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Good practice Imported

Personal Initiative Training — Rewiring Entrepreneurial Mindset for Microenterprises in Lomé

Togo · Lomé · See the Togo profile · See the Lomé profile

Evidence: Randomised controlled trial Top 39% 71/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

A psychology-based 'personal initiative' training for 1,500 Lomé microentrepreneurs raised monthly profits 30% within 2.5 years and USD 91 (52%) after 7 years — far outperforming traditional business training, though women's gains dissipated while men's kept growing.

1,500 participants
Microenterprise owners recruited into the randomised trial (2014)
30 %
Monthly profit increase, personal-initiative group, at 2.5-year follow-up (2014-2016)
28,709 CFA francs (~USD 60)
Monthly profit increase in local currency, personal-initiative group, at 2.5-year follow-up (2014-2016)
11 %
Monthly profit change, traditional business-training group (statistically insignificant), at 2.5-year follow-up (2014-2016)
91 USD (52%)
Monthly profit gain above control, personal-initiative group, at 7-year follow-up (7-year follow-up (to ~2021))
148 USD (77%)
Monthly profit gain above control, male participants, at 7-year follow-up (7-year follow-up)

Details

Promoter
World Bank Africa Gender Innovation Lab; Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA)
Period
2014–2016 (RCT); 7-year follow-up to 2021
Keywords
entrepreneurship training, behavioural economics, microenterprise development

Context

In 2014 the World Bank's Africa Gender Innovation Lab and Innovations for Poverty Action recruited 1,500 microenterprise owners in Lomé, Togo for a randomised trial testing whether a psychology-based 'personal initiative' training could raise business profits more than a traditional business-skills course.

Objectives

The trial set out to test whether teaching proactive, self-starting behaviours — goal-setting, opportunity identification, feedback cycles — could outperform a standard IFC Business Edge management-skills course in raising microenterprise profits.

Activities

Participants were randomly assigned in roughly equal groups of about 500 to personal-initiative training, traditional business training, or a no-training control group.

Results

At the 2.5-year mark, the personal-initiative group's monthly profits had risen by about 30% (28,709 CFA francs, roughly USD 60), while the traditional-training group's 11% change was not statistically significant; a seven-year follow-up found the personal-initiative group's monthly profits remained USD 91 (52%) above the control group, with the training paying for itself within about a year.

Conclusions

The long-run gains were unevenly distributed: male participants' profits grew to USD 148 (77%) above control as they accumulated capital and confidence, while women's gains — starting from less capital and facing greater constraints on reinvestment — were only about a quarter as large, showing that mindset training alone does not close the capital gap limiting women's business growth.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Low (< €50k) — The training programme paid for itself within about a year, per the 7-year follow-up study.
Time to results
Long (> 3 years)
Staffing & skills
World Bank Africa Gender Innovation Lab, Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA), local training providers delivering the personal-initiative curriculum

Conditions for success

  • Randomised assignment across roughly equal groups enabling rigorous comparison
  • Curriculum focused on proactive behaviours (goal-setting, opportunity identification, feedback cycles) rather than standard business-skills content
  • Long-run (7-year) follow-up tracking to confirm sustained effects

Common failure modes

  • Long-run gains were unevenly distributed by gender: women's effect was only about a quarter of men's, as they started with less capital and faced greater constraints on reinvestment

Commonly funded by

Philanthropic / foundation funding

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

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