How effective are group-based livelihoods programmes in improving the lives of poor people? A synthesis of recent evidence

Most of the world’s poor earn their living from low-productivity, high-risk subsistence farming. To break out of a low-productivity poverty trap, they require access to financial, human, physical and social capital, collectively referred to as livelihoods assets. One strategy favoured by development agencies and governments to deliver livelihoods assets is through community-based groups.

Such group-based livelihoods initiatives often encompass a wide variety of groups, some of which may be based on gender, economic, social, cultural or ethnic affinity. Through these groups, livelihoods interventions typically promote some mix of group savings and credit; financial and market linkages; trainings for productivity enhancement; self-employment and employment for wages; and access to social protection and public services.