined as ‘‘susceptibility to harm from
exposure to stresses associated with environmental and social
change and from the absence of capacity to adapt” (Adger, 2006).
The related term, resilience, originally referred to the magnitude
of shock that a system could withstand while returning to its orig-
inal equilibrium, without having changed its structure or identity
(Gunderson & Holling, 2001; Holling, 1973; Walker, Holling,
Carpenter, & Kinzig, 2004). More recently, however, resilience
has been used in a broader sense, to allow for the inclusion of
adaptation strategies as well (Adger, 2006; Carpenter, Walker,
Anderies, & Abel, 2001; Folke, 2006; Janssen & Ostrom, 2006).
My use of the term refers to this latter, broader definition.
Pastoralist institutions were traditionally among the most resi-
lient social-ecological systems in East Africa, representing an effi-
cient and rational use of scarce resources (Fratkin, 1986; McCabe,
1990; Mwangi & Ostrom, 2009). Pastoralists have various indige-
nous methods of forecasting and mitigating short-term climate
shocks, but these may no longer be effective in the face of more
extreme climactic events (Kagunyu, Wandibba, & Wanjohi, 2016;
Opiyo, Wasonga, Nyangito, Schilling, & Munang, 2015). In northern
Kenya, long-term rainfall data confirms that extreme drought is
increasingly common with negative effects on pastoralist liveli-
hoods (Opiyo et al., 2015), suggesting that in the long-run, liveli-
hood diversification will necessarily form part of the adaptive
response (Desta & Coppock, 2004; Opiyo et al., 2015). In East Africa,
there has already been an observed shift toward livelihood diversi-
fication and increased sedentarization (Bollig, 2016; López-i-
Gelats, Fraser, Morton, & Rivera-Ferre, 2016).
Historically, policies affecting pastoral land were often based on
misconceptions that the lands were underutilized, poorly managed
or environmentally degraded (Little, 1994; Swift, 1977). Thus it is
reasonable to question the extent to which increased vulnerability
of pastoralists is due to increasing climactic variability rather than
to a legacy of poorly planned development policies (Goldman &
Riosmena, 2013; Hobbs et al., 2008; Nori, Taylor, & Sensi, 2008).
It is clear, however, that both factors play some role, and they
likely exacerbate each other (Thébaud & Batterbury, 2001). Expo-
sure to climate-related risk is a function of both physical environ-
mental hazards and socially constructed factors (Brooks, Adger, &
Kelly, 2005).
2.2. Women’s decision-making power and climate change resilience
Women are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate
change (Cutter, 1995; Denton, 2002; McKune et al., 2015; Mearns
& Norton, 2010; Terry, 2009). In the northern Kenyan context in
particular, an implication of the traditional division of labor is that
pastoralist men are highly mobile together with their livestock,
while women often remain in semi-settled communities, where
they have less adaptive capacity in response to drought. Perhaps
because they are more exposed to the risks of extreme climate,
women are also understood to be more receptive to mitigation
and adaptation strategies. Though the idea that women are more
environmentally inclined than men has long been popular, the
empirical evidence for the claim is actually somewhat mixed
(Meinzen-Dick, Kovarik, & Quisumbing, 2014). Arora-Jonsson
(2011) warns that the depiction of women as vulnerable and virtu-
ous in relation to climate change can be problematic. External inter-
ventions sometimes burden women with more responsibility,
without providing additional benefits to the women themselves
(Bradshaw, 2010; Chant, 2010). Moreover, such discourse may ‘‘de-
flect attention from inequalities in decision-making” (Arora-
Jonsson, 2011). Thus, scholars have debunked the assertion that
environmental programs will necessarily benefit women. However,
there is some reason to believe that the reverse may be true. Policies
that increase women’s decision-making power may produce
broader benefits related to climate change resilience.
In the political sphere, a series of research studies in India
demonstrate that female representatives do make different deci-
sions than men, and increasing women’s participation in
decision-making does change substantive policy outcomes, argu-
ably for the better (Chattopadhyay & Duflo, 2004; Clots-Figueras,
2011, 2012). In Uganda, female members of parliament are more
likely than men to speak about women’s interests (Clayton,
Josefsson, & Wang, 2016). Across African countries, an increase in
women’s representation in legislatures is associated with
increased political participation by female citizens more generally
(Barnes & Burchard, 2013), and in the United States, granting
women the power to vote was associated with improved outcomes
related to infant mortality (Miller, 2008). At the household level,
placing income in the hands of women, rather than men, has been
associated with increased spending on food (Duflo & Udry, 2004)
and children’s health and education (Thomas, 1990, 1993), all of
which arguably are investments which benefit the household as
a whole. However, the gender difference in stated policy prefer-
ences may disappear when women’s material position improves
relative to men (Gottlieb, Grossman, & Robinson, 2016), and even
when men and women have the same underlying preferences, they
may express them differently in public fora due to gendered expec-
tations of their behavior (Mize, 2017).
In the context of environmental management, there is also
some evidence that women’s involvement results in different deci-
sion outcomes. In India and Nepal, forest management groups with
a higher proportion of women in decision-making roles are able to
achieve a better forest condition, according to both qualitative
interviews (Agarwal, 2001) and statistical analyses (Agarwal,
2009). Furthermore, a forest group’s gender composition affects
women’s substantive participation as well (Agarwal, 2010), sug-
gesting that a gender quota that increases de jure participation
by women could also increase women’s de facto decision-making
power. Women’s participation in forest councils is also associated
with less conflict (Coleman & Mwangi, 2013).
It is worth noting, though, that sometimes the reverse relation-
ship may hold, with women’s participation correlated with worse
environmental outcomes. For example, a deteriorating environment
may motivate women to get involved, leading to short-run gender
conflict but ultimately to greater presence of women in leadership
positions (Agrawal & Chhatre, 2006, p. 161). One cross-country
study of forest user groups found that the groups that included more
women were actually less effective, though the authors attribute
this to gender biases in access to resources rather than to differences
in decision outcomes (Mwangi, Meinzen-Dick, & Sun, 2011).
In developed countries as well, a higher percentage of women in
decision-making roles is correlated with better environmental out-
comes. Survey data from British Columbia suggests that women
are more likely to engage in environmentally friendly behavior
(Tindall, Davies, & Mauboules, 2003). In the United Kingdom, a
higher percentage of women in managerial positions is associated
with higher recycling rates (Buckingham, Reeves, & Batchelor,
2005). Among developed countries in general, those with more
 T. Grillos / World Development 108 (2018) 115–130
female elected representatives have been more successful at
reducing their carbon emissions (Buckingham, 2010).
Given that women are disproportionately affected by climate
change, it stands to reason that increasing their decision-making
power may result in increased adaptation and mitigation activities.
In Southern Ethiopia, near to the border with Marsabit County, Kenya,
a program meant to enhance drought resilience among pastoralists
through income diversification and savings groups found that the
new activities quickly became dominated by women and that, during
the next major drought, participant livelihoods did exhibit greater
resilience (Coppock, Desta, Tezera, & Gebru, 2011). In the northern
Kenyan context, livestock is the primary form of wealth, and
decision-making regarding livestock in particular is seen as off-
limits to women. Thus, enhancing climate change resilience through
income diversification could also be associated with an increase in
women’s decision-making power, as alternative sources of income
may be less culturally entrenched in traditional gender roles.
Furthermore, there are seeming complementarities between
the best practices that are encouraged to meet the distinct goals
of gender equity and improved environmental decision-making.
Previous literature on both climate change resilience (Robinson &
Berkes, 2011) and women’s empowerment (Goldman & Little,
2015) in East Africa suggest that a multi-level approach is essential
to effective programs. This all begs the question: is there a win–
win approach in which interventions to empower women also
result in greater resilience to climate change?
This is far from a settled question. A recent systematic review of
the literature on women’s decision-making in natural resource man-
agement found that virtually all of the existing studies on this rela-
tionship focus specifically on the forestry sector in South Asia, and
that very few of the studies were methodologically rigorous
(Leisher et al., 2016). Most of the existing literature on this topic is
correlational in nature – it demonstrates that in places where women
participate more, environmental decision-making is improved. How-
ever, this tells us little about whether external policy efforts to
increase women’s decision-making power will have the same results,
or whether some degree of reverse causality is instead at play.
This paper contributes to our understanding of the relationship
between women’s participation and environmental decision out-
comes in several ways. First, it examines the causal effects of
women’s inclusion using a quasi-experimental impact evaluation,
rather than using observational data. Second, it expands the uni-
verse of case studies beyond the forestry sector to a lesser studied
context. Finally, understood in relation to previous literature, it
provides some initial insights into the particular contextual factors
that may mediate the anticipated effects of policies focused on
women’s inclusion.
3. Setting and intervention
I conducted this research in partnership with YARI, an NGO
working in Marsabit County, Kenya. YARI had previously supported
pastoralist women in northern Kenya with grants and training to
begin small businesses. In the wake of constitutional reform and
related donor trends, it received funding from a major donor in
2013 to begin a program dedicated to enhancing governance for
drought resilience (henceforth called ‘‘the Governance Program”).
YARI’s existing business training program for women encouraged
livelihood diversification away from sole reliance on livestock.
The new Governance Program would complement this existing
work by promoting women’s political empowerment (access to
community level decision-making spaces), which would ideally
lead to an increase in the adoption of drought preparedness activ-
ities to limit the negative consequences of drought, which dispro-
portionately affect women.
117
Prior to implementation of the Governance Program, I consulted
YARI on the design and monitoring of this new program, based in
part on focus groups that I organized in YARI beneficiary commu-
nities during late 2013. However, final decisions with respect to
both the program design and survey structure were made by
NGO staff with consideration of donor requirements, logistical con-
cerns and complementarities with their pre-existing program. An
additional component that directly targeted men was added to
the intervention based on the results of focus groups that I con-
ducted with beneficiaries of YARI’s previous work. Below I describe
the institutional background (reforms related to Kenya’s newly
implemented constitution), the geographical context (Marsabit
County), the design of the intervention itself and the survey used
for data collection.
3.1. The Kenyan constitution and implications for local governance
Kenya’s new constitution, ratified by popular vote in 2010,
mandates the use of public participation in virtually every area
of governance, as well as the creation of semi-autonomous county
governments, who are subject to those participation requirements.
It also includes several special provisions for women, such as a
mandate that no more than two-thirds of a county executive com-
mittee be of the same gender.
However, at the time of this research, constitutional mandates
were still in the process of being implemented, and provisions
