This paper estimates the costs and Return on Investment of JEEViKA – a government-implemented rural livelihoods program that works with women’s self-help groups (SHGs) to promote financial inclusion, collective action, and livelihoods for rural women in Bihar, India. We estimate program costs using annual audit reports and combine the estimated costs with data from a randomized controlled trial that examined impacts on high-cost informal loans and consumption at two points – two years post, and seven years post program start. We further simulate long-term program impacts to estimate a range of ROIs based on different assumptions about costs and impact trajectories, because the original control sample had been exposed to the program by the seventh year. We find that 1 INR invested in the program increased consumption by 0.75 INR under the most conservative assumption, and by 4.9 INR under the least conservative assumption. Our estimation also indicates that the most conservative assumption can be reasonably ruled out because it does not align with the observed outcomes. In other words, we can reasonably but cautiously conclude that the program had a positive ROI after seven years.

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