Session: International Asset Building to Enhance Human Well-Being: Research and Emerging Opportunities in Sub-Saharan Africa, Israel, and Canada (Society for Social Work and Research 15th Annual Conference: Emerging Horizons for Social Work Research)

Background: The concept of asset building policies and programs emerged in the U.S. in the late 1980s and early 1990s out of social work practice and research. Since its conception, asset building has been incorporated into both policy and practice as a tool to encourage financial stability among low-income families. While numerous demonstrations and pilot projects have tested asset building projects such as individual development accounts (IDAs) and child development accounts (CDAs) in the U.S., governments and communities around the world have also been engaged in analogous asset based work. Practitioners and scholars working on asset building both in the U.S. and internationally are able to integrate ideas from both contexts, resulting in innovative frameworks to enhance wellbeing for children, youth and households. Social workers and policy makers can learn critical lessons from the intersection of international and U.S. based asset building interventions that pay particular attention to cultural, social and economic differences. This symposium presents three research projects testing asset building programs among vastly different populations and with diverse policy goals: a longitudinal IDA demonstration to increase adult education among low-income Canadians, matched savings to improve economic self-sufficiency among youth and their families in Uganda, and IDAs to increase the economic power of low-income women in Israel. Each presenter will discuss the intervention, research design, and findings as well as implications for policy and practice and upcoming research projects.

Methods: The three papers presented in this symposium represent a range of rigorous research methods, including randomized experimental designs, quasi-experimental designs, and longitudinal studies. Both quantitative and qualitative data are analyzed using advanced methods to test research hypotheses to inform policy and program development.

Results: The first study presents results from a large-scale experimental IDA demonstration in Canada to encourage low-income adults to save for education or self-employment. Tested over a five year period, the intervention increased both the enrollment in educational programs and the quality of programs selected by participants. The second study finds that an asset intervention in rural Uganda had a statistically significant positive effect on the treatment group's perceived household economic stability and wealth. The final study presents findings from the first-ever implementation of the IDA model in Israel, to support low-income women in microenterprise. The study finds that women were able to save and that saving patterns differed by location and ethnicity.

Conclusions: This symposium addresses important questions about translating interventions across cultural and political contexts. The goal of each study is to advance knowledge of how asset building can be shaped to meet the diverse needs of populations around the world. The range of research methodologies and findings present a beginning framework for evaluating the impacts of such interventions on the wellbeing of the targeted populations. Given the rapidly expanding policies and programs being implemented globally, inclusive asset based policies targeted specifically toward poor families should be a part of a broader, widely supported social policy initiative supported and led by social workers.