Type of Review: Annual Review
Project Title: Economic Empowerment of the Poorest (EEP)
Date started: January 2008
Date review undertaken: November 4th-15th 2012
Introduction and Context
What support is the UK providing?
The UK is providing up to £71.2m over 8 years from January 2008 to enable 1 million Bangladeshis to
lift themselves out of extreme poverty. A highly competitive and independently evaluated challenge
fund process is used to select NGOs to provide services to beneficiary households. There are two
challenge funds – a Scale Fund for promoting proven approaches to extreme poverty reduction and a
smaller Innovation Fund which tests and adapts innovative approaches. These are complemented by
research and advocacy programmes that are intended to transform the way in which extreme poverty
is addressed by government, donors, NGOs and the public.
An additional component to provide direct nutrition support to the programme’s beneficiaries has been
developed and will start in 2013.
What are the expected results?
The original intended Outcome of the Economic Empowerment of the Poorest programme (EEP) is that
1 million people have lifted themselves out of extreme poverty by 2015. The average daily per capita
income of Scale Fund beneficiary households at enrolment (March 2010) was 18 Taka, which was worth
about 19 pence at the time. For women headed beneficiary households living in rural areas (approx 40%
of beneficiary households) it was as low as 13 Taka. This indicates that EEP is successfully targeting the
poorest 3-5% of the population. There are five outputs that together are intended to achieve the
Outcome.
Output One is to support NGOs to scale up proven methods of addressing extreme poverty. Grants are
awarded from the Scale Fund to finance selected projects. The original target of 120,000 beneficiary
households to benefit through direct interventions under this output has been substantially exceeded.
Under Output 2 a further 30,000 households will be enrolled in extreme poverty reduction projects that
are innovative in nature. These are financed through grants from the Innovation Fund. The innovations
will be tested and evaluated, and successful ones will be promoted for scaling-up. The commitment to
significantly enhance the livelihoods of Innovation Fund participants is no less rigorous than for the Scale
Fund.
Output Three is to increase consistency in the approach to the reduction of extreme poverty in
Bangladesh. This is done through internal lesson-learning between projects within the programme and
through a research programme that encompasses a wider community of stakeholders involved in
extreme poverty reduction. The latest official data (Household Income and Expenditure Survey 2010)
shows that 17.1% of the population – more than 25 million people – are living below the lower poverty
line. These are the people that EEP research aims to help, by influencing policy and by improving the
design of poverty focused interventions.
Output Four develops the findings from Output Three by advocating to ensure that the needs of the
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extreme poor are reflected in national and local government policy and programme implementation. The
programme uses a range of advocacy tools including publications, electronic and social networking
media, the published press, workshops and meetings.
Output Five is a new component that will provide direct nutritional support to all EEP beneficiary
households with pregnant and lactating women, babies, young children and adolescent girls. Start Up
activities are underway and full implementation will commence in early 2013. Therefore this Output is
not considered further in this review.
What is the context in which UK support is provided?
While Bangladesh has experienced good progress in poverty reduction over recent years, and is on
track to achieve MDG1, there are still more than 25m people who are classified as extreme poor. While
economic growth has the potential to impact positively on general poverty, chronic poverty is
particularly stubborn as it is concentrated in specific regions, amongst marginalised and vulnerable sub
sections of the population and has a strong gender dimension. The poorest and most excluded are
also the worst affected and the least able to recover from frequent natural (eg cyclones, flooding) and
unnatural (eg slum eviction or fire) disasters. When a family rises from the depths of poverty it remains
highly vulnerable to exogenous shocks which can make them slip back down.
The Government of Bangladesh (GoB) has made a commitment to becoming a middle income country
by 2021 and associated with this is an expectation of eradicating poverty, let alone extreme poverty.
However government social safety nets, although numerous, are fragmented, poorly implemented and
underfunded. The government has made a commitment to the reform of social protection and donors,
led by DFID and Ausaid, are supporting the process. The European Union intends to deliver its 201318 food security programme through an established GoB safety net programme. However in the short
term donor-funded programmes, largely implemented by NGOs, represent the most pragmatic
approach to extreme poverty reduction. Other extreme poor focussed projects supported by DFID
include BRACs Challenging the Frontiers of Poverty Reduction (CFPR, now part of the Strategic
Partnership Initiative), the Chars Livelihoods Programme and, in an urban context, UPPR (Urban
Partnerships for Poverty Reduction). EEP has played a leading role in establishing excellent
collaboration across these programmes.
Section A: Detailed Output Scoring
Output 1: Proven approaches to improving the livelihoods of the extreme poor taken to scale.
(Scale Fund)
Output 1 score and performance description: A++ Outputs substantially exceeded expectation
Indicators
Milestones for this
review 2012
Progress
1.1 Extreme Poor
Direct beneficiary
households selected
for Scale Fund
activities (cum)
75,000
180,540 Beneficiary households selected
(CMS 1 – CMS is EEP’s Change Monitoring
System)
Achievement exceeded expectation by
140% (A++)
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1.2 Primary
intervention (assets,
skills training)
delivered to
beneficiary
households (cum)
71,250
1.3 Proportion of
eligible beneficiaries
still involved in the
project after 2 years
(cum)
60,000 (80%)
93,129 Beneficiary households have
participated in primary interventions
(95%)
Achievement exceeded expectation by 30%
(A++)
According to CMS3 data 88.5% of households
undertaking Survey 1 in March 2010 also
participated in Survey 7 in March 2012, so
overall attrition rate after 2 years is 11.5%.
This can be an overestimate since survey
attrition can happen even if the household is
still involved in the project.
Applying this to the number of beneficiary
households who were involved in the project
in 2010 (88,850) gives an estimate of 73,320
still involved after 2 years.
Achievement exceeds expectation by 22%
(A++)
1.4 Proportion of all
(current and
previous) Scale
Fund households
that are regularly
monitored
100% of all Scale Fund households are
included in the CMS1 baseline survey but
regular monitoring of all households by CMS2
will not be rolled out for another few weeks.
The CMS3 panel survey uses a sampling
frame which includes all Scale Fund
households.
95%
Achievement did not meet expectation (B)
Summary of Progress against expected results:
Indicator 1.1: The Scale Fund milestones for numbers of beneficiary households to be directly
engaged in project activity have remained constant since programme inception. The original target of
120,000 households for Output 1 would not directly achieve the Outcome level target of 1 million
people raising themselves out of extreme poverty. The target of 1 million people at Outcome level was,
at programme design, deemed aspirational and to be provided through a combination of direct and
indirect targeting of beneficiaries (eg via advocacy impact). In 2010, the EEP Management Team
determined that the Outcome target of 1 million people lifted out of extreme poverty was achievable by
direct targeting of beneficiaries using challenge fund resources. Hence, the programme is currently
working to enrol 221,860 direct beneficiary households or 184% of the original target. . Of this new
target, 180,540 households have been selected; 81% of the revised total of 221,860 households. This
comprises 82,943 participants in the six Scale Fund Round 1 projects, plus an additional 71,070 (out of
planned 96,000 by 2013) new entrants to Scale Fund Round 1 phase 2 and 26,527 (out of 43,000 by
2013) beneficiary households under the three Scale Fund Round 2 projects.
The EEP monitoring programme has shown that the average beneficiary household has about 3.6
members. Thus the total number of Scale Fund beneficiaries currently stands at about 650,000 and
this will increase when all 221,860 households have joined to 800,000 people. The number of
households targeted under Output 2 (the Innovation Fund) is 30,000, representing another 108,000
people, making a total of 908,000 direct beneficiaries of the two funds. In their logframes most of the
Scale Fund projects assume a success rate of about 75%, on which basis EEP has the potential to
directly bring about 681,000 people out of extreme poverty. To directly bring 1m people out of extreme
poverty on the same assumption of a 75% success rate would require inclusion of 370,000 households
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in challenge fund projects. Apart from the obvious cost implications, this would require a major new
bidding round for which there is no longer time. Therefore the management agency needs to reassess
its targets for direct and indirect assistance, and may wish to discuss with DFID a reduction in the
Outcome total of 1 million people lifted out of extreme poverty. It should then update its milestones for
the remainder of the project basing them on its updated plans.
Indicator 1.2: The number of beneficiary households that have received their primary intervention
(usually an income generating asset, but it might be skills training or some other kind of assistance) is
currently 93,129, which significantly exceeds the original numerical milestone of 71,250, but is not
close to the proportional milestone of 95% of the value of Indicator 1 (which comes to 171,513
households) . This is because of the large number of households that have recently been selected but
have not yet begun to receive their asset or other primary benefit. As benefits are expected to be
provided within 12 months of selection, the milestones should be amended to reflect 95% of the
previous year’s value for indicator 1 (updated annually to reflect actual data).
Indicator 1.3: The calculated figure of 73,320 still involved in the programme after 2 years comfortably
exceeds the milestone, however the means of determination (participation in surveys) doesn’t
necessarily imply that beneficiaries have active involvement in the project. Indeed it isn’t clear what ‘still
involved’ means, nor if it is relevant. In some cases the asset may be given in the first few months and
the beneficiary might not require involvement over a period of two years. In other cases – for instance
where employment opportunities have been negotiated by a project – there would be a stronger case
for continuing involvement. Furthermore the timeframe (2 years) necessitates determining the
households which entered the programme 2 years ago, and their continuing involvement, which is not
the same as considering all of the households which were in the programme 2 years ago (ie including
those that joined more than 2 years ago). It is questionable whether this is a meaningful indicator and it
would be more relevant to determine how many of the beneficiary households are still involved in
livelihoods activities which were stimulated by the primary intervention covered by Indicator 1.2.
