TY  - JOUR
AU  - Gugerty,Mary Kay
AU  - Kremer,Michael
TI  - Outside Funding of Community Organizations: Benefiting or Displacing the Poor?
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 7896
PY  - 2000
Y2  - September 2000
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w7896
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w7896.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Michael Kremer
Harvard University
Department of Economics
Littauer Center M20
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: 617/495-9145
Fax: 617/495-7730
E-Mail: mkremer@fas.harvard.edu
AB  - In response to the widespread consensus on the importance of social capital, and to concerns about the scarcity of institutions giving voice to disadvantaged groups, some donors have begun programs designed to strengthen indigenous community organizations. We use a prospective, randomized evaluation to examine a development program explicitly targeted at building social capital among rural women's groups in western Kenya. The program increased turnover among group members. It increased entry into group membership and leadership by younger, more educated women, by women employed in the formal sector, and by men. The analysis suggests that providing development assistance to indigenous community organizations of the disadvantaged may change the very characteristics of these organizations that made them attractive to outside funders.
ER  -