Evaluating Cooperative Membership’s Impact on Rural Household Empowerment: A Mixed-Methods Study in Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan

Abstract

Rural agricultural cooperatives are widely promoted as instruments for livelihood improvement, yet rigorous evidence on their multidimensional empowerment effects in fragile, conflict-affected settings is limited. This study uses a convergent mixed-methods impact evaluation to assess how cooperative membership influences economic, social and political empowerment among rural households in Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan. We surveyed 420 households (210 cooperative members; 210 matched non-members) and applied one-to-one nearest-neighbor propensity score matching (caliper = 0.05) to estimate the average treatment effect on the treated (ATT). Complementary thematic analysis of 24 in-depth interviews explains mechanisms behind observed effects. Quantitatively, membership increased annual farm income by USD 128.45 (p < .001), raised access to microcredit by 12.8 percentage points (p = .006), and increased women’s participation in household decision-making by 17.4 percentage points (p = .001). Members also scored higher on a social capital index (+0.65; p < .001) and reported greater community meeting attendance and leadership participation. Qualitative findings identify social capital building, peer mentoring, and collective bargaining as the primary pathways through which cooperatives deliver these gains. Results indicate that cooperatives—when adapted to local tribal governance and supported by selective incentives and mentoring—can foster multidimensional household empowerment even under institutional fragility. Policy implications include scaling hybrid governance models that integrate local elders, strengthen peer-mentoring, and embed in-kind incentives; future research should use longitudinal or experimental designs to confirm causal dynamics.