Bicycles as a Conditional Asset Transfer to Boost Rural Girls’ Education Outcomes and Empowerment

A Randomized Controlled Trial on the Impact of Bicycles on Girls' Education and Empowerment Outcomes in Zambia was carried out by Innovations in Poverty Action. For the past 10 years, World Bicycle Relief has partnered with the Ministry of General Education in rural Zambia to implement their Bicycles for Educational Empowerment Program (BEEP), a study-to-own bicycle program for students, particularly girls, to improve school attendance, retention, and performance. The RCT measured the effect the bicycles had on the time it took to reach school, absenteeism, punctuality, mobility, dropout rates, and grade transitions, as well as empowerment measures such as learners’ locus of control, fertility choices, and aspirations.

Girls who received bicycles were:

• Were 19 percent less likely to drop out of school
• Were 22 percent less likely to be harassed
• Cut their commute time by one-third, saving more than an hour each day
• Scored higher on a mathematics assessment test
• Were 28 percent less likely to be absent
• Reported feeling more in control of the decisions affecting their lives
• Were 33 percent less likely to miss school or leave school early due to safety concerns
• Ranked themselves higher academically and had a greater belief in their potential to succeed in life.
• Were 66 percent more likely to arrive to school on time exhibited greater pro-sociality – including a greater willingness to help a friend
• Increased participation in local clubs and improved knowledge of local leadership