We show that extremely poor, war-affected women in northern Uganda have high returns to a package
of $150 cash, five days of business skills training, and ongoing supervision. 16 months after grants,
participants doubled their microenterprise ownership and incomes, mainly from petty trading. We
also show these ultrapoor have too little social capital, but that group bonds, informal insurance, and
cooperative activities could be induced and had positive returns. When the control group received
cash and training 20 months later, we varied supervision, which represented half of the program costs.
A year later, supervision increased business survival but not consumption.