regarding public participation were left largely open to interpreta-
tion by individual county governments. In Marsabit County, where
this study takes place, the existence of a large NGO and civil society
sector was able to influence this interpretation and convince the
county government to adopt a community development process
called ‘‘Community Conversations” (CC) as their formal method
of participatory planning. CC is a process developed by Concern,
an international NGO, which they have adopted as their standard
approach to development throughout the world. CC is a participa-
tory process meant to engage the entire community in making
decisions regarding its own development, and at the time of this
study, the Marsabit County government had agreed to recognize
the decision outcomes of this process as its formal method of
receiving citizen input into their budgeting process, as required
by the new constitution.
While Concern designed and advocated for the adoption of CC, it
typically engages with local NGO partners as implementing agen-
cies. Taking advantage of the formal recognition of CC on the part
of the county government, YARI agreed to act as a CC implementing
agency in Marsabit County, provided that it could combine that pro-
cess with additional components meant specifically to empower
women to take advantage of these new spaces for decision-making.
3.2. Marsabit County
As of the most recent official census (2009), Marsabit County
had a poverty rate of 83.2%, making it the fourth poorest of Kenya’s
47 counties. Access to physical infrastructure was similarly defi-
cient with only 7.5% of households in Marsabit having access to
electricity and only 35.4% with access to improved sanitation
(compared with 87.8% nationally). In terms of human capital, Mar-
sabit ranked 44th out of 47 counties on literacy and 42nd on school
attainment. Among YARI’s female beneficiaries, the vast majority
are illiterate.
Marsabit is comprised primarily of pastoralist populations with
much household income dependent on livestock and thus particu-
larly vulnerable to fluctuations in time of drought. Women in this
context are particularly vulnerable to drought and other disasters.
Traditional gender roles mean that women are often tasked with
household water collection and childcare. A further implication
118 T. Grillos / World Development 108 (2018) 115–130
of the traditional gendered division of labor is that pastoralist men
are highly mobile together with their livestock, while women often
remain in semi-settled communities, where they are less resilient
to drought.
A combination of poverty and cultural norms within these com-
munities leave women with limited decision-making power within
the household, as well as very low levels of education. While hard
data at the county level is lacking, across YARI’s beneficiaries, at
least 30% of women report having no influence whatsoever over
household decisions such as purchasing food, children’s medical
bills and school fees, and this figure is as high as 90% in some
communities.
Prior to providing guidance on the design of the Governance
Program, I organized five focus groups in each of four regions
within Marsabit County. Within each region, focus groups took
place in both the central (slightly more densely populated) com-
munity and in one of the more isolated, rural satellite communi-
ties. In each location, YARI provided a facilitator with knowledge
of the local native language to conduct one focus group with prior
participants in YARI’s business training program, and one focus
group with women who meet the eligibility requirements but
had not yet participated in the program.
Focus group participants indicated that they have little influ-
ence within the household, with their husband making most deci-
sions without consulting them. There were also frequent
references to domestic violence. These discussions also indicated
that knowledge of the new constitution and the rights and respon-
sibilities conferred to citizens is limited. While participants cited
the constitution as bringing positive change in areas such as ‘‘gen-
der equality” and ‘‘peace,” very few details were known about
what specific provisions the constitution provides to accomplish
these goals. When particulars were given, they were often based
upon misinformation. Several focus groups cited female genital
mutilation, which is not actually referenced anywhere in the con-
stitution. Awareness of specific governance structures and political
opportunities available to women was very low across all focus
groups.
Finally, within the focus groups that included beneficiaries of
YARI’s prior business training program, women identified a lack
of understanding from their spouses as a barrier to developing
their businesses. They explicitly requested that a training program
be provided to the men, to help them see the need for livelihood
diversification and for women’s role in drought preparedness.
3.3. Intervention: The Governance Program
The Governance Program involved a mix of interventions (see
Table 1) that YARI believed would, in combination, empower
women to participate in community decision-making, both in gen-
eral and with respect to drought preparedness specifically. It aimed
to do so both by creating new community level spaces for
decision-making (through the introduction of CC’s development
committees) and by increasing the resources (in this case, available
Table 1
Components of the governance program intervention.
Component of the Intervention Who was invited to participate?
Civic education workshop All community members, with a
requirement that women be included
Leadership & communication Women only
training
Introduction of new community All community members, with a
development councils requirement that women be included
Workshop on gender and Men only (husbands of prior women
drought preparedness business trainees)
knowledge and skills) of women in each community. This latter
was addressed through the provision of civic education courses
for the entire community (including information about special pro-
visions for women and women’s rights in the new constitution), as
well as leadership and communication training for women specif-
ically (which, it was hoped, would help them to take advantage of
the new decision-making spaces and make their voices heard).
Simultaneously, in response to direct requests from beneficia-
ries in the aforementioned focus groups, YARI sought to enhance
its previous business training programs for women by engaging
directly with men through a seminar meant to educate them about
the importance of the programming for women and the benefits it
could provide to the community as a whole. These seminars
focused on the usefulness of women’s businesses for resource
diversification and enhanced ability to withstand drought. In other
words, they emphasized that women’s empowerment would lead
to gains for the community as a whole.
YARI decided to include this workshop directed specifically at
men based on the explicit recommendation of participants in their
previous financial empowerment programming. Beneficiaries of
the previous business training program reported in focus group
discussions that while they had learned a lot about the importance
of livelihood diversification in their training programs, their hus-
bands still lacked this knowledge and continued to serve as an
obstacle to their business expansion. YARI hoped that this combi-
nation of activities could generate greater participation by women
in decision-making processes across multiple levels. For this rea-
son, the survey was designed to capture multiple dimensions of
empowerment at both the household and community level.
4. Research design and survey instrument
This study examines a pilot of the Governance Program
described above using a quasi-experimental approach. YARI
selected eight of its beneficiary communities (villages where the
women’s financial empowerment program had already been
offered), and assigned four to the treatment group (where the
intervention would be implemented) and four to a control group
(where only the surveys would be conducted). It is important to
note that the control communities had also been selected for even-
tual implementation of the program, but YARI delayed implemen-
tation there until after the pilot period in order to allow a direct
comparison between a treatment and control group for the pur-
pose of program evaluation.
Selection of the eight communities was not random, but rather
selected to represent the range of beneficiary communities served
by YARI. Selection also avoided the communities previously visited
for focus group discussions, so as to avoid related bias in the survey
responses. Assignment to treatment and control groups was simi-
larly conducted in a way that attempted to balance the two groups
based on size and general location within Marsabit County. First,
villages were paired according to similar size and location, and
then one village from each pair was randomly selected to receive
the treatment while the other was assigned to the control group.
One of the control villages was unfortunately dropped from the
study because logistical complications made it impossible for YARI
to access the community during the time when baseline surveys
were conducted in the other seven locations. Like the other control
villages, the program was eventually implemented there, but it
was not possible to collect data there at the time of this pilot
evaluation.
In all seven remaining locations, YARI conducted a baseline sur-
vey in May 2014 and included 264 women spread across the treat-
ment and control communities. Enumerators were instructed to
select women for the survey such that there was a balance
 T. Grillos / World Development 108 (2018) 115–130
between the number of women who had and had not participated
in previous YARI programming. Those who were not prior YARI
participants were to be selected such that they would be eligible
for YARI programs (i.e., they were of a similar poverty level). After
the implementation of the intervention, YARI conducted a follow-
up survey in January 2015, which was intended to include the
same individuals from the baseline survey.
This pilot period represents a window of only about six months.
Given the entrenched nature of traditional gender roles and the
newness of the community councils, this may be insufficient time
to witness any long-term changes in the communities that could
come about as the CC process is in place for a longer period of time.
Thus, the study may under-estimate potential impacts of the
Governance Program activities.
The word empowerment is often used but rarely clearly
defined, and as such has been criticized for becoming a meaning-
less buzzword (Balitwala, 2010; Parpart et al., 2002; Rowlands,
1998). I adopt Naila Kabeer’s framework for breaking down the
unobservable process of empowerment into measurable moments,
including ‘‘resources (pre-conditions)”, ‘‘agency” (processes of
decision-making) and ‘‘achievements (outcomes)” (1999). In this
study, I adopt these categories for use in analysis, operationalizing
Kabeer’s resources as survey questions related to knowledge and
social capital (resources), participation in decision-making pro-
cesses (agency), and actual actions taken to prepare for emergen-
cies such as severe drought (achievements).
I operationalize Kabeer’s ‘‘resources” with questions measuring
political knowledge and social capital.2 The survey included a short
political quiz, meant to gauge information gained through the civic
education component of the intervention. With respect to social cap-
ital, the survey included a series of questions regarding trust in var-
ious groups and institutions at each level of governance. Trust is an
appropriate aggregate measure of social capital, because social cap-
ital, when effectively used, results in trust among individuals
(Dasgupta, 2011; Morrone et al., 2009).
‘‘Agency” is measured through a series of questions about actual
participation in decision-making processes both within the house-
hold and in formal community level or governmental decision-
making structures. Finally, Kabeer’s ‘‘achievements” are repre-
sented by a series of questions about whether or not the respon-
dent had taken any action to ‘‘better prepare for emergency or
improve their quality of life” either in the household, in the com-
munity or through the government. (See Appendix A for full text
of survey questions used in the analyses.)
The survey aimed to account for potential spillover effects
across dimensions of empowerment and levels of decision-
making. Thus for each dimension of empowerment, the survey
tried to measure outcomes at both the household and community
level. Local enumerators, contracted directly by the NGO, adminis-
