The Oaxaca Hope Project

Building directly on hope theory, the Hope Project intervention we evaluate in this study among microfinance borrowers explicitly reflects aspirations, pathways and agency as the three core elements of hope as a cognitive process.

We carried out an experiment to test whether an intervention designed to increase aspirational hope among borrowers can elevate microfinance impacts, in collaboration with Fuentes Libres, a microfinance lender in Oaxaca, Mexico.

We found that the intervention modestly increased indices measuring both aspirational hope and microenterprise performance over this time period. The intervention significantly increased employment and plans to hire new employees.

The Hope Treatment

Treatment impacts
Our treatment consists of:
  1. The screening of a 25-minute documentary that featured four successful borrowers from our study area
  2. Goal-setting exercises focused on the microenterprises of these women
  3. A hope curriculum and periodic follow-up messages related to the three components of hope implemented over the next 12 months
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Source: Can Hope Elevate Microfinance? Evidence from Oaxaca, Mexico. (Rojas, Wydick and Lybbert, 2020.)
Hope is malleable and can be increased by an external intervention. This increased hope elevates the performance of microenterprises with strong access to microfinance. We consider this to be one of the first rather than last words on the topic of aspirational hope and movements out of poverty.