Indicator 1.4: It is not clear whether this indicator refers to regular monitoring as meaning routine
contact with NGO field workers, or if it refers to the new EEP strategy of regular “snapshot” monitoring
of all Scale Fund households (Change Management System no.2 - CMS2). This system, using mobile
phone technology, has been piloted in two phases over a period of about 18 months and will become
fully operational in 2013. However at this point most households are not being regularly monitored
under the CMS. This indicator is not relevant to Output 1 and should be removed, or possibly
transferred to Output 3.
Recommendations:
There is a need for EEP to update its target for directly lifting beneficiaries out of extreme poverty. The
calculation above was based on NGO’s logframe estimates of 75% success rate. Actual data is now
available for Scale Fund Round 1 Phase 1 households, enabling a more accurate estimate to be made.
This will help in arriving at an updated target, but it is first necessary to confirm that the NGO indicators
represent a reasonable assessment of graduation. This is discussed in more detail below.
EEP intends to offer targeted supplementary support to households that can be identified to be making
insufficient progress or falling back. Having accepted that not all households will graduate from
extreme poverty as a result of their participation in the programme, there is a need to focus this support
to those who have shown potential to succeed but have suffered a shock – for instance a natural
disaster, eviction from a slum etc. – so that they can resume their good progress. Those households
which do not show sufficient signs of progress after normal follow-up support from their Scale Fund
NGO should not receive targeted supplementary support but should instead be proposed for safety-net
or other relevant support through linkages with local government institutions. Additionally EEP should
use its research resources to learn lessons from the households that do not show signs of success.
These lessons would include how to better identify such households and the reasons why they are not
successful. It would then become possible, in future, for interventions to be developed that better suit
their needs.
The logframe should be updated as indicated above. The existing indicators relate to the ‘taken to
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scale’ part of the Outcome statement. In addition (albeit retrospectively) there needs to be an indicator
that ensures that the Scale Fund projects represent ‘proven approaches’.
Impact Weighting (%): 50%
Revised since last Annual Review? No
Risk: Medium
Revised since last Annual Review? No
Output 2: Innovative approaches to improve the livelihoods of the extreme poor tested,
evaluated and successes ready for scaling up.
Output 2 score and performance description: A++ Outputs substantially exceeded expectation
Indicators
Milestones for this
review
Progress
2.1 Extreme Poor
Households selected
for Innovation Fund
activities (cum)
15,000
23,996 BHH selected over 4 Innovation
Rounds
Round One – 6 completed Projects
(6,754HH)
Round Two – 6 completed Projects
(5,449HH)
Round Three – 7 underway projects
(6,795HH)
Round Four – 8 underway projects (4,998HH)
Achievement exceeded expectation by 60%
(A++)
2.2 Primary
intervention (assets,
skills training)
delivered to
beneficiary
households (cum)
14,250 (95%)
19,965 beneficiaries have undertaken
economic empowerment activities
Round One – 6 completed Projects
(6,7547HH)
Round Two – 6 completed Projects (5,449HH)
Round Three – 7 underway projects (5,324HH)
Round Four – 8 underway projects (2,438 HH)
Achievement exceeded expectation by 40%
(A++)
2.3 Innovation Fund
lesson learning
reports produced
100% of projects at end of
cycle
12 comprehensive lesson learning reports
have been produced covering Innovation
Rounds 1 and 2 projects, 11 of which ended in
Aug 2012 (1 ends Jan 2013)
Achievement meets expectation (A)
2.4 Innovations that
progress to Scale
No milestone – process is in place to scale
up some IFR1 and IFR2 projects in Jan 2013.
0 (first target is 2013)
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(via any funding
route).
Some NGOs pursuing other funding routes for
scale up (eg GPAF)
Summary of Progress against expected results:
Indicators 2.1 and 2.2: These have both exceeded their milestones. They echo the first two indicators
of Output 1, and similar comments apply.
Indicator 2.3: The 12 projects awarded under Innovation Fund Rounds 1 and 2 finished during 2012
(except for one that will finish in January 2013) and detailed Lesson Learning Reports have been
prepared for each one. The evaluation process was both rigorous and participatory, cross validating
results from the implementing NGOs, an independent endline survey and beneficiaries. However the
evaluation focussed on the level of improvement to beneficiaries’ livelihoods rather than on the
performance of the innovative aspect of the intervention. Several of the projects that appeared to be
offering insufficient benefit to lift their beneficiaries from extreme poverty were modified by the provision
of ‘safe’ (proven) activities which were unrelated to the innovation. In those cases the evaluation of
livelihoods was greatly influenced by the performance of the proven activities and there was insufficient
testing, evaluation and documentation of the actual innovations themselves.
Indicator 2.4: Although this indicator (the number of innovative projects that become scaled up via any
funding source) does not have a milestone until 2013, it is relevant to comment at this stage. This is an
Outcome indicator. Relevant Output indicators would be the preparation and targeted dissemination to
relevant stakeholders of technical guidelines for selected innovations. The Lesson Learning Reports
make a good starting point, and their opening sections do discuss some technical strengths and issues
relating to the innovations, but they are not intended to be technical documents. Specific documentation
is required drawing on the technical lessons learned, and describing modifications and alternative
approaches that may be suggested by the beneficiaries, NGO fieldworkers and others closely involved
in the implementation.
Recommendations:
Output 2 was not very well specified in the original design. The two objectives of bringing 30,000
households out of extreme poverty and undertaking high risk interventions to identify and promote
innovative ways of addressing extreme poverty do not sit comfortably together. EEP has prioritised the
first objective over the second, citing its duty of care to the beneficiaries as a reason to reduce risk.
Thus where innovations did not appear to be working, it supported the incorporation of proven activities
to improve beneficiaries’ livelihoods – thus effectively transforming several of the Innovation fund
projects into mini Scale Fund projects. This has resulted in better outcomes for the beneficiaries, but
has not enabled the innovations themselves to be adequately tested. The Output statement suggests
that the prioritisation should have been towards the testing and evaluation of innovations followed by
the distribution and dissemination of lessons learned and the development of the most successful cases
into dossiers ready for others to follow in future. It would be a valid outcome for lessons to be drawn
and disseminated not only from the successful cases, but also from those which did not show promise
under any circumstances, to avoid wasteful repetition. The programme could also explore innovations
that showed only limited promise in the test circumstances, but which might have been more successful
in different contexts, such as in different locations or with different target groups. The high risk implies
that there would be some failures, suggesting the involvement of a relatively small number of
households with a procedure for compensation in the case of unsuccessful innovations. It is a pity that
the situation was not clarified much earlier in the project timeframe either by changing some of the
indicators or even by modifying the Output statement.
While some Innovation Fund projects in Rounds 1 and 2 have been criticised previously for being
insufficiently innovative, it is still important to learn, document and disseminate as much as possible
about the specific innovations. Without this, the whole exercise of Output 2 will have been diminished.
In the course of such investigations it is likely that modifications or adaptations of project designs would
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be identified that would lead to useful ideas for future innovation testing or to new contexts in which to
test the innovations. Examples that arose during the Annual Review team visits to five Innovation Fund
projects include:
1. transition from providing cows and undertaking oestrous synchronisation to training villagers to
become paravets with capacity to promote oestrous synchronisation and artificial insemination
among the tens of thousands of beneficiaries receiving cows from other extreme poverty
reduction programmes (example of a new innovation to test); and
2. demonstrating biogas performance for electricity generation to bodies such as the Rural
Electrification Board. The board has the mandate to bring electricity to remote villages and is
thus a potential stakeholder for scaling up this technology (example of a changed context for the
innovation.
It might turn out that these ideas are not viable, but they demonstrate that more detailed investigation
could lead to ideas that could strengthen the initial innovation and help to produce viable packages for
scaling up by others. There is still time to undertake such investigations for most of the Innovation Fund
round 1 and 2 projects, albeit ex-post, and it is recommended to do so as soon as possible. This would
allow the possibility to use IF funds to undertake new projects that could develop or augment the
original innovations. For rounds 3 and 4, an innovation testing component should be included in the
monitoring programme.
Impact Weighting (%): 20%
Revised since last Annual Review? Yes- revised upwards (from 15%) to reflect the balance of
programme activity and funding
Risk: High
Revised since last Annual Review? No
Output 3: Increasing consistency in the understanding, sharing and application of approaches
to addressing extreme poverty
Output 3 score and performance description: A++ Outputs substantially exceeded expectation
Indicators
Milestones for this
review
3.1 Level of
Cross portfolio
lesson learning
activity
At least 3 (cum) LL
events undertaken
Involving most Scale
and some Innovation
Fund partners
Progress
7 Lesson Learning Workshops have taken place (3
in the last year) involving all Scale Fund and local
Innovation Fund Partners. The most recent hosted
by Concern in Sylhet (Sept 12) including 9 Scale
Fund projects plus CNRS (Innovation Fund)
Achievement exceeded expectation by in excess
of 100% (A++)
3.2 Wider
Research and
sharing activities
Quarterly meetings
include other DFID pro
poor programmes
8 Extreme Poverty Research Group (EPRG)
meetings have taken place (4 in the last year) with a
steadily broadening participation. Other DFID propoor programmes have attended all or most and
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(EPRG)
have made presentations at several. EEP has also
hosted regular meetings of extreme poverty portfolio
programme team leaders.