tered the survey. The enumerators were selected on the basis of
fluency in the mother tongue of the respondents and familiarity
with the survey region. Enumerators were not from the same com-
munities that they surveyed but were local to the Marsabit region.
The NGO did not conduct formal pre-testing or back translation,
but they vetted all surveys with their local staff, many of whom
come from the study region.
The pre- and post-intervention surveys asked the same ques-
tions of the same women in the treatment and control communi-
2
The survey also included questions about material and financial resources.
However, the short time horizon of this study and the lack of certainty on the part of
women in reporting income and assets raised questions about the validity of this data,
and so these questions were not included in the analysis presented in this paper.
Similarly, I excluded a question about the respondent’s age from these analyses,
because women in the region rarely have formal birth certificates and so self-
reporting of age was inconsistent and unreliable.
119
ties. However, 35 women (representing 13.4% of the initial
sample) could not be located for the follow-up survey, and these
participants were dropped from the final database used for analysis.
A balance test confirms that they do not differ from other women in
the survey with respect to the outcome variables being measured
here, but they were less likely to be prior YARI participants and
more likely to belong to certain tribes (see Appendix B). The final
database included observations on 226 women at two points in
time (before and after the intervention). This included 106 women
spread across 3 communities in the control group, and 120 women
spread across 4 communities in the treatment group.
The treatment and control groups were not perfectly balanced
prior to introduction of the program. They differed with respect
to tribe/ethnicity, as well as a few of the outcomes of interest.
Respondents in the control group were more likely at baseline to
have engaged in household level action to prepare for an emer-
gency, and they were more likely to think that local leaders pay
attention to what people like them think before deciding. Because
the treatment group began at a disadvantage to the control group
prior to the intervention, the intervention had the potential to nar-
row the gap by increasing outcomes in the treatment group.
5. Analytic methods
Given the imperfect balance prior to intervention, the
difference-in-differences approach, combined with matching, is
the appropriate analytical choice. The difference-in-differences
models do not assume that the treatment and control groups begin
at the same level, only that trends over time would be similar. The
matching estimation addresses imbalance between the two groups
by directly comparing the treatment and control observations that
are most similar to each other on observable characteristics. Con-
struction of indices related to empowerment may obscure differen-
tial effects of programmatic interventions on distinct dimensions
of empowerment (Malhotra & Schuler, 2005). For this reason, I
retained distinct, outcome variables and conducted analysis on
each one individually, rather than aggregating them to a single
indicator of, for example, household decision-making.
5.1. Difference-in-differences regressions
The difference-in-differences analysis compares only the
change in outcomes between the treatment and control group,
rather than absolute measures in the post-treatment period. Sim-
ply comparing a treatment and control group is problematic
because differences between them may predate the intervention
in question. Similarly, comparisons of the treatment group alone,
before and after the intervention, is problematic because other
changes may have occurred in the region over the same period
and could actually be driving the results.
The latter is a particular concern here, where drought prepared-
ness activities can be expected to vary seasonally with the per-
ceived likelihood of drought, and where other related political
changes (such as those driven by the implementation of the new
constitution or by YARI’s previously implemented business train-
ing programs) could be driving changes across the region over
time. The difference-in-differences methodology avoids both of
these problems by explicitly controlling for both initial differences
between the two groups and for trend effects that apply to both
groups. However, this approach assumes that any changes in out-
comes over time would have followed the same trend in the two
groups in absence of the intervention (Angrist & Pischke, 2008).
Each hypothesized category of effects (resources, agency, and
achievements) was regressed on a binary variable indicating
whether the observation was from the treatment or control group,
120 T. Grillos / World Development 108 (2018) 115–130
another binary variable indicating whether the observation was
from before or after the intervention, and an interaction term
between the two. This interaction term is the estimated effect of
the intervention because it is the combined effect of being in the
treatment group and being surveyed after the intervention
occurred (Puhani, 2012).
The equation below describes the linear version of the model
used throughout the difference-in-differences regressions. The
term Dv represents the treatment. It is a binary indicator that takes
on the value of 1 if the observation belongs to the treatment group
and takes on the value of 0 if it belongs to the control group. The
term T t represents the post-treatment period. It takes on the value
of 1 if the observation was recorded after the intervention had
already taken place (the post-treatment period), and it takes on
the value of 0 for observations recorded prior to the intervention
(the pre-treatment period). The interaction term, Dv
T t takes on
the value of 1 only for observations from the treatment group in
the post-treatment period. The coefficient d therefore represents
the actual effect of the treatment: the difference-in-differences
between the change in the treatment group and the change in
the control group before and after the intervention occurs.
Y iv t ¼ a þ bDv þ cT t þ dðDv
T t Þ þ eiv t
Because the research design hinges on comparing the same peo-
ple before and after the intervention, each regression includes only
those women for whom there were observations for the outcome
in question in both the pre- and post- intervention period. Regres-
sions make use of robust standard errors, clustered by village. No
additional control variables are included. The regressions used in
this analysis included a mix of linear, logit and ordered logit mod-
els, depending on whether the outcome in question was continu-
ous, binary or categorical.
The difference-in-differences regressions follow an intent-to-
treat analysis, meaning that the treatment group includes those
who did not in fact participate directly in the program. Intent-to-
treat is the preferred approach for three reasons. First, if very few
people select into a program then it may be inadvisable from a pol-
icy standpoint even if the few people who participated did benefit.
Second, although program effects are likely to be greatest on those
who participated directly in its activities, it is possible for the pres-
ence of the program to have spillover effects for others in the com-
munity, particularly where community level decision-making may
be affected. Finally, comparing the entire control group only to
those who participate in the program would produce biased esti-
mates, and I cannot identify the exact people in the control group
who counterfactually would have participated given the opportu-
nity. However, I can use matching techniques to identify the
women in the control group who are most similar to those in the
treatment group, based on observable characteristics.
5.2. Mahalanobis distance matching
While true randomization should eliminate the need for control
variables (Mutz, 2011), this research design was only quasi-
experimental in nature, and there was imbalance between the
treatment and control groups on at least one important covariate
(tribe). To address this, I use Mahalanobis distance matching to
compare treatment observations with their closest matches in
the control group. I first reshaped the data to wide format. In
contrast with using a panel dataset (as with the basic difference-
in-differences models described above), the new, wide version of
the dataset included only one observation for each individual
woman. This means that the sample size is smaller in the match-
ing specifications than in the basic difference-in-differences
regressions, which may result in lower statistical significance for
the same estimated effect size.
Next, I created differenced versions of each outcome variable by
subtracting each individual’s baseline response from her endline
response to that same survey question. This maintains the advan-
tage discussed above that treatment and control groups need not
be identical at the outset. Finally, I used nearest neighbor matching
(teffects nnmatch in Stata) to calculate the treatment effect for each
outcome variable. I used the Mahalanobis distance specification to
match treatment and control observations based on prior YARI par-
ticipation, tribe, literacy, and membership in existing community
groups.
While matching represents an improvement on the basic
difference-in-differences model in that it corrects for the initial
imbalance between the treatment and control groups, we should
be cautious in assuming that it will yield more accurate treatment
effect estimates. The survey being used here was designed with a
difference-in-differences estimation in mind, and thus it did not
include many control variables. I can only match on the few
observable covariates measured by the survey. Without a strong
theoretical basis for the selection of those variables, matching
introduces additional assumptions about the covariates that are
relevant to our outcomes of interest. When an experimental design
exists, even with imperfect randomization, matching is best used
in conjunction with the design, rather than in place of it, and the
intent-to-treat analysis should always be given priority (Sekhon,
2009). Thus, the matching estimates provided here are still based
on differenced outcome variables and a comparison between those
assigned to treatment and those assigned to control. I present both
the basic difference-in-differences models as well as matching esti-
mates of the differenced outcome variables for comparison.
6. Results
Complete regression models and matching estimations for each
set of outcomes are included in the appendices. In Table 2 below, I
report a summary of the results from these analyses. While some
of the analyses took the form of logit or ordered logit models (if
the outcome variable was binary or categorical, respectively), what
I report in Table 2 under the heading ‘‘Difference-in-Differences” is
the raw difference between the change in the treatment and con-
trol groups. In the case of a linear model, this would be equivalent
to the coefficient on the interaction term (Treatment x Endline). I
also report the p-value from the actual model, which indicates
whether the difference between the treatment and control group
was statistically significant. Under the heading ‘‘Mahalanobis Dis-
tance Matching”, I report the average treatment effect as estimated
by the matching procedure, as well as the associated p-value. Also
included in Table 2 are the raw differences between the pre- and
post-treatment periods for both the control and treatment groups.
This helps to clarify whether the outcome actually increased in the
treatment group, or whether it merely decreased by less than it did
in the control group (which would also result in a positive coeffi-
cient in these models).
Results indicate that the Governance Program had a positive
effect on political knowledge. Scores on the political quiz went up
in both the treatment and control groups, as might be expected since
the pre- and post- surveys used the same quiz questions. However,
the scores increased by more in the treatment group. Respondents
in the treatment group were also more likely to be able to name
female leaders in the region. These effects were statistically signifi-
cant under both analysis types, but not very large in magnitude.
With respect to social capital, average reported trust in one’s
spouse increased across the whole sample during this period, but
by more in the treatment group. This effect appears significant in
the basic difference-in-differences model but is not robust to the
matching estimation. Trust in the community leader also increased
 T. Grillos / World Development 108 (2018) 115–130 121

