Women’s Action Committees and Local Services in Nigeria (Metaketa V)

Adida, Claire L.; Arriola, Leonardo; Kosec, Katrina; Matanock, Aila M.; and Mo, Cecilia Hyunjung. 2023. Women’s Action Committees and Local Services in Nigeria (Metaketa V). Open Science Foundation Preprint. https://osf.io/7qg4s

This study is part of Metaketa V, and will test whether training interventions designed to strengthen women’s sense of collective efficacy improve their voice and agency in local political engagement via a randomized control trial to be implemented in three southwestern states of Nigeria (Ogun, Osun, and Oyo) in 2023. In both treatment and control communities (i.e., wards), we will recruit previously unaffiliated women to join women’s action committees (WACs) to be trained by ActionAid Nigeria: 1/3 of WACs (control group) will receive basic training in civic education; 1/3 (treatment group 1) will receive civic education training in addition to intensive training in leadership, organizing, and advocacy, intended to build women’s collective agency and improve their articulation of demands to policymakers and policymakers’ responsiveness to them; and 1/3 (treatment group 2) will receive the same training as treatment group 1 and their husbands will be invited to participate in a parallel men’s training focused on men’s allyship in women’s empowerment and gender equality. We will examine the effects of the treatments on both attitudinal and behavioral outcomes focused on the level and quality of women’s political participation and on policy responsiveness, including whether women apply for a small grant opportunity to be allocated by local representatives in their community and the quality of their application. We will also examine potential mechanisms for these effects, which include levels of perceived injustice, group identity, group efficacy, and informedness, as well as the size of political networks and the closeness of policy priorities and preferences among participating women.