Evidence - SBC Impact
Compelling, credible, recent, direct impact data
Evidence - SBC Impact
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Savings Group Curriculum - 8% Higher Prevalence of Paying School Fees

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Strategy researched

A curriculum delivered within savings groups to help caregivers of orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) affected by HIV in Uganda to plan and save for the education-, nutritious food-, and health-related expenses for all the children in their care

Impact achieved

In absolute terms, the overall proportion of children with paid school fees was 8% significantly higher for caregivers within savings and lending communities that received the Child-Optimized Financial Education (COFE) curriculum compared to those who did not receive the specialised training. This means that, in relative terms, children of caregivers who participated in the training were 1.17 times more likely to have had all the required school fees paid as a product of the training, compared to children whose caregivers did not participate.

Country of study

Uganda

Research methodology

RCT

Journal

Journal of Development Effectiveness; 2022

Journal paper title and link

Impact of the Child-optimized Financial Education (COFE) curriculum among savings group participants in Uganda: A cluster randomised controlled trial

Excerpt from Abstract

"Participation in SILC [Savings and Lending Communities] groups with the COFE curriculum was significantly associated with greater spending on children's required school expenses compared to participation in SILC groups without the COFE curriculum."

Summary at this link

 

Why the focus on direct impact data?

A common challenge from policy makers, funders, community members, people directly experiencing development issues, and governments is: Demonstrate your Impact. Prove that what you are doing works. The high quality, highly credible data presented on the cards below is designed to help you answer that question for your social change, behaviour change, community engagement, communication and media for development, strategy formulation, policy engagement and funding initiatives. At this link filter the research data to your specific interests and priorities

Why a playing cards design?

There is a physical pack of cards with this data (to get a copy please request through the comment form for any card). The card approach allows for easy identification and selection of relevant direct impact data in any context. For example if talking with a donor and you need to identify proof of impact say "take a look at the 7 of Hearts". Quick access can be provided to high-quality data for many areas of your work – funding, planning, policy, advocacy, community dialogue, training, partner engagement, and more. A card deck is also engaging, easy to use and share, a conversation starter, and a resource - and they are fun and different. So we kept that design for the online images as it can serve similar purposes. 

What are the criteria for inclusion?

The impact data presented meets the following high standard for inclusion criteria:

  • Positive change or trend in a priority development issue;
  • Social change or behaviour change strategy or process;
  • Randomized Control Trial or Systematic Review methodology;
  • High quality peer review journal published;
  • Numeric impact data point
  • Published since 2010.