How Giving Cash to Women Sparked Enterprise and Equality in Nigeria’s Poorest Villages

In a pivotal study titled "Cash Is Queen", researchers from the World Bank’s Africa Gender Innovation Lab and Development Research Group, Sreelakshmi Papineni, Paula Gonzalez, Markus Goldstein, and Jed Friedman, investigated the profound local economy effects of unconditional cash transfers (UCTs) targeted at ultra-poor women in rural Northern Nigeria. This rigorous field experiment, conducted with support from USAID and implemented by Catholic Relief Services (CRS), explores how even modest, no-strings-attached financial support to women can ignite broad-based economic growth and shift power dynamics within households and communities. The research offers both a blueprint and a challenge to existing assumptions around aid effectiveness, especially in regions marked by gendered constraints and economic marginalization.

Unlocking Female Entrepreneurship in Conservative Settings

The cash transfer program under study operated between 2015 and 2017 in Kebbi state, where the majority of households live below the poverty line and agricultural dependence is high. The intervention distributed 75,000 naira (approximately USD 693 in 2015 PPP terms) to the primary female member of selected ultra-poor households over 15 months. Notably, these transfers were unconditional, offering recipients full autonomy over how to spend the money. This approach removed the usual bureaucratic and social conditionalities often tied to aid, allowing for a clearer picture of women's decision-making in contexts with limited economic agency.

The outcomes were striking. Within months of the last transfer, female business ownership among recipients jumped by 12 percentage points, and a year later, this rose to 20 percentage points. These businesses were typically operated from or near the home, often in cooking, trading, or crop-processing, reflecting not only a strategic use of capital but also women’s navigation of restrictive social norms that disapprove of working outside the domestic sphere. The program thus revealed how, even in deeply patriarchal societies, women are willing and able to engage in economic activity when provided with basic financial capital.

Ripple Effects Beyond the Recipients

Perhaps most groundbreaking was the evidence of spillovers, economic gains extending beyond the direct beneficiaries. By endline, non-recipient women living in the same program villages were 13 percentage points more likely to own businesses than their counterparts in control villages that received no transfers. These women, too, experienced increases in household consumption, food security, and income. The mechanism? A localized boost in aggregate demand. As more women launched businesses and money circulated through local economies, new entrepreneurial opportunities emerged, even for those who had not received transfers. This dynamic was especially pronounced in villages with a higher density of cash recipients, highlighting the importance of concentrated interventions in creating ecosystem-wide impacts.

Beyond Business: Gains in Agriculture, Consumption, and Empowerment

The positive effects weren’t limited to non-farm enterprise. The study found notable improvements in agricultural productivity and investment. Both beneficiary and non-beneficiary households increased spending on inputs like fertilizers and reported significantly higher yields per hectare. This growth in agricultural output, alongside increased business income, contributed to significant welfare gains. At the end of the study period, both groups in the program villages reported better food security and higher daily consumption levels, with treatment households seeing a 39% rise in consumption and similarly large improvements in food access.

Equally important were the changes in household dynamics. Female recipients reported increased decision-making power, particularly in financial matters. The study found a clear movement from husband-dominated choices to joint decision-making between spouses. While norms around women’s employment in public remained largely unchanged, as many still feared social sanctions for working outside the home, the data revealed that strategic economic behaviors were evolving. Women were not waiting for permission to act; instead, they found ways to exercise agency within the limitations imposed by society. The study’s findings suggest that even without formal shifts in norms, practical changes in behavior and household power structures can emerge through economic empowerment.

A New Vision for Development Aid

The estimated partial income multiplier of 0.32, meaning every dollar transferred generated at least 32 cents in additional economic activity through women’s entrepreneurship alone, is a powerful endorsement of such interventions. Importantly, this figure is a conservative estimate, excluding gains from agriculture or wage work. The multiplier highlights a key insight from the study: that women’s labor is an underutilized factor in these settings. When activated through financial support, it can unlock significant economic potential not only for individual households but for entire communities.

Crucially, the most substantial spillover effects were only visible a year after the program ended. This has profound implications for how development programs are evaluated. Short-term assessments risk missing long-run and community-wide benefits. The findings underscore the importance of time in enabling local economies to absorb, adapt, and grow from targeted interventions.

By empowering women with direct, unconditional cash and observing not only the immediate effects but also the long-term ripple impacts, the Cash Is Queen study offers a compelling argument for rethinking poverty alleviation strategies. It makes the case for putting trust in women’s economic choices, for designing programs around local realities, and for evaluating success not just by the prosperity of the individual, but by the collective transformation of the community.