Achievement meets expectation (A)
3.3 Number of
Research
Publications
At least 8 (cum) working
papers and/or policy
briefs published via
website
10 working papers have been published via the
website, see
http://www.shiree.org/research/workingpapers/#.UIzIrsXA-a8
There are also 5 policy briefs, see
http://www.shiree.org/advocacy/policybriefs/#.UIzJA8XA-a8 and several other publications
Several publications have been referenced on the
DFID R4D site see for example:
http://www.dfid.gov.uk/r4d/PDF/Outputs/EEP/ShireeWP1.pdf
Achievement exceeded expectation by in excess
of 100% (A++)
Summary of Progress against expected results:
As can be seen the milestones have been achieved (3.2) or exceeded, although it seems misleading to
call documents published on the project’s website ‘research publications’ (Indicator 3.3). The indicators
are weak, simply reflecting activities. The Annual Review team could not find a research strategy, and
were unclear about what issue the output statement is intended to solve.
This output has established a strong momentum with research projects and CMS analysis producing a
growing stream of findings which are mainly disseminated on the project website. Given an expansion
to 12 Research Officers (embedded in different NGOs) in 2012, the capacity of the EEP team (both in
Dhaka and remotely from Bath) to guide the research process is under strain. The managing agent is
recommending that a full time Research Manager be employed in Dhaka who could develop the
research programme and support the existing young professional and the Research Officers. The
Research Manager could also guide the development of the Extreme Poverty Research Group (EPRG)
and enhance engagement with the local research community and think tanks (as recommended by the
Mid-term Review). The EPRG is proving to be a successful device which focuses on practitioners and
practical issues, thereby filling a gap not occupied by other institutions or forums.
The Change Monitoring System (CMS) is becoming a mature system, and the introduction of CMS2 in
the coming months will provide an opportunity to streamline and adapt some of the other modules. The
final three years of the programme provide a great opportunity to use the outputs of the various CMS
instruments both collectively (combining the best aspects of quantitative and qualitative investigation)
and individually for creative investigation into the dynamics of extreme poverty that could have lasting
impact in Bangladesh and elsewhere.
Recommendations:
Outputs 3 & 4 are about the programme’s wider influence on policy and practice. Technically, the move
to meet the Outcome target of lifting 1 million extreme poor from poverty entirely from households
receiving direct interventions makes outputs 3 and 4 redundant in terms of the logframe. In the original
project memorandum Outputs 3 & 4 contributed partly by indirectly ‘topping up’ the number of
beneficiaries to 1 million, and partly to support a second purpose statement which was to transform the
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way in which government, donors and NGOs tackle extreme poverty in Bangladesh (paragraph 2.01 of
the Project Memorandum). There is nothing left of that statement in the current Outcome statement.
This is perhaps why neither Output 3 nor 4 has a clearly defined strategy. There are overlaps between
Outputs 3 and 4, in that much of the research (Output 3) feeds into policy development (Output 4) and
there are shared interests in the Lesson Learning workshops, EPRG and Extreme Poverty Day etc.
Formulating a comprehensive research and advocacy strategy should be done as soon as possible. It
might transpire that the linkages are sufficiently strong to justify merging the two outputs. When the
strategy emerges (or strategies emerge), the logframe should be updated to clearly show how the
output(s) contribute to the Outcome.
A case can be put forward for a full time manager of the research, policy development and advocacy
component of the programme, the main question being whether this person should be appointed
before the above process, to help guide it, or after it, when the key responsibilities and hence required
background of the candidate can be better elaborated. The latter is more appropriate, but external
support might also be required to assist the strategic planning process.
The CMS would also benefit from an overall manager responsible not only for ensuring the efficiency of
the system as it matures, but also for ensuring that the full potential of the data is exploited by
developing appropriate modalities for making it available to a wider audience.
Impact Weighting (%): 10%
Revised since last Annual Review? Yes – reduced downward from 20% to accommodate the
inclusion of Output 5 (Nutrition Component)
Risk: Low
Revised since last Annual Review? No
Output 4: Policy and practice at local and national levels shows increasing recognition of the
needs of the extreme poor
Output 4 score and performance description: A+ Outputs moderately exceeded expectation
Indicators
Milestones for this
review
Progress
4.1 Advocacy
campaigns
At least 2 national and
2 local advocacy
events /campaigns
(cum)
National advocacy has been continuous and has evolved
from awareness raising regarding the issue of extreme
poverty to targeting specific messages and
recommendations as currently through the Manifesto for the
Extreme Poor. Instruments used include the press via an
active op-ed campaign, national and local events, numerous
publications (policy briefs, monitoring outputs, lesson
learning reports) and a developing use of social media
(Flikr, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube).
Achievement exceeded expectation (A++)
4.2 Private
Sector Actors
Develop framework
for private sector
A series of meetings have been held with private sector
actors which have informed the development of a private
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involved with
EEP partners
engagement
sector engagement strategy. A number of firms have shown
an interest in partnering with EEP from a Corporate Social
Responsibility perspective. This is a complex field of great
potential that will undoubtedly grow in importance - the
programme is progressing with several specific private
sector partnerships that will further inform an emergent
strategy.
Achievement meets expectation (A)
4.3 Extreme
poor have
access to the
range of GoB
safety nets
90% report having no
access to Safety Nets
(CMS2) = Baseline
2012
CMS2 monitoring over 9 months during 2011/2012 showed
an average of 84% of beneficiaries answering NO to the
question “ Have you received any Government Safety net in
the last month?” This baseline therefore needs to be
adjusted.
N/A This is the baseline for this indicator
Summary of Progress against expected results:
Over the past year this output has been involved in:
• Extreme Poverty Day
• Local Government advocacy (focused on state-owned khas land)
• National Government advocacy (access to services for extreme poor)
• Private sector potential linkages (explored with 7 companies)
• Media campaigns
• Workshops to explore options for the Extreme Poor to develop skills
• Social media and website enhanced
However major focus has been on the Manifesto for the Extreme Poor. This is currently being
elaborated through a participatory process and will be published next year in advance of the general
election campaign, as a tool to raise awareness among candidates and voters alike.
The Annual Review team witnessed examples of progress in private sector linkages in urban
(garments factory) and rural (rug weaving) contexts, both of which were functioning well, with
employers highly satisfied at the performance of their extreme poor employees. This is an emerging
field that needs to be nurtured as employers have no shortage of potential employees to choose from
and tend to be biased against the extreme poor, whom they regard as lacking in basic education and,
due to poor nourishment, in physical strength and the ability to concentrate.
Recommendations:
See recommendations for Output 3 regarding strategising, merging and managing.
The indicators represent each point of EEP’s 3-point strategy for extreme-poor advocacy: 1)
awareness raising campaigns; 2) increased employment opportunities in the private sector; and 3)
improving access to benefits and services to which the extreme poor are entitled. However they do not
reflect the success of these approaches in reducing extreme poverty.
It was not clear to the Annual Review team why it is necessary for EEP to be so strongly engaged in
the first point of the strategy (Indicator 4.1)– awareness raising campaigns. EEP is a relatively shortterm intervention, and the need for advocacy is a long-term one. There are many organisations in
Bangladesh that have been carrying out pro-poor advocacy, including pro-extreme poor, for many
years already and will continue to do so as they have permanent or very long-term presence in the
country. Some of these have become EEP partners and others have not, the selection process for the
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challenge funds having been based on project proposals and not on advocacy activities. Rather than
trying to lead and manage campaigns itself, a more constructive approach could be to emulate a
success of the research programme and create and nurture an Extreme Poverty Advocacy Group that
would have the potential of continuing beyond the life of the EEP programme.
In coming years the milestones for Indicator 4.2 concern the number of private sector agencies
partnering with EEP NGOs. It would be interesting to consider developing this to provide targets for the
number of beneficiaries employed by those agencies.
Note that Indicator 4.3 needs tightening up. It appears to refer to the proportion of all extreme poor, not
only of EEP beneficiary households, who have access to safety nets. Since the data source will be
CMS2, and hence exclusively from EEP beneficiary households, it may be unrepresentative of all
extreme poor for several reasons. Firstly selection criteria for EEP projects often specify that
beneficiaries must not be receiving a safety net at the time of selection; secondly, selection criteria for
safety nets often exclude applicants who are participating in asset or cash transfer programmes such
as EEP; and thirdly participation in EEP projects, especially those with strong social inclusion or rightsbased elements, is expected to enhance the prospects for beneficiaries to obtain safety-nets if they
need them. On the other hand, if the EEP beneficiaries are successful in moving out of extreme
poverty they might become ineligible for some safety nets. Therefore it will be difficult to interpret the
indicator, and even if it could be interpreted it would be hard to attribute any improved access to safety
nets to the advocacy programme.
