Can Informal Savings Groups Promote Food Security and Social, Economic and Health Transformations, Especially among Women in Urban Sub-Saharan Africa: A Narrative Systematic Review

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript “Can informal savings groups promote food security and social, economic and health transformations, especially among women in urban sub-Saharan Africa: A Narrative Systematic Review” (sustainability-1609349) was aimed at conducting a narrative review regarding the roles of accumulating savings and credit associations or rotating savings and credit associations on mitigating food insecurity, promoting health, and/or increasing agency in women in urban sub-Saharan Africa.

This is the improved version of the previously-submitted manuscript (sustainability-1522845). The authors have taken into account the suggestions provided during the previous revision round and have successfully incorporated them into their resubmitted manuscript.

Author Response

Thank you Reviewer 1 for the opportunity to resubmit a revised draft of our manuscript titled “Can informal savings groups promote food security and social, economic and health transformations, especially among women in urban sub-Saharan Africa: A Narrative Systematic Review” to The Sustainability Journal. We appreciate the time and effort t dedicated to providing valuable feedback on our manuscript. We have reviewed the comments and incorporated changes in the manuscript to reflect suggestions provided by the reviewers. We have highlighted the changes within the manuscript and we have also provided responses to some of the comments. Below are detailed responses to each of your valuable comments.

We are pleased with the above decision and we thank you for your input which has been relevant to improving the quality of our manuscript.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

This systematic review was well done and on an important topic considering the important role savings group play in societies such as those in SSA.

Author Response

Thank you Reviewer 2 for the opportunity to resubmit a revised draft of our manuscript titled “Can informal savings groups promote food security and social, economic and health transformations, especially among women in urban sub-Saharan Africa: A Narrative Systematic Review” to The Sustainability Journal. We appreciate the time and effort t dedicated to providing valuable feedback on our manuscript. We have reviewed the comments and incorporated changes in the manuscript to reflect suggestions provided by the reviewers. We have highlighted the changes within the manuscript and we have also provided responses to some of the comments. Below are detailed responses to each of your valuable comments.

Thank you and we are grateful for the valuable input you have put in to improve our manuscript. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

I have seen a marked improvement in the paper compared to the previous edition and I am very pleased about that.
The suggestions have been taken on board and it can now be published as far as I am concerned.
Congratulations

Author Response

Thank you Reviewer 3 for the opportunity to resubmit a revised draft of our manuscript titled “Can informal savings groups promote food security and social, economic and health transformations, especially among women in urban sub-Saharan Africa: A Narrative Systematic Review” to The Sustainability Journal. We appreciate the time and effort t dedicated to providing valuable feedback on our manuscript. We have reviewed the comments and incorporated changes in the manuscript to reflect suggestions provided by the reviewers. We have highlighted the changes within the manuscript and we have also provided responses to some of the comments. Below are detailed responses to each of your valuable comments.

Thank you and we are grateful for your valuable input to improve our manuscript.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

I suggest that the authors highlight the main gaps in the literature that justify this research. In addition, it could be interesting to identify the main novelties of the paper.

I maintain my opinion that the paper could benefit from another organization of the several sections, subsections, points, subpoints, .....

 

In general with have: introduction, literarture review, material and methods, results, discussion and conclusions. The present structure of the paper is a little out of the standards.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 4

 

Response to Comment 1; Thank you for the comment. We have now added a few lines to reflect the main novelties of the paper more clearly. The gaps that our manuscript aimed to address had been addressed previously, and they are also included below  Lines 86-94

 

“The novelty of the paper is that it will provide insights into the strengths and importance of informal saving groups and opportunities as a public health multi-faceted intervention tool to promote agency in women, healthy lifestyle, social and economic stability that exists within ROSCAs/ASCAs that can be leverage on especially for women. This review will address the gaps in literature focusing on the following research questions: to what extent have ROSCAs/ASCAs been used to address food insecurity, but i) to increase agency in women and their economic leverage in urban areas sub-Saharan African settings. ii) to promote healthy lifestyles and well-being amongst their members, and, iii) to increase demand for and access to healthier food options. ”

 

Comment 2; I maintain my opinion that the paper could benefit from another organization of the several sections, subsections, points, subpoints, .....

 

Comment 3; In general with have: introduction, literature review, material and methods, results, discussion, and conclusions. The present structure of the paper is a little out of the standards.

 

Response to Comments 3 & 4: Thank you for the comment.  We have reviewed the structure that you have indicated, and we have to a considerable extent adhered to this structure as the structure outline of the main section of our manuscript like other narrative reviews

Introduction

Methods( We have changed the title of the section from Review Methods to Methods)

Results

Discussion

Health and policy implications

Strengths and limitations of the study

Conclusion and Recommendations

 

We have not included a section on literature review as the introduction provides information regarding that, many articles do not include literature reviews as a stand-alone section and our manuscript is a narrative review which is a type of literature review.

