Analysis of the Baseline Surveys for the REAP Cohort

Funded through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

August 2016

Table of Contents

Overview 2

Background 2

The Rural Entrepreneur Access Program (REAP) 3

Purpose of the Report 3

Survey analysis: 3

Survey Information: 3

Area Information: 4

Demographic Profile: 4

Household Income: 6

Livestock Ownership: 7

Household Expenditure: 8

PRIORITY AREAS OF THE RESULTS FRAMEWORK 10

Household decision making 10

Access and usage of financial services 11

Savings 12

Loans 12

Education opportunities for girls 13

Household food security 14

Food Consumption 15

Use of healthcare 16

Graduation at Baseline: 17

Conclusion: 19

Overview

Background

The BOMA Project works in the arid and semi-arid lands (ASALs) of Africa where residents suffer from some of the highest poverty rates in the world. BOMA’s target area represents the true last mile of extreme poverty and economic isolation. The region’s low population density and lack of infrastructure mean there are no large employers, making livelihood choices minimal. Many of the villages where BOMA works are miles from the nearest trading post, paved road, public transportation, school, health center or financial institution. Low population density, geographic remoteness and transportation challenges have left residents largely forgotten by their own government, with only a few NGOs willing to make meaningful investment beyond food aid or short-term humanitarian relief.

BOMA’s current work area, Northern Kenya, is defined by its geographic, economic and political seclusion. As the Kenyan Ministry of State describes in Vision 2030: Development Strategy for Northern Kenya and Other Arid Lands report, “The defining feature of Northern Kenya is its separation from the rest of the country, which manifests itself in both physical and psychological ways… isolation, insecurity, weak economic integration, limited political leverage, and a challenging natural environment combine to produce high levels of risk and vulnerability.”[1]

According to a 2011 report by the Kenyan Ministry of State, taken together, the seven districts of Northern Kenya had a UNDP Human Development Index lower than that of Sierra Leone, the lowest-ranked country in the world.[2] According to data from the Grameen Foundation’s Progress out of Poverty Index, 92% of people live in poverty in Marsabit and Samburu districts and the reported number of people living in extreme poverty is as high as 82%.

Livestock remains the traditional source of food and income, and as the severity of droughts escalate, herding has become an increasingly unsustainable livelihood. In 2011, the worst drought in 60 years triggered a hunger crisis in East Africa, impacting more than 13 million people and leaving in its wake 50,000 to 100,000 dead. The United Nations estimated the cost of humanitarian response at $1.5 billion.

In the severe cycle of drought and famine, women and children are particularly vulnerable. Left in the villages, without food or income, for as long as six months while men travel with the herds in search of increasingly scarce water and grazing lands, women must survive by subsisting on food aid, begging for credit from shopkeepers, or scraping together small incomes from menial labor like gathering firewood or collecting water.

Historically, pastoral nomadic communities of Northern Kenya share a patriarchal social system, in which men have greater authority in household decision-making and control financial resources and assets, mostly livestock and land. Women are typically not allowed to own livestock, save for few animals in the homestead. In recent years, women have become further marginalized and disempowered by the ripple effect of climate change and dependence on humanitarian aid. Women suffer doubly in geographic isolation with a lack of opportunities for income-generating activities and discrimination within a patriarchal society. And for the few women who have managed to cultivate a source of income, their lack of access to formal financial institutions makes it difficult to keep, transfer and save money safely.

The Rural Entrepreneur Access Program (REAP)

The Rural Entrepreneur Access Program is an innovative, gender focused, two-year poverty graduation model developed to meet the needs of women in the drylands of Africa that addresses all of the problems described above. BOMA provides seed capital, training and two years of mentoring, supporting a business group of three women to start a small business and establish a sustainable income and savings. BOMA’s holistic program helps ultra-poor women to build a pathway out of extreme poverty by addressing the three interrelated elements that contribute to the cycle of poverty: low incomes, inconsistent cash flows and inadequate financial services. Profits from each REAP business provide a new and diversified income for participants, while personal and business savings training help women manage cash for daily needs. BOMA savings groups help women plan for future expenses like school fees and healthcare and respond to shocks (drought or emergencies).