Impact Weighting (%): 10%
Revised since last Annual Review? Yes – reduced from 15% to accommodate the inclusion of
Output 5 (Nutrition Component)
Risk: High
Revised since last Annual Review? No
Output 5: Direct Nutrition Support provided to 440,000 * extreme poor mothers, children, and
adolescent girls (*cumulative number of household family members * 3 years)
Output 5 score and performance description: N/A
Indicators
5.1 Percentage of
targeted beneficiaries
receiving monthly
household visits by
nutrition counsellors
Milestones for this
review
Progress
No 2012 milestone
The nutrition component is being rolled out
following the signing of contract amendments
with 9 Scale Fund NGOs. The first
implementation milestones are in 2013.
N/A
(disaggregated by
pregnant and
breastfeeding women;
mothers of <6 months
children and 6-23
months)
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5.2 Percentage of
targeted beneficiaries
receiving either Iron and
folic acid tablets or
multiple micronutrient
supplements
5.3 Innovation for
increasing access to high
quality diet and diversity
for the extreme poor
tested, evaluated and
lessons shared.
N/A
No 2012 milestone
N/A
No 2012 milestone
Summary of Progress against expected results:
The nutrition component has been a long time in gestation. Now that contract amendments have been
agreed the programme will need to push ahead with implementation in order to achieve objectives
within the remaining programme period. This output was excluded from the Annual Review because
activities have yet to start. However, preparation to start nutrition specific interventions in 9-scale fund
NGOs is in progress. The key activities completed during the year include:
• Nutrition coordinators and officers are employed or appointed. There are now well established
nutrition team in EEP and implementing NGOs
• 43 nutrition officers and coordinators received six days training of trainers’ on: Infant and Young
Child Feeding (IYCF), hygiene promotion, distribution of micronutrient supplements, monitoring
and reporting
• 1160 Community Nutrition Promoters were recruited in seven partner NGOs and training in
progress
• Different teaching materials including reference manuals (job Aid), Training manual for Master
Trainers, Social Mobilization Module and other materials procured and distributed the
programme has
Impact Weighting (%): 10%
Revised since last Annual Review? Yes - New Output
Risk: Medium
Revised since last Annual Review? Yes – New Output
Section B: Results and Value for Money.
1. Progress and results
1.1 Has the logframe been updated since last review? Y/N
YES.
There were no changes to the wording of Impact, Outcome or Outputs - but there were some
changes to titles, indicators and weightings:
12




To conform with the newly introduced DFID format.
To better reflect the relative importance of the different programme components (hence
Output One was increased to 50%).
To incorporate the inclusion of a new Direct Nutrition Component
To achieve greater consistency of approach across the DFID supported portfolio
The revised logframe was developed with the full participation of the DFID Bangladesh team
including the Results Adviser, but was not completed until September 2012. It is recommended that
EEP and DFID discuss and sign off revisions to the logframe within three month of the publication of
this report.
1.2 Overall Output Score and Description:
A++ Outputs substantially exceeded expectation
Output Scoring and Risk
Output number
1
2
3
4
5
The Economic Empowerment of the Poorest Programme, Annual
Review 2012
Output Description
Proven approaches to
improving the livelihoods of
the extreme poor taken to
scale (Scale Fund)
Innovative approaches to
improve the livelihoods of
the extreme poor tested and
successes ready for scaling
up (Innovation Fund)
Increasing consistency in
the understanding and
application of approaches to
addressing extreme poverty
(research)
Policy and Practice at local
and national levels shows
increasing recognition of the
needs of the extreme poor
(advocacy)
Direct nutrition support
provided to 2.8 million
extreme poor mothers,
children, adolescent girls
and family members
(nutrition)
Impact Weight (%)
50%
Output Performance
Outputs substantially
exceeded
expectation (A++)
20%
Outputs substantially
exceeded
expectation (A++)
10%
Outputs substantially
exceeded
expectation (A++)
10%
Outputs moderately
exceeded
expectation (A+)
10%
N/A
100%
Annual Output Score
A++
1.3 Direct feedback from beneficiaries
Numerous testimonies have been collected from beneficiaries of the transformational impact that
participation in the programme has had on their lives. Beneficiary feedback and reflections are
included in two of the Change Monitoring System elements (CMS4, CMS5). The following three case
studies are taken from endline impact assessments undertaken with Innovation Fund projects during
2012.
Case Study One. Shushilan Beneficiary: Chandan Malek (45) resides in a small and vulnerable house, built
on a piece of his own land beside Sundarban canal. But his homestead area belongs to Khas (Government)land.
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He is the fifth child among his six brothers and sisters. His father was a daily labourer and he has no land. To
bear the expenditure of the family, he has been catching crab in the Sundarbans since his childhood. Due to his
family’s financial crisis, he has never studied in school. After his marriage about 12 years ago, he became the
sole bread earner for his 3 children (1 son and 2 daughters) and wife. He has no definite income source. When he
gets any labour selling opportunities, he will undertake that activity. Otherwise, he catches crab or fish
from the river. It is really tough for him to manage three meals per day for his family. He can hardly
arrange two meals per day.
Nearly two years ago, officers from Shushilan came to Chandan’s village to discuss the idea of crab
fattening in the saline zone. He explained that it was really tough to manage sweet drinking water
especially during the summer season. Remembering the discussion they had during their first meeting, he
reflected, “Officer from Shushilan told us that we can do little to change this situation but we can use this
situation to our advantage. They convinced us that if we can arrange land or case, net, drums, fence,
small crabs and other necessary inputs for crab fattening then we will receive a permanent source of
earnings”.
After the initial discussion, 10 households from this village formed a group. After forming this group,
they have received 3 day long trainings comprised of theoretical and field based practical learning. They
are also conducting two group meetings per month to discuss several issues related to their interventions
(crab fattening status, availability of small crabs, local market price, feeding and other costs, profits etc.)
and socio-economic conditions.
Chandan has received a crab fattening case, four drums, small crabs and feeding cost from the shiree
project of Shushilan. He received a total amount of 4,613BDT for his case and drums in September, 2010
which has 64 small quarters for crab fattening. He initiated his first crab fattening circle in August, 2010.
Now he has earned 37,749 BDT from a total of 30 circles. Beside his crab fattening case, he has received
10 ducks and homestead vegetable gardening options from this project. From these two interventions he
has earned 6,140 BDT, though his 5 ducks have died due to severe water logging. He has received 1000
BDT as compensation. From his earnings, he has bought several daily necessary goods (e.g. pot, bucket,
pitcher etc.) and fishing nets. He has saved 1,450 BDT in the group savings account. In addition, He has
leased 1 bigha of land at 20,000 BDT from where he has received 440kg Amon paddy in this season.
It was like an aspiration to Chandan and his family to finally have three meals a day. At the beginning of
the project, his daughters were unable to go to school. Now his three children (1 son and 2 daughters) are
both in school. According to his family development plan, he is preparing his own crab fattening earthen point
beside his house. He is also attempting to open an individual bank account. This way, Chandan is trying to come
out of extreme poverty
Case Study Two: MJSKS Beneficiairy Ankita (46) is from Dhekiaram, one of the poorest and monga prone
villages of Pandul Union, Ulipur Upazila of Kurigram District. The poverty level of the village is over 60% and
most of the villagers are caught in the vicious cycle of poverty including various social problems. Ankita lives
beside Kurigram- Chilmari railroad track with her two sons, one daughter and her husband, Afzalur. Ankita used
to work as a maid servant in a rich villager’s house. Her husband is an agricultural day labourer planting and
harvesting crops. During the off-season he struggles to find work and is often forced to migrate elsewhere,
leaving his family alone and vulnerable. When there is work, they can afford two to three meals a day, but
during the lean period they can barely afford one meal a day and often have to go to bed hungry. Their
crisis was so severe that Ankita and her family didn’t have sufficient clothing for themselves. She failed to
continue her children’s education and had to marry her daughter at an early age. She said, “We used to share
two servings among a family of five during crisis periods”.
Two years ago, an MJSKS field officer found Ankita and discussed her problems and possible solutions
with her. She was brought on as a beneficiary and received training on cattle rearing, one heifer worth
BDT 16,950 and input support. She also received BDT 2,250 for cash support during the first year
monga to help her family survive the food crisis when there was no production from the cow.
With the financial and technical assistance from MJSKS her cattle received AI and gave birth to a calf
nine months later. Her husband was able to milk the cow regularly and received an average of 4 litres of
milk a day that they could sell at the market for 30 taka/litre. They began setting aside savings for their
future. Her cow gave birth to a second calf that further ensured their livehood. “I will have a number of
14
good milk producing cows in upcoming years”, she said with confidence. Her daughter was married off at an
early age. She now admits to making a mistake and realizes the importance of education for her other children.
She is also conscious of her family’s health and sanitation. Her family uses a sanitary latrine and has access to
safe drinking water. Her community has also developed a good relationship with the Union Parishad and can
discuss any problems and ask for support when needed.
Talking about her future Ankita narrates, “I want to have a place of my own. I would like to buy a small
piece of land and construct a good house by selling the bull calf after a year. When my husband used to
migrate to town for work leaving me and my children, I felt helpless. I did not know what would have
happened if my family was not picked by MJSKS. Anxiety and fear always haunted me.” After her
experience with the group she is able to say with determination “Now I know I can also rely on my group
for help and support. If we can work together, we can solve all of our problems one by one.”