Table 2
Summary of results.

Estimated treatment effects Raw differences

Outcome variables Difference-in-differences Mahalanobis distance D Control D Treatment
matching
Resources ATE p-value ATE p-value
Political Knowledge
Score on political quiz 0.37*** 0.000 0.44* 0.035 0.25 0.62
Awareness of female leaders 0.19* 0.012 0.17* 0.033 0.09 0.1
Social Capital
Trust: spouse 0.10** 0.001 0.05 0.656 0.08 0.18
Trust: community leader 0.41* 0.011 0.36+ 0.073 0.65 0.24
Trust: county government 0.12 0.830 0.22 0.260 1.05 0.92
Agency
Household Decision Making
Who decides: household items 0.18 0.652 0.37** 0.007 0.13 0.05
Who decides: food purchases 0.14 0.109 0.20 0.108 0.2 0.06
Who decides: school fees 0.05 0.863 0.11 0.841 0.04 0.09
Who decides: livestock 0.01 0.469 0.02 0.856 0.03 0.03
Community Decision-Making
Attended meetings 0.37*** 0.000 0.28** 0.002 0.02 0.35
Spoke at a meeting 0.012 0.447 0.01 0.797 0.029 0.017
Level of attention leaders pay 0.24* 0.031 0.44 0.300 0.13 0.37
Achievements: Actions Taken
Household level action 0.28*** 0.000 0.34*** 0.000 0.18 0.46
Community level action 0.06 0.346 0.10 0.243 0.10 0.16
Political action 0.02 0.971 0.14 0.529 0.02 0.00
+
p < 0.1.
*
p < 0.05.
**
p < 0.01.
***
p < 0.001.