 

Below are some examples of narrative reviews that have been published in a similar structure

 

(Messina J, Campbell S, Morris R, Eyles E, Sanders C. A narrative systematic review of factors affecting diabetes prevention in primary care settings. PLoS One. 2017 May 22;12(5):e0177699.)

Available at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0177699

 

Aubert S, Brazo-Sayavera J, González SA, Janssen I, Manyanga T, Oyeyemi AL, Picard P, Sherar LB, Turner E, Tremblay MS. Global prevalence of physical activity for children and adolescents; inconsistencies, research gaps, and recommendations: a narrative review. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity. 2021 Dec;18(1):1-1. Available at https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12966-021-01155-2

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript “The Role of «Informal Saving Groups» in Mitigating Food Insecurity, Promoting Health, and Increasing Agency in Women in Urban Sub-Saharan Africa Settings: A Narrative Systematic Review” (sustainability-1522845) was aimed at conducting a narrative review regarding the roles of Accumulating Savings and Credit Associations (ASCAs) or Rotating Savings and Credit Associations (ROSCAs) on mitigating food insecurity, promoting health, and/or increasing agency in women in urban sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).

 

Below are my suggestions for improving the quality of the manuscript:

(1) At the end of Section 1, I suggest elaborating two more paragraphs: (a) one paragraph dedicated to explaining the structure of the paper, which could also include a brief description of each section; (b) a paragraph dedicated to explaining the novelty factor of the manuscript, while focusing on the literature gap that this review was aimed at filling.

(2) In the manuscript, the authors explained that community development, social interaction and social capital were excluded in this study, yet little explanation exists in relation with this exclusion. Therefore, I suggest providing more details regarding the reasons behind the selection in relation with the aim of the research.

(3) The manuscript contains a series of minor errors, such as:

(3a) Abstract: What is the meaning of PROSPERO CRD42020194328?

(3b) Citation (first page) needs to be updated, as now it references a different article: Citation: Yan, H.L.; Wang, X.Y.; E, L.B.; Huang, X.Y.; Wen, H.Z.; Chen, Y. The Impact of Foreign Trade and Urbanization on Poverty Reduction: Empirical Evidence from China. 2021, 13, x. https://doi.org/10.3390/xxxxx

(3c) Subsections 2.2 and 2.3.: Error! Reference source not found (this error occurred twice on page 3). Later, the same error also occurred in Section 3 (page 5), subsection 3.2 (page 6).

(3d) There is a reference that does not follow the MDPI standard: “World Food Summit, 1996”.

(3e) English proofreading is required: “These organisations exist in most low and middle income country” (in the abstract of the manuscript); “It also highlighted in our” (page 11).

(3f) Figure 2: “behavioural” is underlined with red and should be corrected.

(3g) The line spacing in the references section should be corrected, according to MDPI standards.

(3h) Appendix 1: The table should be larger and fit the whole page.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments attached

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper contains a narrative review on informal saving groups and their possible impact on social, economic and health aspects in the light of the current literature.

The methodological approach used is correct, starting with the choice of electronic databases.

The work is interesting even though it is limited to a defined area of the planet (sub-Saharan Africa) and contains a list of references that is not very recent.

In general, I approve its publication after a review of the initial part of the paper because one thing is not clear to the reader:

• the approach of the paper starting with the research question (in the introduction) focuses on the role of informal saving groups in mitigating food insecurity, health promotion and its role in increasing agency in women.

Instead, in the paragraph "Food security and well-being" it turns out that only 11 studies have directly discussed food security and only three have focused on women: "Many of the studies identified that funds from ROSCAs/ASCAs were used primarily for non-consumption purposes and that acquisition of food was rarely a priority".

Perhaps in light of the title of the paper, the discussion and the conclusions, the abstract and the premise should be rewritten with a broader slant on the sustainability of urban areas in sub-Saharan Africa with aspects of diet and reflections on health, obesity, etc. (which I think was a specific interest of the authors). (which I think was a specific interest of the authors).

Happy new year and good work

Reviewer 4 Report

About the submission with the title "THE ROLE OF “INFORMAL SAVING GROUPS” IN MITIGATING FOOD INSECURITY, PROMOTING HEALTH, AND INCREASING AGENCY IN WOMEN IN URBAN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA SETTINGS: A NARRATIVE SYSTEMATIC REVIEW" I have the following comments:

 

The topic and subjects addressed are interesting and pertinent, however the paper was not well structured. For example, the paper begins with a first section for "Background".

 

On the other hand, the way how the databases were selected to obtain the documents needs deeper explanations. For example, why these databases and not others.

 

In addition, it is hard to understand how the authors selected 28 documents to review. 

 

It seems to me that these 28 studies do not represent the literature about the topics addressed.

 

I regret, but the paper is very far from a version to be published.