Ankita is now the proud owner of three prosperous cattle worth BDT 130,000 and leads a comfortable life from
selling 4 litres of milk every day.
Case Study Three: Helvetas Intercooperation Beneficiary: Saki - begging is the only way to survive. She is
living in Enayetpur village of Panchgachi Union under Pirgonj Upazilla. She is 58 now but looks 70 with a
hopeless life. Her father married her off at an early age. She didn’t recall the actual age of marriage. Saki gave
birth to a baby girl after a year and half of marriage. Some days later, her husband left home without informing
her. No food stock, money or even sellable goods was at home. Saki was distraught thinking about her unsolvable
problem. After a few days, she began lending goods for money but her husband didn’t come back even after one
month. Neighbours were unable to lend her anything. She couldn’t even manage to get a housekeeping job due to
the kids. At last, she began to beg. Years passed and her only child grew old enough to marry. Like her mother,
after a year and half of marriage Saki’s daughter gave birth to a female baby. Suddenly, the new borne baby’s
father died. At that time Saki was unable to assist her daughter by providing any assets. So her
daughter’s life became similar to her mother’s.
In 2009, Intercooperation started its SHIREE/DFID funded Innovation Fund II Project in Panchgachi
union under Pirgonj Upazilla. One day a project staff member met with Saki and heard her life history.
As she met the beneficiary selection criteria, IC-staff enrolled her in the project.
From the Innovation Project II, she received support on milking a cow with raising a calf. She brought the
cow and calf to her house and started to lead new life. She got 2-3 litres of milk every day and sold the
milk at the nearest market. At milking stage the cow became pregnant and gave birth to another calf
within one year. In the first phase, she got 273 litres of milk and sold it for BDT 8,400. Now she has three
cattle. She also bought 3 hens for eggs. She stopped begging and brought her grand daughter to her home and
enrolled her in class III. Now she has assets worth more than BDT 40,000. Her plan is to sell one cattle and buy
homestead land and then eventually buy some farmland. That land would be a permanent productive asset for
her. She is also thinking to bring her widowed daughter to live with her. Presently she is living an honourable life
instead of begging, and her grand daughter is a student. The Project has uplifted several beggars like Saki. Now
they want to make them self-reliant so poverty and hunger no longer affects them.
1.4 Summary of overall progress
Significantly greater than expected, although to some extent this is based on milestones that were
either rather low to begin with (eg outputs 3 and 4) or have been superceded by significantly higher
new targets (outputs 1 and 2). If left untouched, the project would almost certainly continue to receive
an A++ grade for the next 2 years, even if it made no further progress. It is therefore necessary to
update the milestones and targets to reasonable levels based on current planning, and that carries with
it the likelihood that future scoring will be lower – i.e. A. This should be anticipated and recognised by
both the management agency and DFIDB as being the consequence of rationalising the logframe
following a period of high achievement, and should not be seen as representing a deteriorating
programme.
The expansion of the Scale Fund through Round 2 and Phase 2 of Round 1 has more than doubled the
number of beneficiary households. Field visits support the data that show good performance of the
Scale Fund projects – as should be since by definition they follow proven approaches – and therefore
15
the stage is set for more than 300,000 people to embark on their climb from extreme poverty in the
coming year. The success of the Innovation Fund is less clear. Instead of being a test-bed for
innovation, it has become a second vehicle for lifting people out of extreme poverty. While it appears to
be succeeding in doing so, this has been through supplementation of the innovations by proven
approaches, thereby emulating the Scale Fund. The objectives of testing new ideas, and preparing
successful ones for scaling up in due course, have been neglected.
The research and advocacy components have proven much more prolific than originally expected. The
indicators do not have qualitative elements and the project has only limited information on the use to
which many of the outputs have been put. Whereas dynamism in these areas is essential, it needs to
be disciplined dynamism within a general framework. The advocacy strategy focuses on three topics,
but the first – a national advocacy campaign – is by itself very broad. Although the strategy recognises
the need for specific and realisable goals, as already discussed the indicators do not provide sufficient
evidence of achievement of those goals.
1.5 Key challenges
GoB Relations
The design of the EEP programme as a challenge fund requires management processes which allow
NGOs to innovate and experiment. There have been advantages from the inclusion of EEP under a
government umbrella, most notably at local level and the programme should continue to promote
collaboration between the NGOs and local government. This is particularly important for linking project
activities with government service delivery and for facilitating access to safety net programmes for the
beneficiaries.
During the final 3 years of the programme further attempts should be made to promote a better
understanding of the opportunities and constraints imposed by the challenge fund approach, and to
transfer specific learning and experience from the programme more directly into relevant government
projects and services.
Achieving Graduation
The outcome statement in the logframe refers to households lifting themselves out of extreme poverty.
This implies that there is an adequate means of identifying when a beneficiary household is no longer
extremely poor. In fact extreme poverty is caused by a range of factors that can differ from place to
place, from community to community and from household to household. There is therefore no simple
indicator that can be used to assess transition out of extreme poverty (graduation) across the wide
range of contexts under which the 36 EEP projects operate. The Mid-term Review made a number of
points about studying, identifying and sustaining graduation and raised the need for EEP and DFIDB to
clarify their expectations for graduation. This has not been sufficiently addressed and has resulted in an
understanding that the primary outcome level indicator should be based on achievement of the
individual projects’ graduation criteria as defined in their logframes. Although this potentially takes
account of specific causes of extreme poverty, it also passes the responsibility of defining graduation to
about 30 NGOs, not all of which have the necessary skills to do so.
In its presentations, EEP talked about its successes and continuing ambitions to improve the
livelihoods of its beneficiary households, without being able to relate them to graduation. Whereas all
parties accept that EEP projects have made major improvements to livelihoods, this in itself is not a
satisfactory measure. For extreme poor households it is possible that even major improvements can
still leave them in the ranks of the extreme poor. On the other hand, continuing efforts might graduate
them sufficiently out of extreme poverty that it becomes unnecessary and inefficient to continue
supporting them. It is necessary to recognise when that stage has been reached.
Over the past year EEP has undertaken some studies to try to define graduation in appropriate ways
(eg a paper on Poverty Thresholds Analysis and the report ‘Understanding and monitoring “sustainable
graduation” within the shiree portfolio’), and has also undertaken a comparison between its own
approach of achieving individual project logframe criteria and two other approaches. The report makes
the point that sustainability needs to be considered as a part of graduation, in other words that it is not
16
sufficient merely to ‘cross a line’, but that it must be crossed with sufficient strength to enable the
household to stabilise and maintain its new position in the face of foreseeable non-extreme shocks.
This implies the need to view graduation as a qualitative, rather than a quantitative, phenomenon. A
bottom-up approach by which households themselves are asked to determine their individual status
and targets may be appropriate and could be introduced with the Scale Fund 1 phase 2 and Scale
Fund 2 programmes. This would have the advantage of giving extra weight to the household
development planning aspect that many of the NGOs use at the beginning of their work with each
household, as the process could be adapted to define and track the progress towards each
household’s concept of graduation.
Gender Mainstreaming
There is limited mention of gender in the Programme Memorandum. However the programme
experience is that extreme poverty is a strongly gendered phenomenon. About 40% of beneficiary
households are female headed and many more are silently female headed as a result of the nominal
male head being incapable of supporting his family (due to age, infirmity or other reasons). Gender
aspects cut across issues such as economic disempowerment (eg restricted access to markets to buy
and sell goods, limited options to earn an income) and exclusion from public services (eg greater
difficulty in accessing health services) at all stages in the lifecycle (girl children fed less than boys; early
marriage and dowry; maternal mortality; lower wages; old persons allowance rationing).
Hence the programme is adopting a gender mainstreaming approach, has undertaken a gender audit
and will be seeking to enhance its response to the gender dimensions of poverty over the remaining
programme period. Chief amongst these changes is the nutrition component (Output 5) that is based
on evidence of the limited impact of economic empowerment measures alone on family nutritional
status. This component is specifically targeted to women, children and adolescent girls.
“Dependent Poor”
Economic empowerment programmes are generally based on an enabling approach involving setting
up poor people in small businesses through asset transfer, training and other support. There is a wide
range of available income generating activities from the fairly standard rural “give a cow” intervention to
those more specifically related to a particular geo-economic context such as crab fattening in the
coastal belt, handicrafts in the Hill tracts, or rickshaw pulling and small shops almost anywhere. An
issue to be faced by all such programmes is how to address people who face severe difficulty in
undertaking and sustaining these income generating activities. Many programmes exclude these
“dependent poor”. EEP has not adopted this approach, given the high incidence of the old, the disabled
and the chronically sick amongst the poorest of the poor. Hence several EEP NGO partners report as
many as 20% of their beneficiaries as falling into this group. EEP has worked with NGOs to find ways
to avoid having to exclude needy people from programme benefits and has produced a guidance note
on the topic. This discusses the importance of working with the individual to select the most suitable
income generating activity, which in some cases is one that can be carried out by somebody else
(typically the grandchild of an elderly beneficiary) under an agreement to support the beneficiary.
