COVID‐19 lockdown and collective activities: Evidence from the world's largest self‐help group program

Abstract

We study the impact of the COVID‐19 lockdown in 2020 on the monthly savings of self‐help groups (SHGs) in India, and the role of SHGs in mitigating the economic effects of the lockdown. Administrative data suggest that monthly savings of SHGs declined by 66% between March and July of 2020, with larger declines in areas with more stringent lockdowns. Survey data revealed that SHG and non‐SHG households had similar consumption and income losses during the lockdown. Households with SHG members and those that received assistance from SHGs in procuring ration or accessing community kitchens reported significantly higher food security, however.

Women's groups, covariate shocks, and resilience: An evidence synthesis of past shocks to inform a response to COVID-19

“…The evidence further indicates that linkages to formal institutions can mitigate negative effects on group resilience by providing credit beyond the shock-affected resource pool. These findings are largely consistent with emerging evidence on women’s groups and COVID-19 ( Adegbite et al, 2022 ; Agarwal, 2021 ; de Hoop et al , 2021 ; Siwach et al , 2023 ), indicating that this evidence synthesis can provide important lessons for policy responses to COVID-19 in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.…”

“…We examine both immediate and longer-term effects of covariate shocks on women’s groups and their members. In this way we add to existing evidence about the short-term effects of COVID-19 on SHG savings in India ( Siwach et al , 2023 ) and how SHGs in India and savings groups in Nigeria may have contributed to mitigating some of the negative short-term effects of COVID-19 on agricultural productivity, consumption, and food security ( Adegbite et al, 2022 ; Agarwal, 2021 ; de Hoop et al, 2021 ). Triangulating the findings from those studies with the findings from the evidence synthesis allows for learning about the potential longer-term effects of COVID-19 on women’s groups and their members.…”

Lessons from a time of upheaval: COVID‐19 in South Asia

“…Following the rich tradition of microcredit and SHGs in Bangladesh, the National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM) of the Government of India focused first on mobilizing communities of women, organized them into groups for savings and lending and eventually linked groups to the formal financial system for credit to support livelihood activities. Siwach et al (2023) note that despite the disruption to SHG functioning, highlighted in the previous section, SHG members fared better than non-members in terms of household food insecurity. The resilience of individuals can also be a function of the strength of the existing social protection architecture and the implementation capacity of the state.…”

“…Instead, much of the rest of the literature relies on non-experimental techniques. Papers in this issue follow that trend, adopting a range of statistical techniques such as differencein-differences (Ahmed et al, 2023;Gupta et al, 2023;Siwach et al, 2023) or regression discontinuity designs (Varshney & Meenakshi, 2023) to establish causality. Others leverage the randomized allocation of resources pre-pandemic to uncover the longer-term impact of these interventions on households' ability to cope with COVID-19 (Ekstrom et al, 2023).…”

“…4 Siwach et al, ( 2023)'s study of savings and credit-based SHGs in India suggest similar patterns. While financial SHGs usually offer reliable risk-sharing mechanisms for members, Siwach et al (2023) find that during the pandemic these SHGs were severely hampered, with repayment rates plummeting and SHGs unable to lend as they would under normal circumstances. However, Siwach et al (2023) demonstrate that it is not always the case that these risk-sharing mechanisms break down completely and there may be modest benefits even in the face of shared shocks.…”