across the sample, but it increased by less in the treatment group. taken action at the household level, a follow-up question asked
Both analyses corroborate this effect. This could indicate that them to identify what that action was. The vast majority of respon-
regional trends (such as implementation of the new county gov- dents replied that the household action took the form of livestock
ernment system) had a bolstering effect on trust of leaders, but sales to diversify income.
the Governance Program had a countervailing effect, decreasing Table 3 below summarizes the results of the study. Italics indi-
trust relative to what it would have been. cates limited confidence in the results, due either to low statistical
In general, results with respect to community decision-making significance or a lack of robustness to both analysis types. The most
were mixed. Women were more likely to attend community robust findings are identified in boldface type.
decision-making meetings because of the treatment, but they were
not likely to speak at those meetings, and (at least according to the
difference-in-differences analysis) they were less likely to feel that 7. Limitations
local leaders pay attention to what they think. While there was
increased access to community level decision-making spaces in These data suffer from several limitations, which should be
terms of physical presence, women did not report that access taken into account when interpreting the results of the study.
translated into meaningful participation. The limitations fall into three general categories: (i) potential
Regarding household decision-making, there were no statisti- sources of bias, (ii) the likelihood of producing false negatives
cally significant effects under the basic difference-in-differences due to low sample size and short time horizon, and (iii) limited
models. According to the matching estimation, one category (out external validity beyond the unique setting of northern Kenya’s
of six) household decisions appears to have been affected. When pastoralist communities.
tribe and prior participation in NGO programming and community
activities are held constant, women seem to have more influence
over the purchasing of household items after participating in the
program. Table 3
Summary of treatment effects.
Finally, with respect to actual actions taken to improve quality
of life and better prepare for emergencies such as drought, women Aspects of Household Level Community Level
in both the treatment and control groups were more likely in the empowerment (Kabeer,
1999)
post-intervention period to report that they had engaged in such
actions at the household level. This likely reflects an important Resources Increased political Decreased trust in
knowledge (+) leader ()
time trend across the whole region as seasonal drought becomes
Increased trust in spouse (+)
more likely. However, this shift was much larger within the treat- Agency Increased influence over Increased meeting
ment group. Under both sets of analyses, this result was statisti- household purchases (+) attendance (+)
cally significant at an alpha level of 0.001. Decreased perceived
There was no such effect with respect to collective action taken influence ()
Achievements Increased household No significant effect
at the community level nor with respect to action taken through
action (+)
formal political structures. When women reported that they had
122 T. Grillos / World Development 108 (2018) 115–130
7.1. Potential sources of bias
Attrition of survey respondents poses one potential source of
bias. Though attrition was not particularly high in this study
(13%), this could create bias if attrition is correlated with our out-
comes of interest in some way. Attrition is evenly split across the
treatment and control groups, and those who left the survey did
not differ on any of the key outcome variables (see Appendix B).
They were, however, more likely to belong to a particular tribe
and less likely to have participated in YARI’s prior business training
programs. This could be a concern if there is reason to believe that
the effects of the program should be heterogeneous with respect to
tribe or prior YARI participation. Due to low statistical power,
heterogeneity with respect to demographic characteristics is
beyond the scope of the present study. In terms of estimating the
overall effects of the NGO program, the matching procedure helps
to alleviate some of this concern. Still, heterogeneous treatment
effects could be an interesting avenue for future research.
Social desirability bias could also pose a concern, as a respon-
dent’s desire to appear in a favorable light to the interviewer
may influence self-reported survey data. While this is a concern
with any self-reported data, it could be exacerbated here by the
fact that survey enumerators were employed by the local NGO. It
is possible that respondents try to say what they think the NGO
wants to hear. The fact that the NGO had already worked previ-
ously in all of these communities may mitigate these concerns
slightly in the sense that a desire to please the NGO would have
been present at both baseline and endline and in both treatment
and control groups. Arguably, the social desirability bias could be
expected to be stronger with respect to the community level vari-
ables (the main stated focus of the intervention) than with respect
to the household level action (where we observe the strongest
effects).
Another potential limitation of the study is that, as noted above,
the difference-in-differences analysis assumes that the treatment
and control groups would have followed a similar trend over time
in absence of the intervention. Since I do not have access to survey
data on these same communities from the period prior to the base-
line survey, I cannot provide any hard evidence to support the par-
allel trends assumption. It is possible that the treatment and
control groups were already on different paths prior to the inter-
vention. However, the paired randomization process used to assign
villages to the treatment and control groups should make this very
unlikely, because it mitigates the risk of a selection bias related to
that trend. In addition, given the short time frame and the patriar-
chal setting, one would not expect to see a major trend in the direc-
tion of women’s empowerment in any of these villages absent
some kind of intervention or highly visible event.
7.2. Likelihood of false negatives
I cannot place much confidence in the null results presented in
the study. First, the data were collected over a relatively short
time-frame. Only six months elapsed between the baseline and
endline surveys, which is likely insufficient to create large behav-
ioral changes with respect to women’s empowerment, particularly
in a highly patriarchal setting. In addition, the study uses a rela-
tively small sample size (n = 226 women across 7 villages), which
can result in low statistical power for certain outcomes, especially
if the true effect size is relatively small – which one may expect to
be the case due to the short time horizon.
In combination, these two factors (short time frame and low
statistical power) mean that the failure to detect a statistically sig-
nificant effect should not be taken as proof that none exists,
because real effects that are small in magnitude would be unde-
tected by this study. (See Appendix H for a full discussion of statis-
tical power in this study). I thus cannot make any definitive claims
about outcomes for which there was no statistically significant
effect detected, other than that, if an effect exists, it must be small
in magnitude relative to the larger effects on household level
action and meeting attendance. Thus, in the discussion section that
follows, I focus on the results for which there was high statistical
significance (and for which, by definition, there was sufficient sta-
tistical power to detect an effect).
The positive effects that I detect on household level action,
political knowledge, awareness of female leaders, and meeting
attendance are all supported by the power calculations (see
Appendix H). An evaluation of positive predictive value does cast
some doubt on the two negative effects with respect to trust in
the community leader and the level of attention that leaders pay,
but we can interpret these negative, low-powered results to mean
that there was at least no real positive effect on these community
level outcomes.
7.3. External validity
The uniqueness of this context raises concerns about the exter-
nal validity of the findings. We should not expect this intervention
to produce the same results anywhere but in similar pastoralist
contexts. However, since a particular characteristic of this context
is stark gender inequality, any positive effects observed in this con-
text are that much more encouraging and bode well for the poten-
tial success of similar programs in other highly patriarchal contexts
where such programming is most in need. Additional research in
other settings is necessary to draw any truly generalizable conclu-
sions. Relatedly, the short time frame of the study raises questions
as to whether the observed, positive effects can be expected to last
beyond the endline survey. A follow-up survey in these same vil-
lages could help to evaluate the sustainability of the effects.
Because the NGO planned to implement the intervention in the
control communities following finalization of the endline survey,
this future analysis would have to be purely observational in
nature.
8. Discussion
The intervention had unimpressive effects on community level
processes. While women’s presence at community decision-
making processes increased, as did their political knowledge, they
were not more likely to speak or feel that others listened to them.
There was increased political awareness but no corresponding
measurable success at garnering political action.
However, at the household level, women reported an increase
in drought-preparedness activities. The magnitude of the effect
on household level action was quite large. The proportion of
women reporting household level action increased across the
study area, likely indicating a trend related to seasonal drought.
However, these actions increased by only 18 percentage points in
the control group compared with an increase of 46 percentage
points in the treatment group. Prior to the intervention, only
around 5% of women in the treatment group reported having
engaged in direct action at the household level. After the interven-
tion, more than 50% of those same women reported household
level actions, mostly in the form of pre-emptive livestock sales
(see Fig. 1).
Why was the program successful at generating household level
action while its results at the community level were relatively dis-
appointing? There are a few potential explanations for this. These
explanations are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but rather
could all be true to varying degrees. Results could be attributable
to (i) the limited ability to detect small effect sizes, (ii) difficulties
 T. Grillos / World Development 108 (2018) 115–130
Fig. 1. Proportion of women reporting household level action.
associated with instigating successful community level action, and
(iii) aspects of the Governance Program that were particularly
associated with household level action.
First, as discussed in the Limitations section above, it is possible
that there were some additional effects at the community level but
that these effects were not large enough to detect given the statis-
tical power of the study. Negative coefficients observed with
respect to some community level outcomes at least imply that pos-
itive effects are unlikely to have taken place. If community level
impacts occurred but were simply too small to be detected, this
still begs the question of what is driving the difference in magni-
tude between the household and community level outcomes.
Second, it may be that community level action is simply more
difficult to achieve in this setting. Perhaps men are less willing to
accept women’s input in the more public community meetings
than within private spaces. While women do not claim to have
direct decision-making power over most household decisions, they
may have succeeded in persuading their husbands that income
diversification is important. This would be consistent with the
observation of increased trust among spouses. It would also echo
previous research that suggests, despite a lack of highly visible for-
mal authority, female pastoralists have more indirect power and
influence than scholars generally give them credit for (Hodgson,
2000).
Perhaps increased political awareness and access to decision-
making spaces did empower women, but they chose to exercise
their influence in a different arena (the household) and through
more subtle forms of persuasion. Results seem to suggest that
women participated in community level decision-making fora,
but failed to have an impact. Even the relatively powerful within
these communities are marginalized relative to the broader Ken-
yan political landscape. Increasing women’s access to decision-
making within a community cannot be expected to result in signif-
icant change if the community itself lacks resources to make such
changes. Women may have then turned their attention to the
household level, where they could have more influence.
Finally, aspects of the program that directly targeted household
level action could have driven the effect. A likely candidate is the
men’s workshop, which was added to the intervention at the
request of YARI’s prior beneficiaries. Even after the intervention
women still report that men have final say over decisions related
to the sale of livestock, and the men’s workshop explicitly focused
on the notion of livelihood diversification. The men’s workshop
was directed specifically at the spouses of women who had
previously participated in YARI’s business training programs.
123
Partitioning the dataset by prior YARI participation (Appendix I)
shows that the effect is stronger among those who had participated
in the previous programming, exhibited by both a larger coefficient
and greater statistical significance on the interaction term, which
represents effects of the program.
While I do not believe that the outcome is wholly attributable
to the men’s workshop alone, it was almost certainly an important
driver of these results. It is remarkable that such a short interven-
tion (the men’s workshop lasted less than one day) could have any
measurable impact, given the constraints and limitations of the
study. This could perhaps be credited to the framing of the work-
shop. Simply describing a program in a particular way (framing)
can affect people’s reactions to it (Chong & Druckman, 2007). The
men’s workshop focused on the benefits for the household as a
whole (and for men themselves) that could come from allowing
women to engage in alternate income-generation activities. In
other words, it offered an instrumental rationale for women’s
empowerment, framing empowerment as a positive-sum game
from which both men and women would benefit.
Previous scholars have noted that empowerment need not be a
zero-sum game, but rather, it may be possible to increase the
power of a marginalized group without a corresponding decrease
in abilities of others (Knack, 2005; Pritchett & Kapoor, 2009).
Indeed, at the macro level, a review of the literature shows that
increasing women’s access to economic resources has been associ-
ated with an increase in the total size of the pie (Kabeer & Natali,
2013; WDR, 2012). Reducing gender inequalities with respect to
education and labor market participation is positively associated
with economic growth (Baliamoune-Lutz and McGillivray, 2009;
Klasen, 2002; Seguino, 2000). The same is also true at the house-
hold level, where equitable intra-household resource distribution
is associated with an improved economic situation for the house-
hold as a unit (Duflo, 2003; Haddad, Hoddinott, & Alderman,
1997; Udry, 1996). While there are certainly important normative
arguments for women’s empowerment, it is these instrumental
arguments that have been most successful at the level of policy-
makers and development agencies (Jackson, 1996; Kabeer, 2008;
Pearson, 2005; Razavi, 1997). Thus, using it as a strategy at the
grassroots level, while engaging with local status quo decision
makers, seems a logical approach.
It is important to note that the men’s workshop was included in
the intervention at the direct request of women who had partici-
pated in prior YARI programs. Thus, even if the men’s workshop
had been fully responsible for the increase in drought-
preparedness activities, we should not necessarily interpret this
as disconnected from women’s agency. Women did in fact exercise
agency in identifying the need to persuade men in the first place
and in requesting that the NGO provide specific training to their
husbands.
In conclusion, this paper has examined an NGO intervention in
northern Kenya, aimed at enhancing drought resilience among
pastoralist communities through an increase in women’s
decision-making power. It successfully increased drought pre-
paredness activities at the household level, but had limited impact
at the community level. The focus of decision-making under
consideration (adaptation strategies to mitigate the vulnerability
of pastoralism) was closely related to deeply entrenched tradi-
tional gender roles around livestock. Given the perceived difficulty
of changing such deep-rooted cultural norms, the results are
encouraging.
Additional research is necessary, both in alternate settings and in
these same villages over a longer time horizon, before we can draw
any truly generalizable lessons. Positive household level effects in
this case may be attributable to some combination of the following:
(i) a positive-sum approach to empowerment, which directly
engages status quo decision-makers and appeals to their self-
124 T. Grillos / World Development 108 (2018) 115–130

