Socio-Economic Factors and Sustainability of Women Empowerment Groups in Pastoralist Communities in Kenya: A Case of Tiaty Sub-County, Baringo County

Sustainability of women empowerment projects in the pastoralist communities is a significant element of societal development. It is true that women play key roles in providing the family with daily basic needs. However, it is through the establishment of institutions such as women groups that women and other agencies including the government can propagate the empowerment initiative. This study measured the effect of social economic factors on sustainability of women empowerment projects in the pastoralist communities in Kenya. The study focused on the influence of income generating activities, social capital, cultural orientation and education level on how they impact sustainability of women empowerment groups among pastoralist communities in Kenya and was carried out among women groups in Tiaty Sub County; Baringo County. Using descriptive research design 384 out of 3568 women in 182 registered women were sampled. In addition, five key informants including; area chiefs, representatives of financial institutions, and the Tiaty sub-county Social Services department were interviewed. Key Informant Interview (KII) guides and structured questionnaires were used to collect quantitative data and qualitative data respectively. Descriptive statistics was used to analyze quantitative data while qualitative data was organized and analyzed by themes. Using Pearson correlation coefficient, the findings established a direct and positive relationship between sustainability of women empowerment groups and independent variables; Income generating activities at R=0.934, Social capital at R=0.835. Further inference showed the proportionate contribution of independent variables factors towards sustainability of women empowerment groups at 87.23% (0.9342) from Income generating activities and 69.72%(0.8352) from Social capital respectively. Additionally the composite mean and standard deviation for income generating activities and social capital was M=3.92;SD=1.058, M=3.87;SD 0.859, respectively. This study observed that the income generating activities showed the highest Pearson correlation coefficient towards sustaining women empowerment groups. This study recommends; training women on income generating activities to aid in their empowerment and sustainability of groups, enacting proper legislation to accord equal opportunities to pastoralist women, sustaining programs to challenge male dominance in pastoralist and training women leaders on skills to ensure their groups are well run and managed.