However it is clear that a more fundamental reform (wider coverage and higher value) of “entitlement”
social protection benefits such as pensions and disability allowance is at least as important as further
work on finding appropriate income generating schemes and should be one target of EEP advocacy
activities.
1.6 Annual Outcome Assessment
On track. It will also be necessary in future years for the project to track the actual outcome level
indicators, the analysis of which was produced ad hoc for this report, and provided after the completion
of the Annual Review programme in Bangladesh.
EEP has exceeded some of its milestones and is on track to meet or exceed the end of project targets
on graduation (as is currently poorly defined in the logframe) and assets. As discussed above, the
measurement of graduation is an issue that still needs to be resolved and the indicator will need to be
updated accordingly. However the target for increased real income is considerably off track. It
17
appears that 40% of rural households that had participated in EEP projects between March 2010 and
March 2012 have not achieved a 15% increase in real income (which is about 10p per household per
day). Clearly this is a worrying finding and needs to be urgently verified and investigated. It also raises
concern about the validity of the first Outcome indicator – achievement of NGO graduation criteria –
which has reportedly met or exceeded expectations. It seems counter-intuitive for this to have
happened in light of the real income data. This adds weight to the recommendation that EEP needs to
prioritise development of a method to identify graduation from extreme poverty.
Outcome
1 million people in EEP targeted areas have lifted themselves out of extreme
poverty by 2015
Indicators
2012 Milestone
Progress
Number of households
who have met
individual NGO sub
project graduation
criteria
75% of beneficiary households
completing project cycle
= 70,905 households
NGOs report on average 70% - 80% achievement of
graduation criteria based on a combination of independent
monitoring, CMS data and in-house monitoring. An analysis of
scale fund beneficiaries shows that 77% have met sub project
graduation criteria.
On track, but the indicator needs considerable
improvement
% of Beneficiary
households with
increase in real
income
75% of beneficiaries at end of
project cycle = 70,905
households show at least 15%
increase in real income
Real income increased by at least fifteen per cent for
approximately 60% of beneficiary households between March
2010 and March 2012 (based on a representative sample of
341 households for which income data had been collected at
both dates and applying an increase for inflation).
Off track
Nutritional status
No 2012 milestone
Value of Household
assets
50% increase in asset values
In 47,270 beneficiary
households at end of project
cycle (= 50% of beneficiary
households)
Household Socioeconomic status
No milestone until CMS2
operational in 2013
Value of household assets increased by at least fifty per cent
for an estimated 88% of households between March 2010 and
March 2012 (based on a representative sample of 341
households for which asset values had been collected at both
dates).
The mean value of assets increased by over 500% between
March 2010 and March 2012 suggesting that some
households assets are increasing exponentially.
It is recommended that this indicator is modified to measure
increases in real terms and the level of ambition increased in
line with achievements so far.
On track
2. Costs and timescale
2.1 Is the project on-track against financial forecasts: Y/N
While the EEP Management Team determined that the Outcome target of 1 million people lifted out of
extreme poverty was achievable by direct targeting of beneficiaries using challenge fund resources,
there is the risk that further Managing Agency resources maybe needed to support the increase in
activities. Therefore, following up on this review’s recommendations to establish graduation criteria and
the numbers of beneficiaries receiving support from the EEP programme, should be a high priority.
Along with the recommendations for revising Log Frame outputs, indicators and targets, a rigorous
review of all programme and management agency costs should be undertaken and budget
components and forecasting should be adjusted if necessary.
2.2 Key cost drivers
18
The cost drivers that were originally identified for the programme were mainly associated with the set
up phase of the programme – the establishment of systems, the grant project selection process and
the letting of contracts. Therefore, the original budget profile predicted Management Agency costs
peaking around Year Two of the 8 year programme and thereafter gradually declining. However, it has
become apparent that the cost drivers for operational and financial management of the programme are
more closely related to the number of live contracts and the number of beneficiaries in the programme,
which have continued to increase. Research and advocacy work has also steadily built momentum,
feeding on the expanded number of NGO partners and the growing EEP network. Hence the level of
programme activity somewhat exceeds the original model which was premised on a smaller number of
challenge fund (Scale and Innovation) projects.
Furthermore, some of the recommendations of this review have implications for the management
agency budget – for instance research and CMS managers, new strategies for research and advocacy,
change in approach to Innovation Fund studies / scale-up etc. When the recommendations have been
considered, cost implications determined and appropriate decisions taken, an updated financial
budgets and forecasts should be prepared for negotiation and approval by DFID.
2.3 Is the project on-track against original timescale: Y/N
YES – the project is scheduled to end on Dec 31st 2015 and is on track to achieve all stated objectives
by this date. However ,the nutrition component, potential Innovation Fund scale-up projects and
completion of Scale Fund Phase 2 are all on the critical path, i.e. any significant delays in these
activities could affect the ability to complete the entire programme according to the original timescale.
Given the turbulent political environment (elections due Jan 2014) and the significant risk of major
exogenous shocks (e.g. cyclone) timely completion by December 2015 is not totally assured.
3. Evidence and Evaluation
3.1 Assess any changes in evidence and implications for the project
The EEP programme has an 8 year timeframe and it is inevitable that the programme approach has
been regularly revised. In addition to learning from continuous internal evaluation, conditions in
Bangladesh have evolved considerably since the project was designed in 2006/2007. Modern mobile
phone technology allows more comprehensive monitoring of the programme to be undertaken more
efficiently. The various stages of the political cycle (general elections held in late 2008 and due in early
2014), the development of the local government decentralisation process, initiatives to build capacity of
senior civil servants, and the emerging dialogue around the reform of social protection all contributed to
a constantly changing political environment to which EEP advocacy activities have needed to adapt.
Since the mid-term review one year ago, preparations have been made to introduce two programme
enhancements that will start within the next three months and continue until the project closes in 2015.
These are a nutrition component and a means of identifying and further assisting those households
that may be at risk of remaining in or falling back into extreme poverty.
During 2012, eleven of the twelve projects under Innovation Fund rounds 1 and 2 closed and the
remaining one will close in January 2013. Evaluations of all of these were undertaken by EEP, based
on information collected by the Change Monitoring System and a participatory process involving focus
groups of beneficiaries and discussions with implementing staff of the NGOs. EEP management has
recommended that five of the projects are suitable for scaling-up.
3.2 Where an evaluation is planned what progress has been made?
An independent evaluation is planned for the programme in 2014. It would be advisable for the
evaluation to take place during mid 2015 and cover at least the following points:
19
1. Verification of graduation from extreme poverty according to EEP definition and assessment of
graduation according to other parameters such as beneficiary community perceptions, etc.
2. Effectiveness of the research and advocacy programmes.
3. Stakeholders’ perceptions of the challenge fund approach.
4. Relevance, performance and outcome of the Innovation Fund.
4. Risk
4.1 Output Risk Rating: Medium
4.2 Assessment of the risk level
Environmental and climatic hazards such as floods and cyclones occur frequently in Bangladesh and
EEP inevitably finds itself working in some of the most vulnerable areas. Recent and ongoing world
food price hikes have particularly strong impact on the poorest. They can require greater increases in
income than originally planned to achieve the same level of reduction in extreme poverty. Whereas
most of the longer-standing beneficiaries may now be generating sufficient income to withstand this,
the large number of new households currently joining the programme may require additional support.
Output 1 risk should therefore remain at medium and an allocation of contingency funds should be
agreed as a risk mitigation strategy at the household or community level.
The risk rating for Output 2 (that innovative approaches are tested, evaluated and successes ready for
scaling up) is currently high. The finding of this review, at a time when nearly half of the Innovation
Fund projects have finished, is that insufficient attention has been paid to testing and evaluating the
innovations and therefore the rating remains justified. If the recommendation to conduct additional
investigations into the innovations is taken up, there may be an opportunity to reduce the rating in
future.
Political risks in Bangladesh may increase over the coming year in advance of the general election.
This would probably have limited effect on the Scale and Innovation Fund projects, but it could severely
hamper monitoring, advocacy and research. Thus, there is an argument to increase the risk level for
Outputs 3 and 4 to medium.
4.3 Risk of funds not being used as intended
(a) Management Agency Fees - Low Risk throughout
 The selection of the management agency was via open competitive tender according to
established DFID/EU procurement procedures.
 Assets/goods procurement above £5000 is via DFID’s procurement agent (Crown
Agents).
 Fund Disbursement is from the UK direct to lead NGOs’ bank accounts; no funds are
disbursed to the Government of Bangladesh although the programme falls under their
umbrella.
 Monthly invoices are verified locally by DFID Bangladesh prior to submission to DFID
Accounts.
 Independent external audits are undertaken annually with DFID participating in the
appointment of external auditors. Adherence to the internal financial procedures manual
is covered by the audit.
 All EEP consortium members (Harewelle International, the British Council, Centre for
Development Studies of Bath University, Unnayan Shamannay and PMTC Bangladesh)
20

are subject to their own external annual audits.
A conflict of interest register is maintained.
(b) Instances of fraud/corruption (Management agency costs)
There has been 1 instance over 2 years of expenses related fraud by junior local staff
(driver per diems) that was revealed through normal internal checking and control
procedures. The response was suspension without pay pending internal investigation, the
result of which was a final warning of dismissal and fund recovered.
