CGSL Participation and Household Food Security Outcomes: A Difference-in-Differences Estimation in Three South Sudanese STATES

This article examines whether participation in Community Group Saving and Lending (CGSL) mechanisms is associated with improved household food-security outcomes in three rural South Sudanese states: Eastern Equatoria, Jonglei and Lakes State. It reformulates a mixed-methods doctoral study on CGSL mechanisms and rural agricultural development into a focused difference-in-differences (DID) article. Because the original thesis was not designed as a full household panel food-security survey, the DID component is presented as a transparent retrospective proxy estimation built from thesis variables on CGSL membership, agricultural productivity, access to credit, market-oriented production, technology adoption, working-capital scarcity and poverty-reduction pathways. The secondary analysis used 81 valid survey responses from a target of 85, supported by 17 interviews. CGSL members formed 53 percent of the valid sample and non-members formed 47 percent, creating a treatment-comparison structure across the three states. The reconstructed DID estimates suggest stronger improvement among CGSL members than among non-members for the household food-security proxy, agricultural productivity, market orientation, technology adoption and shock-coping capacity. The strongest proxy DID effect was observed for technology adoption, followed by household food security and productivity. These findings are consistent with the thesis results showing statistically significant associations between CGSL participation and agricultural productivity indicators, including a chi-square statistic of 15.92 and p = 0.0001, and a positive logistic regression coefficient for credit access and technology investment (beta = 1.9459, p = 0.026). The article concludes that CGSL participation can contribute to household food security through credit access, seasonal liquidity, savings discipline, input purchase and collective risk management. However, CGSLs cannot fully substitute for formal agricultural finance, storage investment, extension support, market infrastructure and climate-risk protection. Policy should therefore treat CGSLs as local food-security platforms that require linkage to public agricultural strategy, NGO capacity building and rural financial-sector reform.