interest, (ii) program design that incorporates the direct
recommendations of the intended beneficiaries, and/or (iii) consid-
eration of both formal and informal avenues for influencing
outcomes.
implementation of the study that I would be free to publish the
results of that evaluation for an academic audience, with the stip-
ulation that the NGO would have the right to choose to remain
anonymous, which it has exercised. At the time of writing this
manuscript, I had no financial relationship with the NGO.

Conflict of interest statement Acknowledgements

I hereby certify that I have no direct affiliation with or involve-
ment in any organization or entity with any financial interest in
the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript
‘‘Women’s Participation in Environmental Decision-Making:
Quasi-experimental Evidence from Northern Kenya.” I was hired
as a short-term independent consultant by the NGO referenced
in the manuscript to advise them on the design of the intervention
and the evaluation plan, prior to implementation of the study. The
NGO receives no direct financial gain related to the results of the
evaluation, though it is possible that results could indirectly affect
their future funding opportunities. We agreed in writing prior to
I wish to thank staff members at YARI (who remain anonymous
at the request of the NGO) for sharing data, field assistance and key
information about the implementation of the intervention. I also
thank K.P. Andersson, W.C. Clark, A. Fung, R. Sheely, M. Goldman,
Y. Gonzalez, S.A. Guagliardo, T. McCabe, T. Mize, and M. Scudder
for helpful feedback on earlier versions of this manuscript. YARI’s
intervention and evaluation was funded by the Department for
International Development (DFID). My own fieldwork was funded
in part by the United States Department of Education’s Foreign
Language and Area Studies Fellowship, as well as by the Sustain-
ability Science Program at Harvard University.

Appendix A. Full text of survey questions used as outcome variables in analysis

Resources
Political Knowledge
 True or False: The Constitution states that at least one-third of the County Executive members must be women
 True or False: The Constitution forbids female genital mutilation
 Which level of government is responsible for Police services? County or National
 Which level of government is responsible for Pre-Primary Education? County or National
 Which branch of government is responsible for drafting new laws? County Assembly OR County Executive
 What is the Uwezo Fund?
 Are you aware of any female political leaders in this region? Yes No
 Please name them
Social Capital: Trust
How much trust do you place in each of the following? A lot of trust – Some trust – A little trust – No trust
 Spouse
 Community Leader
 County Government

Agency (Access to Decision-Making Spaces)

Decision-making Power in the Household
In your household, who has the final say with respect to:
 Buying Food?
 Children’s Medical Expenses?
 Sending the children to school?
 Paying children’s School Fees?
 Purchasing Livestock?
 Purchasing Household Items?
[Responses re-coded as follows: 1 = Men Only 2 = Men and Women Together 3 = Women Only]
Decision-making Power in the Community
 Have you ever attended a session where villagers gather to make a decision?
 Have you ever spoken at this meeting?
 How much attention do you feel local leaders pay to what people like you think before deciding what to do?

