Challenging the Frontiers of
Poverty Reduction:
Programme Experience
| Rabeya Yasmin | Coordinator |
|CFPR |
Presentation Outline
• Extreme Poverty : Bangladesh Record
• Definition of Ultra Poor
• “Pushing down” and “Pushing out” strategies in
CFPR
• Key Lessons Learnt
• What makes the programme work
• Future Challenges and CFPR Phase II
2
Extreme Poverty :
Bangladesh Record
• Head count poverty decreasing : from 70% in
1973-74 to 47% in 1995-96.( 2200 k.cal.)
• About 20% still remains below the lower
poverty line of 1805 k.cal/person/day
• The Ultra Poor spend 80% of their income on
food but fail to reach 80% of their
recommended calorie intake
• Ultra Poor are largely remaining left out of
the mainstream development programmes
3
Background of CFPR
• BRAC has worked successfully with focused
programme for the ultra poor since 1985
• Conventional microfinance programs often
view the ultra poor as high risk group
• Generally the disciplines of microfinance do
not suit the livelihood patterns of the ultra
poor
4
CFPR is –
A “Pushing Down” strategy to combat ultra
poverty
and
A “Pushing Out” strategy to combat
broader social constraints
5
Pushing down BRAC interventions
to reach the ultra poor effectively
Objectives
 Assist the ultra poor to improve their
livelihoods by achieving positive
economic, social and aspirational
changes
 Assist the ultra poor to access
mainstream development services
6
Coverage in the First Phase
Duration: 5 year
Year
: 2002
2003
2004
Members
served
: 5000
5000
10,000 30,000
No. of
districts
:
3
7
12
2005
15
2006
Total
50,000
100,000
15
15
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Pushing down to reach the Ultra
Poor: Definition of the Ultra Poor
• Households with < 10 decimals of
land.
• Those who earn livelihood as
beggar, day laborer, domestic aid.
• Households with no productive
assets.
• Children of school-going age
taking up paid work .
• No adult active male member in
the household
8
Pushing down to reach the Ultra
Poor: A Brief Overview of HH
Identification Process
A. Geographical Area
Selection:
Areas and villages with high
incidence of ultra poverty
B. Household Selection:
Participatory Rural Appraisal
Door to door mini survey
Verification
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Some baseline information on the
ultra poor (2002)
• 54 % completely landless
• 50% of household cannot afford two meals a day
• 70% depend on irregular day labour for income
source
• 95% ultra poor have no fixed place for defecation
• Only 3% of the ultra poor household reported
ever participation in development programmes
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Supports and services
provided to ultra poor
members through the
pushing down strategies
• Enterprise Development
Training
• Special Investment /Asset
Transfer
• Stipend as short term
income support
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Tailor Made Health Interventions for the Ultra Poor
Members
• Promotive (eg. Health education, awareness raising)
• Preventive (e.g. Immunization, ANC, Vitamin A)
• Limited curative care (e.g.TB and other treatments)
Financial Assistance For Mild and Severe morbidity
12
Tailor Made Social Development Programme
for The Ultra Poor Members
• Social Awareness Education
• Community Mobilization (Village Poverty Reduction
Committee)
• Confidence building
13
Tailor made Social Development: Community
Mobilization for The Ultra Poor Members
Village Poverty Reduction
Committee to :
- Provide social security , resolve
social conflicts
- Install tube well , sanitary latrines
- Repair/ rebuild houses
- Support ultra poor during illness
- Help enroll their children in school
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“Pushing out” the agenda to challenge broader
socio – political constraints
Objectives
Creating an enabling environment to sustain the
livelihoods and realize the rights of the ultra poor
by:
- Supporting essential health services as public
goods, and
- Building community level institutions to provide
social protection and work with local government
15
Support programmes
• Advocacy and Social Communication
• Action Research
16
What makes the programme work
• Thoughtful and well-consulted programme design
taking past experiences of BRAC
• Careful staff recruitment and development process
• Effective monitoring and supervision
• Close Coordination
• Continuous research and evaluation
• Enormous support from development partners
17
Key Lessons Learned
• The ultra Poor are not
homogeneous group
• Special efforts needed to change
the “mind set at all levels” .
• Close follow-up is ‘a must’ for
any program for the ultra poor.
• Educating/assisting the ultra
poor on making their future plan
is critical
• Social mobilization is necessary
to create an enabling
environment for the ultra poor
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Future Challenges and CFPR Phase II
• Rethinking targeting
• Addressing diversity
• Continuing health support for the graduates
• Capacity building
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CFPR Phase II
• Five year programme : 2007-2011
• 300,000 Ultra poor families in most deprived regions
with rigorous support package
• Another 500,000 ultra poor families in comparatively
less deprived regions with reduced package
• Strengthened advocacy
• More research on ultra poverty
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Generating Knowledge and
Evaluating Progress:
A summary of five years of
CFPR/TUP research
| Imran Matin | Director |
| Research and Evaluation Division |
The broad objective
• Understand dimensions and dynamics of
extreme poverty to support programme and
create a knowledge base for others to use.