To date, BOMA has helped 10,557 women, supporting more than 52,630 children find pathways out of extreme poverty by establishing 3,343 businesses and 607 savings groups across Marsabit and Samburu districts in Northern Kenya. Our goal is to lift more than 100,000 women and children out of extreme poverty by 2018 and reach one million women and children in the next five years.

Purpose of the Report

In October 2015, the BOMA Project received funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Putting Women and Girls at the Center of Development Global Grand Challenge to enroll 750 ultra-poor women from the drylands of Northern Kenya in BOMA’s REAP program. With the goal of helping women establish their own income and savings, and to assess any changes in household decision-making resulting from economic empowerment, BOMA conducted this baseline survey to measure conditions before the intervention.

The purpose of this report is to present the characteristics of REAP participants in the Gates cohort at baseline. Outcomes of interest, including household income, expenditures, assets, household decision making, healthcare use and food security, are reported and will be used to draw comparisons after one year and at the end of two year REAP program. Data from the baseline report will also be used to inform areas where attention is needed by staff in the field.

SURVEY ANALYSIS

Survey Information:

In April 2016, baseline surveys were conducted with the 750 participants who enrolled in REAP supported by funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Baseline data was collected between April 14, 2016 to May 1, 2016, with follow-up surveys conducted through May 8, 2016 for participants that were missed due to travel or illness. Surveys were conducted by three teams of enumerators, each consisting of one survey supervisor and five trained, independent enumerators. Baseline surveys were completed by all (100%) participants.

Selection of enumerators was a competitive process, with seven enumerators brought into the training for each team but only five were selected. All enumerators were University students or graduates from Marsabit or Samburu County to ensure a high level of maturity and seriousness. Upon completion of the training, enumerators were scored on a scale from 0-100, which was used to select the enumerators who would be on the survey teams. Seventy percent of the score was from accuracy of responses entered during a challenging enumerator interview (post-test). The remaining 30% of the score was from a rating of each enumerator by the respective Field Officer and Survey Supervisor on the enumerator’s language skills, participation in training, how well they act with participants, their attitude, whether they ask questions when they are unsure, and how well they represent BOMA. All survey teams consisted of at least two female enumerators for gender balance.

Area Information:

Data was collected from 14 locations in Samburu and Marsabit counties. These locations are home to both semi-nomadic communities (people living usually in portable or temporary dwellings and practicing seasonal migration) or settled communities with more permanent buildings and services. A small percent of households were internally displaced, coming from communities impacted by ethnic conflict.

Demographic Profile:

The average age of REAP participants surveyed is 37 years, based on the date of birth on the participant’s ID. 64% of participants are between 21 - 40 years and 29% are 41 - 60 years (Figure 2). It is important to note that the majority of participants do not know their age and the age on the participant’s ID card is likely an estimation.

Nearly all participants belong to Rendille (27.9%), Samburu (26.4%), Borana (21.8%) or Gabbra (20.6%) ethnic groups (Figure 3). Samburu is the language spoken by the most participants (31.4%), followed by Gabbra (23.4%), Borana (22.7%), and Rendille (22.3%).

Of the 750 participants surveyed, 72.6% reported they are married (Figure 4), and of the married participants, 30.7% are co-wives, meaning that their husband has at least one other wife. Participants have an average of three children under 18 in their household and the average household had two adults aged 18 and above; although about 23% of adults are at satellite camps or away from home at least six months of the year.

The majority of the participants (88.9%) have no formal education (Figure 5) and only 14% speak Kiswahili, one of the national languages of Kenya (the other is English). Although only 8% and 7% of participants can read and write in any language, respectively, 93% can do addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, determined by the ability to solve contextual math problems (e.g. If you sell two cups of milk a day for seven days, how many cups of milk in total would you sell in a week?) (Figure 6).

Of all the participants, 40.6% have their own mobile phone and 34.5% use MPESA or another mobile money service.

