GET Ahead Business Training Program Impact Evaluation 2013 - 2017

The selection of the study areas was the result of a participatory process that involved the Technical Committee of the ILO Women Entrepreneurship and Economic Empowerment (WEDEE) project as well as other relevant stakeholders. A Stakeholder retreat in October 2012 was used to pre-select 10 counties from the 47 counties in Kenya as possible locations for the study. A more detailed review of these 10 counties and consultations with the stakeholders were then used to select 4 counties in which to provide the ILO Gender and Entrepreneurship Together (GET Ahead) training: Kakamega and Kisii in the Western region, and Embu and Kitui in the Eastern region.

In each of Kakamega, Kisii, Embu and Kitui counties field staff from Innovations for Poverty Action, Kenya, mapped out all market centers deemed as medium or large outside of the main cities. Field staff then conducted a market census, applying a 31-question listing questionnaire to each female-owned enterprise operating on a non-market day in these markets. This questionnaire took a median time of 15 minutes to complete, and collected data on business type, education, age, profits and sales, membership in women's associations or merry-go-rounds, and contact follow-up information. The listing operation took place one county at a time between June 3, 2013 and November 1, 2013.

After the census, three markets in Kakamega county were dropped because the number of women in these markets was too few. Researchers then applied an eligibility filter to determine which women to include in the baseline survey. This filter required the women to have reported profits, and not to have reported profits that exceeded sales; to have a phone number that could be used to invite them for training; to be 55 years old or younger; to not be running a business that only dealt with phone cards or m-pesa, or that was a school; that the person responding not be an employee; that the business not have more than 3 employees; that the business have profits in the past week between 0 and 4000 KSH; that sales in the past week be less than or equal to 50,000 KSH; and that the individual had at least one year of schooling. These criteria were chosen to reduce the amount of heterogeneity in the sample (thereby increasing our ability to detect treatment effects), and to increase the odds of being able to contact and find individuals again.

Applying this eligibility filter reduced the 6,296 individuals to 4,037 individuals (64%). Out of a target of 4,037 individuals, the team was able to interview 3,538 (87.6%) in time to consider them for inviting to training.

Randomization process

The individuals who had satisfied the screening criteria and completed the baseline survey were then assigned to treatment and control in a two-stage process:

First, markets were assigned to treatment (have some individuals in them invited to training) or control (no one in the market would be invited to training) status. Randomization was done within 35 strata defined by geographical region (within county) and the number of women surveyed in the market.

Then within each market, individuals were assigned to treatment (be invited to training) or control (not be invited to training) within treated markets by forming four strata, based on quartiles of weekly profits from the census (<=450, 451-800, 801-1500, 1501-4000), and then assigning half the individuals within each strata to training. When the number of individuals in the strata was odd, the odd unit was also randomly assigned to training. This resulted in 1,173 of the 2,161 individuals in treated markets being assigned to treatment, and 988 to control groups.

Additoinal details on sampling are abailable in Section 2 of the Working Paper provided under Related Materials.