(c) NGO Delivered Programme (moderate risk at the level of partner)
 EEP’s selection of NGO challenge fund partners is via an open tendering process that is
widely publicised in the national press as well as via the website.
 Criteria for eligibility include: current NGO Affairs Bureau Registration (i.e. excludes all
blacklisted); experience of implementing donor funded projects; and either £750,000
annual turnover (3 year average) for Scale Fund or £40,000 for Innovation Fund.
(d) Independent Assessment Panel
Selection of NGOs for both Scale Fund and Innovation Fund grants is via an Independent
Assessment Panel (IAP). The membership of the IAP is proposed by the Management
Agency and endorsed by DFID Bangladesh. In recent rounds DFID have sought a no
objection to the IAP membership from the Secretary of the Rural Development and
Cooperative Division (as chair of the Programme National Steering Committee). So far there
have been 5 IAPs. The chair of each has been an international, in 3 cases a former senior
DFID Adviser. The IAP remains anonymous (until the final stage that involves presentations
by and visits to NGOs).
(e) IAP process
 The IAP is supported by and has contact with only 2 members of the Management
Agency (the CEO and one other team member). The IAP determines its own
methodology on the basis of guidance notes and other materials provided by the
Management Agency. It works in isolation in the EEP office – all documents remain
secure.

Selection is via an exhaustive 3 stage process: concept notes, proposals, presentations
and (in the most recent round) field visits. Submission is electronic and deadlines are
strictly adhered to. Briefing sessions are provided for all NGOs and separate
communication with individual bidders does not take place during the process.

A financial management and Institutional capacity assessment is conducted by the EEP
management agency team in parallel with the IAP process – the capacity assessment
reports are then provided to the IAP

A Guarantee of Equity, Fairness and Transparency (GEFT) is appointed and their
identity disseminated to bidding NGOs. Any NGO can make a reference to the GEFT
requesting an investigation of the process. For the previous 2 rounds the GEFT was a
member of the British High Commission staff.
(f) Partners
Of 9 large (approx £3m each) EEP Scale Fund Projects, 7 are implemented via major
International NGOs (CARE, Concern, Oxfam, Caritas, Save the Children, Practical Action,
NETZ). Of 27 medium scale (approx £300k each) Innovation Fund Projects 12 implementing
partners are international and 15 local. In each case financial management capacity is a
21
criterion for selection. Most international NGOs have multiple local implementing partners.
Hence about 50 local NGOs are directly involved in programme implementation. The scoring
assessment is medium for partners as a result of the background risk associated with the large
and diverse local NGO sector in Bangladesh. The range of financial management systems and
procedures in place significantly mitigate this risk.
(g) NGO Delivered Programme – risk assessed as moderate
Risk is assessed as moderate given the wide scope and complexity that arises from the
challenge fund nature of the programme. Risk is reduced from substantial (gross assessment)
to low (net assessment) through both the selection process (see above) and the risk mitigation
systems and procedures in place (see below)
(h) Systems and procedures
An Anti-Fraud and Whistleblowing Policy, applicable to EEP personnel and partner NGOs and
incorporated into accountable grant agreements minimises the risk of fraud or corruption.
Internal Control policies by which fund management risk is minimised include:

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EEP monitors partner NGO (challenge fund grantees) expenditure on a monthly basis
through reports that include bank statements and budgetary sheets, while payments are
made quarterly;
EEP’s internal audit team conducts internal financial management audit of every partner
NGO at least once per year. The findings are discussed with NGO partners to agree
mitigation actions.
In addition an annual external audit of every partner NGO is conducted by a Chartered
Accountancy firm appointed in consultation with DFID.
Strong zero tolerance clauses regarding fraud and corruption are contained in all grant
agreements.
(i) Instances of fraud or corruption, NGO partners
In the previous 2.5 years there have been 2 isolated instances of fraud revealed through whistle
blowing, both cases isolated to individual partner NGO field staff. Following investigation,
appropriate measures were taken under the zero tolerance policy, including dismissal of the
staff, fund recovered and resolution of any weaknesses in financial control systems. No
systemic problems with systems or procedures were identified.
(j) Spot checks by DFID Bangladesh
A 3-member team from DFIDB visited the EEP office to conduct a spot check of assets and
selected management procedures on 11July 2012. The team was satisfied that management
procedures were observed to a high standard and made 8 recommendations for further
improvements, such as issuing regular reminders to staff about conflict of interest, ensuring that
audits of programme partners include similar asset checks etc. EEP has provided evidence to
the review that it has taken satisfactory action on all of these with the minor exception that not
all old equipment has been re-labelled more visibly.
4.4 Climate and Environment Risk
The programme is working in regions of the country and with population groups that are particularly
vulnerable to risk. EEP experience to date includes significant numbers of households affected by:
flash floods (the haor), severe water logging (southern coastal belt), river erosion (many locations),
slum evictions and fires (Dhaka) and communal conflict (Chittagong Hill Tracts and elsewhere).
Despite these events the population shows remarkable resilience and willingness to rebuild their
livelihoods following major disasters, they simply have no choice.
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The EEP programme does not contain any significant provision to support Climate Change Adaptation
measures for beneficiary households. However some programme activities are clearly promoting better
overall resilience including broadening agricultural options, income generation and livelihoods
diversification, which all enhance coping strategies. At the level of individual projects, measures such
as disaster resilience and risk reduction training are undertaken, especially for particularly vulnerable
households such as those in the coastal belt and urban slums.
Despite the known seismological instability of the region, there is no training given to prepare for
earthquake eventualities. Community preparedness, particularly for urban and peri-urban beneficiaries,
should acknowledge this risk and community response structures that are already being established
should include earthquake response in their contingency planning.
While there are activities and innovations within the programme that have a climate change mitigation
dimension (e.g. biogas), this is not a major priority of EEP, nor of Bangladesh as a whole. The extreme
poor in Bangladesh are first and foremost victims of climate change and the focus needs to remain on
adaptation rather than on any actions that would have only a negligible impact on mitigating climate
change.
5. Value for Money
5.1 Performance on VfM measures
The EEP programme was designed before the new Business Case format came into existence and
does not currently have agreed VfM measures to be tracked at Annual Reviews.
The programme routinely tracks simple measures of value for money such as total programme cost per
beneficiary or Management Agency cost per contract but these on their own give only a limited view of
VFM and are potentially deceptive as a basis for comparisons across projects. Within the EEP
portfolio, projects differ widely in terms of their implementation approach and costs, the scope of the
support provided, and the transaction costs involved (some have more “expensive” client groups such
as street children, the disabled, remote Hill Tracts locations). Targeting the poorest of the poor using
strict selection criteria forces NGOs to spread the net to more villages, increasing transaction costs.
Hence seemingly simple VfM comparisons across locations or projects, or between extreme poverty
focussed programmes, may result in misleading conclusions if not carefully interpreted.
It is recommended that EEP collaborates with other extreme poor livelihood programmes to develop
standard VFM indicators which are robust and defendable. These should be tracked for the remainder
of the programme and should include measures of:
Economy:
Are purchased inputs of the appropriate quality at the right price?
Efficiency:
How well are inputs converted into outputs?
Effectiveness:
How well are the outputs from an intervention achieving the desired outcome on
poverty reduction?
Cost-effectiveness: How much impact on poverty reduction does an intervention achieve relative to
the inputs that are invested in it?
Although there is no formal tracking of VfM measures in place the EEP Management Agency has taken
various measures to improve the efficiency, economy and effectiveness of the programme over time.
Effective steps have included:
Impacting on Management Agency costs:
 A significant reduction in the use of short term international consultants since programme
inception. The expenditure on short term international consultants peaked at about £350,000 in
2009 and it is currently £79,000 for 2012.
 A downgrading from business to economy class for international short and long term staff
flights, which has already resulted in a saving of at least £15,000.
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The decision to combine Scale Fund round 2 and Innovation Fund round 4 bidding processes
generated a cost saving of £25,000 related to the grant award procedure.
There has been a consolidation of previously fragmented monitoring and evaluation tools to
reduce duplication and transactional effort.
Shared financing of some relatively high cost activities (Extreme Poverty Day – 2010 partner
UPPR, 2011 partner- BRAC and British Council, 2012 partner- WaterAid), which is providing a
cost savings of £12,000 per Extreme Poverty day (overall savings to date £50,000).
All significant procurement is now undertaken by Crown Agents using competitive procedures
which have a) reduced transaction effort for NGO project staff; b) resulted in savings through
greater competition and c) taken advantage of DFIDB’s core country agreement with Crown
Agents whereby the latter do not charge EEP a commission for their services.
Impacting on NGO partner contract cost
 Annual budget reviews including rigorous activity and cost re-evaluation.
 Re-contracting of 6 Round One NGOs for Phase Two on condition of significant efficiency and
economy of scale gains, in phase one the 6 Scale Fund partners spent £17.665 million for
82,850 beneficiary households; in phase two, the allocation was £17.548 million with 96,000
beneficiary households despite an increase in the value of direct transfers to beneficiaries.
 Promoting matched funding from NGO’s own resources in some instances. For example PAB
contributed £300,000, NETZ contributed £215,000. Concern Worldwide will spend roughly
£500,000 to oversee the 22,500 beneficiary households for a two-year period after its project
closes.