• We organized our work to deliver on three fronts:
• Establishing solid evidence of impact
• Doing responsive research to serve programme
needs
• Leveraging knowledge
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CFPR/TUP Impact Evaluation:
Using various perspectives
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A few terms…
• Selected Ultra Poor (SUPs): Households
finally selected by the CFPR/TUP
programme.
• Not Selected Ultra Poor (NSUPs):
Households ranked as ultra poor (the
bottom wealth category) by the community
but not finally selected by the CFPR/TUP
programme.
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Highlights of Findings:
Objective Measures
• Baseline in 2002: NSUPs>SUPs
• Panel survey in 2005: SUPs> NSUPs in almost
all dimensions
– Better access to land
– Diversification and more physical assets
– Reduced illness, but taking more days off, spending
more on illness, and better health-seeking behaviour
– Better access to formal and informal credit market
– Greater social and legal awareness
– Improved nutrition and calorie intake
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The Shape of Asset Pentagon
Changes for the SUPs…
Physical
1
0.5
Social
Human
0
Natural
NSUP02
Financial
SUP02
NSUP05
SUP05
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Highlights of Findings:
Self Perception Measures
• Better overall improvement for SUPs
– In 2005, almost 70% of the SUPs felt their economic
standing had improved over the one year before
interview, compared to only 21% of the NSUPs.
• SUPs are now more food secure
– SUPs households also feel more secure regarding
availability of food throughout the year.
• SUPs now have better social standing
– Ability to spend during festivals has increased for
SUPs.
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Highlights of Findings:
Self Perception Food Security Measure
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Highlights of Findings:
Self Perception Measures
• SUPs are now more confident
– More of the SUPs are confident that villagers will
lease land to them.
– SUPs believe they can borrow a larger amount from
different sources in times of crisis – NSUPs report a
significantly lower amount.
– 83% of SUPs are confident that their crisis coping
ability has improved, and they need less time to
recover from crises
• SUPs feel more healthy, especially women
– Programme intervention had a significant effect on
self perceived health status of women in SUP
households.
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Highlights of Findings:
Participatory Change Rank
Although the general trend is of a widening gap between the
richest and the poorest, SUP households according to the
community, have fared better than non-beneficiaries in terms of
change ranks.
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Are the improvements sustainable?
1200
1000
800
SUP
600
NSUP
400
200
0
2002
2004
2006
Average food consumption (gm/pp/pd)
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Are the improvements sustainable?
2500
2000
1500
SUP
NSUP
1000
500
0
2002
2004
2006
Total energy intake (Kcal/pp/pd)
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Puzzles that emerge….
• No significant impact on SUP children’s
education status (enrolment and continuation)
– how does assetization affect household strategy
regarding schooling decision?
– What strategy should the programme have to
incentivize schooling? Conditionilizing stipend?
• No significant impact on U-5 children’s nutrition
status
– Need for special nutritional focus for this critical age
group
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Puzzles that emerge/2
• Latest HIES suggests that the bottom 10% have
been doing well. But, we find, using participatory
methods, that the poorest (NSUP) are perceived
by the community to be on the whole getting
poorer.
– Is this a region specific phenomenon?
– Are national surveys missing out on the ultra poor
households?
– Is there a reverse ‘Jodha’ effect? If so, in what ways
and why?
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Outputs thus far…
• A CFPR/TUP Working Paper Series. 15 WPs
until now.
• 10 publications in peer reviewed journals.
• 20 presentations based on CFPR/TUP research
and evaluation work made in various national
and international conferences.
• All study reports posted on RED’s website:
www.bracresearch.org
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Outputs planned…
• BRAC, CPRC, University of Manchester
Conference on “What Works for the Poorest?
Knowledge, Policies and Practices” , Dhaka,
Dec 2006.
• Book on CFPR/TUP research, evaluation and
programme experience for the conference
• Edited book on “What in the World Works for the
Poorest? Programmes, Policies and Practices”,
based on the conference.
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The Next Years:
Establishing more rigorous and complete
evidence of impact
• Continue with the current panel at least for another
round to assess sustainability of changes.
• Randomized Control Design for a small sub sample.
• Exploring seasonalities in consumption and crisis coping.
• Sample design to include other wealth categories.
• Go beyond household level and capture meso level
changes in market and non market institutions.
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