How do large-scale development interventions induce cultural change? Watch the video (above) analysing this in the context of Jeevika, a World Bank-assisted poverty alleviation project targeted at women in Bihar.

In the first phase, the project substantially increased women’s autonomy and agency via a concerted effort to provide material and symbolic resources for disadvantaged women, and by creating new women-centred institutional structures. However, the expanded phase of the project was not as effective, and this presentation explores the reasons behind it.