Future ideas to improve VFM include:
 Increased access to private sector partnership and sponsorship (some experimentation so far –
e.g. sponsorship of field officer awards).
 Smart targeting of resources to households on the basis of a comprehensive, dynamic
information system.
 Remove the pressure to spend as soon as contracts are signed, even if the seasonal time for
the intervention has passed. This avoids the risk of spending money on activities that are likely
to underperform and that might demotivate beneficiaries from continuing at the correct time in
the following season. .
5.2 Commercial Improvement and Value for Money
Harewelle were awarded the contract for the EEP programme through an OJEU competitive bidding
process in a highly competitive supply market. There was a strong response to the invitation to tender.
Harewelle is also improving its internal cost management – See section 5.1 for impact on the
management agency costs.
Procurement performance of the Management Agency
To obtain VfM when spending DFID funds, the EEP Programme Management team has clearly applied
strong commercial practices across the programme:
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All NGO challenge fund contracts are subject to an intensely competitive process with
independent evaluation that gives due weight to financial aspects and potential for NGOs to
deliver year on year efficiency savings
Rigorous annual re-evaluation of budgets and activity plans
Use of prescribed Procurement manual and procedures which reflect good international
practice
All major procurement for the management agency is now undertaken by DFIDB’s Procurement
Agent – the Crown Agents
The Management Agents follow a comprehensive procurement manual. They do not require NGO
partners to adopt this manual but they review the adequacy of their procedures and require them to
adopt something that is at least equivalent. All procurement in excess of £5000 is directed via Crown
Agents. There are at least three separate annual processes that can lead to efficiency savings: internal
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audit, external audit and - most importantly from a VFM perspective - annual operational and budgetary
review. For the latter, NGOs submit their annual operational plan and budget which is reviewed line by
line by the Operations and Finance teams. Typically the NGO will then be provided feedback and will
be asked to resubmit their budget after efficiency savings have been mutually agreed.
5.3 Role of project partners
The programme falls under a Government of Bangladesh umbrella with the Rural Development and
Cooperatives Division of the Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives as
the parent. However over 99.5% of programme funding is provided by DFID. Implementing NGOs rely
heavily on government counterparts at local level to smooth and enhance project implementation.
Practical examples include linking with local livestock services for provision of vaccines, motivating
Union Parishad (local council) Chairmen to include beneficiaries in the distribution of safety net benefits
or with land officials to promote distribution of state owned land. There have been many instances
where the status of EEP as a Government project has clearly benefited from these efforts. In addition,
the Project Director (a civil servant of Joint Secretary status appointed to EEP by the government) has
also assisted in several local advocacy events and has actively facilitated the formulation of
Memoranda of Understanding between the programme and other relevant government departments.
5.4 Does the project still represent Value for Money : Y/N
Yes.
EEP has exceeded expectations on its planned outputs and has achieved graduation rates of about
75% of the 83,000 Scale Fund Phase 1 beneficiary households (as determined by individual NGO
graduation criteria - new criteria are required and might result in amendment of the reported rates).
The management agency has taken a number of measures to improve both its own economy,
efficiency and effectiveness, and those of its partner NGOs.
It is recommended that to further demonstrate its clear and effective commitment to VfM, EEP
collaborates with other extreme poor livelihood programmes to develop good standard VFM indicators
to be tracked for the remainder of the programme.
It is also recommended that EEP formally identifies, records and reports all current and future
efficiency savings such as those highlighted in this report to DFID.
5.5 If not, what action will you take?
6. Conditionality
6.1 Update on specific conditions
Not applicable
7. Conclusions and actions
The project has achieved an A++ grade based on the current logframe. This represents a year of
major expansion in beneficiary numbers for both the Scale and Innovation Funds, significant work
involved in evaluating 12 Innovation Fund projects, laying the groundwork for a major innovation in
the CMS and launching the Manifesto for the Extreme Poor, in addition to expanding the existing
research and advocacy programmes and undertaking the management agency functions for the
overall programme. The Annual Review has noted that significant value-for-money measures have
25
been taken over the past year, including intense negotiation to obtain savings in the overhead and
management costs of the grant projects.
The logframe is the basis for the Annual Review process and it must be noted that there is a
conceptual flaw in the logframe as it currently stands. The logframe currently tracks the performance
of a collection of projects aimed at helping extreme poor households rise out of extreme poverty,
and of research and advocacy programmes also aimed at improving the lot of the extreme poor.
However it does not track or even acknowledge the existence of a challenge fund. In the past there
was a separate output for the management agency, which has correctly been removed. The
challenge fund concept should occupy a layer of its own on the logframe, possibly with the existing
outputs feeding through as indicators at the outcome level. The Annual Review team did not dwell
on this, being aware that it followed hot on the heels of an Institutional Review which should report
on it in much more detail. The Annual Review template has therefore been followed, and includes a
number of recommendations based on the existing logframe format, which may retain relevance
even if there is a conceptual re-think of the logframe. Over the coming year attention will need to
focus on several key issues, in addition to continuing to manage the challenge funds and research
and advocacy programmes. These include:

Definitively enumerating the objectives for the challenge fund components and lesson
learning and advocacy components and determining what implications it has on the current
budget and level of programming that can be managed up to December 2015;

Developing an improved criterion for graduation, preferably based on a household’s
development plan;

Seeking to understand how 77% of Phase 1 beneficiaries are judged to have graduated by
NGO’s criteria when analysis conducted for this review indicates that 40% of rural
beneficiary households and 30% of urban have not achieved an income increase of 15% in
real terms;

Undertaking studies on the innovative aspects of Innovation Fund projects.
A number of recommendations have been made in this report and can be summarised as follows:
1. Consider structural adjustments to the logframe to make it represent EEP as a challenge
fund, not as the results achieved from managing a challenge fund.
2. Clarify the strategy for the research, policy development and advocacy programmes, and
consider combining them. The process should be facilitated by an appropriately selected
consultant and an output should be a coherent, financially feasible programme(s) for the
remainder of the project duration. If funding permits, consideration should be given to hiring
a dedicated manager for the programme(s).
3. Develop and agree with DFID a method for determining the qualitative change in a
household’s characteristics that indicate it is no longer an extreme poor household. This is
likely to be based on a range of criteria for which data is already being collected, but the
exact point at which each household graduates may depend on individual circumstances.
Household development plans may be a useful guide and would be amenable to tracking
using CMS 2 technology.
4. A full-time manager for the Change Monitoring System is needed to streamline and drive the
programme, and to develop the capability and protocols for data-sharing.
5. Adjust all logframe milestones based on current levels and present targets, and consider
other changes to indicators outlined in Section A above.
6. Remember that :NGOs only expect to achieve 75% graduation (according to their
logframes), that 20% in some projects are dependent poor, and this has an implication on
the current aim of reaching the 1million beneficiaries headline figure.
7. Reprioritise the Innovation Fund indicators and activities for rounds 3 and 4 so that more
emphasis is given to identifying and promoting innovations than to graduating beneficiaries.
8. Complete the logframe revision within three month of completion of the consultancy
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described under Section B above.
9. Undertake studies of the innovations covered by the 12 Innovation fund rounds 1 and 2
projects, to ensure that all possible learning is taken from them, that any potential they may
have for improved performance in different contexts is considered, and that findings are proactively disseminated to specifically identified (categories of) potential stakeholders.
10. Some of the studies under point 9 above might identify further ideas for innovations that
could be followed up through small Innovation Fund grants.
11. It is recommended that to further demonstrate its clear and effective commitment to VfM,
EEP collaborates with other extreme poor livelihood programmes to develop good standard
VFM indicators to be tracked for the remainder of the programme.
12. It is also recommended that EEP formally identifies, records and reports all current and
future efficiency savings such as those highlighted in this report to DFID.
13. Finally, it is suggested that the planned independent evaluation of EEP, consider 1) the
achievement of graduation from extreme poverty (according to the revised EEP definition
and local community perceptions etc.); 2) Effectiveness of the research and advocacy
programmes; 3) Stakeholders’ perceptions of the challenge fund approach; and 4)
Relevance, performance and outcome of the Innovation Fund.
8. Review Process
The review was undertaken between Nov 4th and 15th 2012 by a team led by an experienced
independent evaluation consultant commissioned by DFID Bangladesh. The team included three DFID
advisers (one UK-based and two Dhaka-based) and a representative of the Government of
Bangladesh, each of whom attended approximately 50-80% of the review activities. Other DFID
advisers and a representative of Swiss Development Cooperation (prospective future co-sponsor of
EEP) attended selected review meetings, while the DFID Programme Manager participated in the field
visit. The review process included a field visit to 7 rural and 2 urban projects (4 Scale Fund and 5
Innovation Fund), review of a wide range of programme documents and discussions with stakeholders
including:
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a wide selection of challenge fund project beneficiaries in Dinajpur, Nilphamari, Rangpur, Kurigram,
Gaibandha and Bogra districts and Dhaka city
project staff and NGO managers from 9 challenge fund projects
local government officials (union parishad chairmen and members)
business entrepreneurs who employ beneficiaries in their enterprises
Government of Bangladesh OB, represented by the Secretary, Rural Development and
Cooperatives Division (RDCD), Assistant Chief, RDCD and members of the national Steering
Committee
DFIDB staff
EEP management team and staff
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