| Abstract: |
Self Help Groups (SHGs) support India’s rural-livelihood strategy through savings, lending, bank linkage and collective learning. This review examines what past work implies for livelihood enhancement through SHGs in East Khasi Hills District, Meghalaya. It brings district programme documents into dialogue with Indian impact evaluations, systematic reviews and institutional studies published from 2000 to 2023. This contextual synthesis is not a household survey. It finds a robust pathway from SHG membership to financial inclusion, social capital, information access and several forms of women’s agency. Evidence for sustained income, asset growth, labour-market outcomes and enterprise survival is more uneven: benefits depend on group maturity, credit size, complementary skills, market access, household norms and local ecology. East Khasi Hills is a demanding but promising setting because farming, horticulture, livestock, forest-linked activities and small trade coexist with hilly terrain, high rainfall, dispersed settlements and proximity to Shillong markets. Local cases show the relevance of collective nurseries, livestock, broom grass, betel leaf, black pepper and diversified farm enterprises. The review therefore argues that credit alone should not be treated as livelihood enhancement. Stronger results are likely when financial services are sequenced with technical extension, aggregation, quality assurance, transport and inclusive federation governance. A transparent thematic meta-synthesis, rather than a pooled statistical estimate, is used because studies define outcomes differently and seldom report compatible effect sizes. The paper concludes with a practical East Khasi Hills–specific implementation pathway and a measurement agenda that distinguishes access, agency, income stability, resilience and women’s control over gains. |