When asked what they do during the day (prior to REAP, represented in Figure 7), the majority of participants reported that they engage in household domestic work (91.5%), collect firewood (58.0%) and fetch water (57.9%). Other less frequent activities reported by participants were herding (17.1%), burning charcoal (6.2%), selling goods (5.2%) doing day labor for others (4.7%) and selling livestock (2.3%).

Household Income:

For questions pertaining to income, participants were asked about their household income, as opposed to their individual income, in order to capture the financial situation of the household. Most participants report having one and two income sources for their household (Figure 8).

The most common sources of income reported are selling livestock (62.7%) and casual labor (36.9%) (Table 1). Although participants report that their household has multiple sources of income, they may not receive income from each source every month (e.g. selling livestock) and some sources may contribute very little (e.g. selling firewood, selling milk, fetching water).

Table 1: Income sources for REAP households and the amount earned from each source in the past 30 days.

Variable / Percent of participants whose household receives income from this source / Average income in the past 30 days for participants reporting income (KES) / Average income in the past 30 days across all participants
(KES)
Selling Livestock / 63% / 1961 / 1229
Casual Labor / 37% / 1807 / 667
Firewood / 23% / 1138 / 264
Own Business / 22% / 2361 / 519
Remittances / 16% / 940 / 150
Other / 11% / 863 / 97
Fetching Water / 11% / 898 / 101
Charcoal / 10% / 1942 / 199
Selling Meat / 10% / 1057 / 103
Selling Milk / 9% / 576 / 51
Selling Crops / 6% / 1317 / 74
Selling Hides & Skins / 5% / 51 / 2
Household Shop / 3% / 2539 / 74
Formal Employment and Salaried Labor / 2% / 5687 / 114
Tourism / 1% / 93 / 1
Pension / 0.3% / 2500 / 7

Table 1 shows the number and percent of participants reporting each source of income in addition to the average income reported for the past 30 days from each source. The value in the third column models the average income reported by participants that received income from that source in the past 30 days. The value in the fourth column is the average income reported by all 750 participants in the past 30 days. Although only 2.9% of the participants reported earnings from employment and salaried labor, it had highest amount of average income of KES 5,867. While 22% of participants reported having income from their own business, this refers to any regular activity of buying and selling goods, not necessarily indicating a business or shop.

In total, 44% of participants reported that their household was registered for Kenya’s cash transfer program for vulnerable households, the Hunger Safety Net Programme (HSNP), while only 37% reported receiving HSNP benefits in the past month. The average monthly HSNP payment was equivalent to 2,430 KES/month for households receiving benefits. 5% of participants reported receiving income from another cash transfer, equivalent to an average of 3,892 per month.

Overall, the majority of participants’ households (91%) own some kind of livestock. The average number of types of livestock owned by participants is two out of a possible five kinds of livestock, including camels, cattle, donkeys and goats and sheep - commonly combined and referred to as shoats (Figure 9).

The most commonly owned livestock are female and male shoats (86% and 69% of households, respectively). Female shoats are the livestock that participants themselves own and control the most.

Table 2 models the number and percentage of households owning each kind of livestock, the average number of each livestock their household owns, and the average number of livestock the participants themselves own or control.

Table 2: Livestock ownership by REAP households

Livestock Type / Percentage of households who own this livestock / Average number owned by the household / Average number owned or controlled by the participant
Female Cattle / 35% / 2.4 / 1.0
Male Cattle / 20% / 1.5 / 0.5
Male Camels / 16% / 1.7 / 0.2
Female Camels / 26% / 2.3 / 0.4
Female Shoats / 86% / 7.9 / 2.9
Male Shoats / 69% / 3.7 / 1.3
Donkeys / 30% / 1.4 / 0.4
Female Chickens / 15% / 3.4 / 3.0
Male Chickens / 10% / 1.9 / 1.7

Tropical Livestock Units are livestock numbers converted to a common unit. Conversion factors are: camels = 1, cattle = 0.7, donkeys = 0.5, sheep/goats = 0.1 and chickens = 0.01. The average number of total livestock that participants’ household owns is 2.8 TLUs, and the average number of total livestock under participant control is 0.9 TLUs.