Observable Actions
Actions Taken at the Household Level
 In the past year, have you taken any actions in your own household in order to better prepare your family for emergencies or to improve your quality of life? Yes No
I Don’t Know

Actions Taken at the Community Level

 In the past year, have you taken any actions together with others in the community in order to better prepare your family for emergencies or to improve your qual-
ity of life? Yes – No – I Don’t Know

Actions Taken at the Political Level

 In the past year, how often have members of this village gotten together and jointly petitioned government officials or political leaders with village development as
their goal?
 T. Grillos / World Development 108 (2018) 115–130 125

Appendix B. Balance test comparing survey drop-outs with final study sample

Remained in survey Could not be relocated

Mean sd Mean sd p-value
Treatment Group 0.53 0.50 0.60 0.50 0.45
Literacy 0.04 0.21 0.00 0.00 0.20
Prior YARI Participation 0.52 0.50 0.34 0.48 0.05⁄
Member of Group/Committee 0.29 0.45 0.21 0.42 0.39
Tribe1: Rendille 0.11 0.31 0.11 0.32 0.89
Tribe2: Samburu 0.43 0.50 0.69 0.47 0.00⁄⁄
Tribe3: Gabra 0.46 0.50 0.20 0.41 0.00⁄⁄
Score on Political Quiz 0.64 0.93 0.66 0.73 0.90
Household Action 0.14 0.35 0.20 0.41 0.38
Community Action 0.12 0.32 0.20 0.41 0.22
HH Decision: Food 1.65 0.90 1.51 0.85 0.40
HH Decision: School Fees 1.42 0.81 1.41 0.80 0.91
HH Decision: Livestock 1.42 0.80 1.39 0.80 0.84
Community Decision: Attended Meetings 0.27 0.44 0.31 0.47 0.55
Community Decision: Leaders Pay Attn 2.85 0.96 2.97 1.14 0.51
Total Observations 226 35
⁄ ⁄⁄
p < 0.05, p < 0.01.

Appendix C. Balance test comparing treatment and control group at baseline

Control Treatment
Mean sd Mean sd p-value
Literacy 0.05 0.21 0.04 0.20 0.83
Prior YARI Participation 0.50 0.50 0.54 0.50 0.53
Member of Group/Committee 0.25 0.43 0.32 0.47 0.22
Tribe1: Rendille 0.15 0.36 0.07 0.25 0.04⁄
Tribe2: Samburu 0.58 0.50 0.30 0.46 0.00⁄⁄⁄
Tribe3: Gabra 0.27 0.48 0.63 0.48 0.00⁄⁄⁄
Score on Political Quiz 0.70 1.03 0.58 0.83 0.36
Household Action 0.22 0.42 0.05 0.26 0.00⁄⁄⁄
Community Action 0.10 0.30 0.12 0.35 0.81
HH Decision: Food 1.63 0.90 1.67 0.91 0.74
HH Decision: School Fees 1.32 0.72 1.51 0.86 0.12
HH Decision: Livestock 1.29 0.68 1.57 0.90 0.03⁄
Community Decision: Attended Meetings 0.25 0.44 0.28 0.45 0.73
Community Decision: Leaders Pay Attn 3.23 1.14 2.67 0.72 0.00⁄⁄⁄
Total Observations 106 120
⁄ ⁄⁄⁄
p < 0.05, p < 0.001.

Appendix D. Resources – political knowledge and trust

Difference-in-differences regression results

Score on Awareness of female Trust in One’s Trust in the Trust in the County
Political Quiz political leaders Spouse Community leader government
Treatment 0.180 0.329 0.167 1.168⁄⁄⁄ 0.0268
(0.170) (0.804) (0.250) (0.339) (0.214)
Endline 0.301⁄⁄ 0.355 0.373 1.504⁄⁄⁄ 2.243⁄⁄⁄
(0.0327) (0.207) (0.415) (0.349) (0.518)
TreatmentEndline 0.420⁄⁄⁄ 0.769⁄ 1.691⁄⁄⁄ 0.935⁄ 0.136
(0.0942) (0.305) (0.511) (0.368) (0.634)
Constant 0.359⁄⁄⁄ 0.414
(0.0864) (0.692)
Constant 3.691⁄⁄⁄ 1.363⁄⁄ 0.712⁄⁄⁄
(0.213) (0.441) (0.102)
Model type Poisson Logit Ologit Ologit Ologit

Observations 452 444 382 448 444

Standard errors in parentheses.
⁄
p < 0.05, ⁄⁄p < 0.01, ⁄⁄⁄p < 0.001.
126 T. Grillos / World Development 108 (2018) 115–130

Mahalanobis distance matching – treatment effect estimation

Score on Political Awareness of female Trust in One’s Trust in the Trust in the County
Quiz political leaders Spouse Community leader government
ATE
Treatment 0.437⁄ 0.166⁄ 0.0518 0.363+ 0.220
(0.207) (0.0781) (0.116) (0.203) (0.195)

Observations 224 221 190 222 220

Standard errors in parentheses.
+
p < 0.1, ⁄p < 0.05, ⁄⁄p < 0.01, ⁄⁄⁄p < 0.001.

Appendix E. Agency – household decision-making power

Difference-in-differences regression results

Who has the final say in decisions regarding:

Food Purchases Medical Spending School Fees Livestock Household Items Sending Kids to School
Treatment 0.0890 0.730⁄ 0.545⁄ 0.796⁄⁄⁄ 0.798⁄ 0.416⁄
(0.240) (0.299) (0.268) (0.239) (0.388) (0.210)

Endline 0.554⁄⁄⁄ 0.141 0.223 0.244⁄⁄ 0.265 0.370

(0.117) (0.315) (0.177) (0.0865) (0.716) (0.230)

TreatmentEndline 0.373 0.388 0.0470 0.137 0.374 0.277

(0.233) (0.422) (0.273) (0.189) (0.829) (0.370)
Constant 0.658⁄⁄ 1.365⁄⁄⁄ 1.583⁄⁄⁄ 1.662⁄⁄⁄ 1.269⁄⁄⁄ 0.372⁄⁄⁄
(0.226) (0.301) (0.156) (0.0742) (0.346) (0.0562)

Model type Ologit Ologit Ologit Ologit Ologit Ologit

Observations 450 424 384 306 444 406

Standard errors in parentheses.
⁄
p < 0.05, ⁄⁄p < 0.01, ⁄⁄⁄p < 0.001.

Mahalanobis distance matching – treatment effect estimation

Who has the final say in decisions regarding:

Food Purchases Medical Spending School Fees Livestock Household Items Sending Kids to School
ATE
Treatment 0.202 0.0750 0.0214 0.0218 0.372⁄⁄ 0.0236
(0.126) (0.110) (0.106) (0.120) (0.139) (0.160)

Observations 223 210 191 152 220 201

Standard errors in parentheses.
+
p < 0.1, ⁄p < 0.05, ⁄⁄p < 0.01, ⁄⁄⁄p < 0.001.

Appendix F. Agency – community decision-making

Difference-in-differences regression results

Attended village decision- Spoken at village decision- Level of attention local leaders pay to
making meeting making meeting people’s opinions
Treatment 0.104 0.566 0.746⁄
(0.362) (0.514) (0.324)
Endline 0.102 0.319⁄⁄⁄ 0.166
(0.250) (0.0827) (0.105)
 T. Grillos / World Development 108 (2018) 115–130 127

Appendix F (continued)

Attended village decision- Spoken at village decision- Level of attention local leaders pay to
making meeting making meeting people’s opinions
TreatmentEndline 1.582⁄⁄⁄ 0.189 0.611⁄
(0.303) (0.248) (0.283)

Constant 1.074⁄⁄⁄ 2.367⁄⁄⁄

(0.288) (0.487)

Constant 2.666⁄⁄⁄
(0.328)
Model type Logit Logit Ologit

Observations 452 450 334

Standard errors in parentheses.
⁄
p < 0.05, ⁄⁄p < 0.01, ⁄⁄⁄p < 0.001.

