Building Resilience Through Self Help Groups: Evidence Review
In this evidence review, Cabot Venton et al. (2021) look at the link between resilience, psychosocial factors and SHGs. How do SHGs facilitate members’ capacity to cope, adapt, and transform in the face of shocks and stresses? How do SHGs build psychosocial factors and how do these relate to resilience?
Although the evidence base is limited and grounded largely in peer-reviewed studies from South Asia, the review indicates that SHGs, and women’s groups more broadly, can have substantial consequences for a range of women’s psychosocial factors, particularly social capital and women’s empowerment. In combination with economic factors that are also facilitated through SHGs, these psychosocial factors strengthen members’ and their households’ capacity to be more resilient in the face of shocks and stresses.