Building Resilient Livelihoods

Between 2018 and 2021, the country was beset by multiple crises: severe droughts in 2018 and 2021, escalating violence, and the COVID-19 pandemic, fundamentally affected Afghans' livelihoods, creating an even more fragile context. In 2021, five years after households started receiving the program, and shortly prior to the regime change in August 2021, ultra-poor women in the treatment group continued to have significantly higher levels of consumption, assets, market work participation, financial inclusion, children's school enrollment, and women's psychological well-being and empowerment, relative to the control group. Households boost resilience by diversifying productive activities and the program improves equality by reducing the gaps between ultra-poor and non-ultra- poor households across multiple dimensions