Mahalanobis distance matching – treatment effect estimation

Attended village decision-making Spoken at village decision-making Level of attention local leaders pay to
meeting meeting people’s opinions
ATE
Treatment 0.279⁄⁄ 0.0147 0.437
(0.0890) (0.0571) (0.421)

Observations 224 223 167

Standard errors in parentheses.
+
p < 0.1, ⁄p < 0.05, ⁄⁄p < 0.01, ⁄⁄⁄p < 0.001.

Appendix G. Achievements – actions taken to prepare for emergency

Difference-in-differences regression results

Action taken in Household Action taken with Community Political Action Taken
⁄
Treatment 1.670 0.118 0.0878
(0.711) (0.711) (0.598)
Endline 0.864⁄⁄⁄ 0.656⁄ 0.0174
(0.219) (0.259) (0.366)
TreatmentEndline 2.100⁄⁄⁄ 0.423 0.0174
(0.504) (0.449) (0.477)
Constant 1.253⁄⁄ 2.147⁄⁄⁄ 0.842
(0.451) (0.376) (0.476)

Model type Logit Logit Logit

Observations 394 345 365

Standard errors in parentheses
⁄
p < 0.05, ⁄⁄p < 0.01, ⁄⁄⁄p < 0.001.

Mahalanobis distance matching – treatment effect estimation

Action taken in Household Action taken with Community Political Action Taken
ATE
Treatment 0.338⁄⁄⁄ 0.100 0.141
(0.0718) (0.0857) (0.223)

Observations 196 170 181

Standard errors in parentheses.
+
p < 0.1, ⁄p < 0.05, ⁄⁄p < 0.01, ⁄⁄⁄p < 0.001.
128 T. Grillos / World Development 108 (2018) 115–130
Appendix H. Discussion of statistical power calculations
Statistical power is the probability of detecting an effect if one
exists, and thus determines the likelihood of Type II errors or false
negatives (Banerjee, Chitnis, Jadhav, Bhawalkar, & Chaudhury,
2009; Glennerster & Takavarasha, 2013, p. 251). Statistical power
in a cluster-randomized trial is a function of sample size (both total
n and number of clusters) but also of intra-cluster correlation and
effect size. All else equal, power, the ability to detect an effect if it
exists, is lower if the effect size is smaller and if intra-cluster cor-
relation is higher. As a result, the statistical power of a given sam-
ple size will vary depending on the outcome variable in question.
I generated the graph on the next page using Optimal Design
Software (Raudenbush et al., 2011). Holding constant sample size,
number of clusters, and alpha, it shows with what power effects of
various sizes could be detected, depending on the intra-cluster cor-
relation. When intra-cluster correlation is near to 0.00 (which is
the case for several of my outcome variables), then with a power
of 0.80 I could be expected to detect normalized effect sizes of
0.5 or greater. With a power of 0.50, I could detect effect sizes as
small as 0.35. Thus while I cannot rule out that there are effects
I have not detected, I can be confident that those effects I may have
missed are relatively small in magnitude.
Since the literature on this topic lacks empirical data, and the
literature on this particular intervention is non-existent, there is
no directly comparable prior knowledge I can draw from to esti-
mate the effect sizes for particular outcome variables. In the table
on the next page, I calculated the intra-cluster correlation (ICC)
detected at baseline, as well as the actual standardized effect size
(the normalized difference in differences, d) detected at endline
for each of the key outcome variables previously reported in Table 2
of the main text of this paper. Many of the outcomes for which I
find no statistically significant effect (Trust in County Government,
the Household Decision-making variables, and whether the
women reported speaking at a meeting) are characterized by very
low intracluster correlation (<0.05). (The ICC for Community level
and Political Action are both not much higher at 0.06.)
For relatively large effect sizes (d > 0.7), such as that found with
respect to attendance at decision-making meetings, this study
actually has quite good statistical power (P > 0.08). However, as
the graph also demonstrates, I have very limited statistical power
to detect effects of less than 0.3 standard deviations.
Low statistical power increases the likelihood of a Type II error
(false negative), but it does not directly affect the Type I error rate,
which is by definition, alpha. Thus, the main impact of low statis-
tical power on my study is that I cannot assume there is no true
effect with respect to outcomes that failed to produce statistical
significance. With respect to any null effects reported in this paper
(for example women’s household decision-making power), there is
a possibility that the effect does exist, but is small and therefore
undetectable with the given sample size. I thus avoid drawing con-
clusions from non-effects and focus my discussion on the out-
comes for which a statistically significant result was observed.
Low statistical power could also affect the PPV, which is the
probability that a statistically significant effect detected in a study
reflects a true effect. However, PPV is a function not only of power,
but also of the pre-study odds of a non-null effect (which is
unknowable), and the alpha level at which significance is observed
(Button et al., 2013). Of the 7 statistically significant results that I
report in this paper, two are significant at an alpha level of 0.01
and two are significant at an even lower alpha level of 0.001.
Assuming a conservative pre-study odds of 0.2 (the example used
in the Button et al. paper), an alpha level of 0.1 yields a PPV above
0.8 with statistical power of 0.5. At an alpha level of 0.001, even an
extremely low statistical power of 0.1 yields a PPV above 95%.
Thus, despite low power in some cases, the PPV remains quite
high for the majority of my key findings. In particular, the increase
in household level action, meeting attendance, and political knowl-
edge are very strongly corroborated by the PPV calculations, and to
a lesser extent, the effects on Awareness of Female Leaders and
Trust in One’s Spouse are also highly likely to reflect a true effect.
The negative effects on trust in the community leader and the
perceived level of attention that leaders pay have the lowest PPVs,
largely due to very high intra-cluster correlation and therefore par-
ticularly low statistical power. Thus, my discussion of the results
does not assume that a true negative effect has been observed. How-
ever, the observation of a negative effect demonstrates that there
was almost certainly not a positive effect on either of these cate-
gories of outcomes, which is consistent with my overall discussion
of the results.
 T. Grillos / World Development 108 (2018) 115–130 129

Resources d ICC p Agency d ICC p

Political Knowledge Household Decision-Making
Score on Political Quiz 0.400 0.000 0.006⁄⁄ Food Purchases 0.154 0.000 0.109
Awareness of Female Leaders 0.379 0.243 0.012⁄ School Fees 0.059 0.002 0.863
Social Capital Livestock 0.006 0.019 0.469
Trust in Spouse 0.170 0.000 0.001⁄⁄ Community Decision-Making
Trust in Community Leader 0.479 0.141 0.011⁄ Attended Meetings 0.833 0.018 0.000⁄⁄⁄
Trust in County Government 0.158 0.000 0.830 Spoke at a Meeting 0.037 0.017 0.447
Level of Attention 0.246 0.178 0.031
Achievements: Actions Taken Local Leaders Pay
Household level Action 0.791 0.144 0.000⁄⁄⁄
Community level Action 0.186 0.060 0.346
Political Action 0.018 0.060 0.971
⁄ ⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄
p < 0.05, p < 0.01, p < 0.001.

Appendix I. Regression results (Household actions partitioned by prior YARI Participation)

Action taken in household?

(1) (2)
Prior YARI business training participants only No previous participation in YARI programs
⁄⁄
Treatment 2.440 0.800
(0.841) (0.959)
Endline 0.859⁄⁄⁄ 0.968⁄⁄
(0.148) (0.334)
TreatmentEndline 2.473⁄⁄ 1.647
(0.801) (0.896)
Constant 0.818⁄⁄ 1.815⁄⁄
(0.288) (0.586)

Observations 206 188

Standard errors in parentheses.
⁄
p < 0.05, ⁄⁄p < 0.01, ⁄⁄⁄p < 0.001.

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