The Chhattisgarh State Rural Livelihoods Mission (Bihan) Signs MoU with BRAC International for Chhattisgarh-Samaveshi Ajeevika Yojana (CG-SAY)

The Chhattisgarh State Rural Livelihoods Mission (Bihan) under the Department of Panchayat and Rural Development, Government of Chhattisgarh, the nodal agency for implementing DAY-NRLM interventions across the state, has signed an MoU with BRAC International, a Global South-led organization dedicated to empowering people and communities. This partnership will support the implementation of CG-SAY, a Graduation-inspired … Continued

Engaging in the Systems for Poverty Reduction: the Role of Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning

In 2000, Jane Jacobs wrote about the complexity and unpredictability of development in her book The Nature of Economies. She described development as an open-ended process, a qualitative change that “can’t be usefully thought of as a line, or even a collection of open-ended lines. It operates as a web of interdependent co-developments.”  The idea … Continued

Targeting the Ultra-Poor Through the Graduation Approach: Insights from BRAC (VoxDev)

This episode was originally published by VoxDev on April 9, 2025. In this episode of VoxDevTalks, Tim Phillips speaks with Shameran Abed, Executive Director of BRAC International, about the ‘Graduation approach’: a pioneering intervention model developed by BRAC in Bangladesh to help the ultra-poor build sustainable livelihoods and escape extreme poverty. More than 20 years after … Continued

Introducing the Graduation Essentials: Core Components, Designed for Scale

BRAC’s Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative is working to help scale up Graduation through governments with an audacious goal of reaching 21 million people. To reach that scale, we are continuously consulting the literature and gathering feedback from deeply experienced implementers at BRAC and beyond on how to scale more effectively.  We recently engaged in an exercise … Continued

Brazil Launches a G20 Plan to Slash Hunger Across the World – Devex

Devex originally published this article on November 18, 2024. The G20 summit has officially begun in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil — and the first thing on the agenda was world hunger. “Hunger and poverty is not the result of scarcity or a natural phenomenon,” said Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, speaking at the opening of … Continued

Governments, Development Banks, International Organizations and Philanthropies Partners to Bring Socioeconomic Inclusion Programs to Scale, Help to Lift 100 million More People Out of Poverty by 2030, Prioritizing Women Empowerment

Rio de Janeiro, November 15, 2024. A group of governments, multilateral institutions, NGOs, and knowledge organizations recently committed to increase efforts and coordination to scale evidence-based socioeconomic inclusion programs in hopes of reaching an estimated 100 million people in poverty by 2030 of whom at least 50% women and girls. These new commitments aim to … Continued

How BRAC, Governments, and the World Bank Scale Innovations to Combat Poverty – World Bank

The World Bank Group originally published this feature story on November 11, 2024. By Rasha Natour, Senior Specialist, Policy and Partnerships, BRAC’s Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative The number of people living in extreme poverty continues to be alarming and disheartening. The World Bank estimates that around one person in 10, or 700 million people, live in extreme … Continued

How We Can Get Back on Track to End Extreme Poverty – The Good Feed

This blog was originally published on the Good Feed on August 11, 2024 If current trends continue, 690 million people across the world will still be living in extreme poverty by 2030. However, that doesn’t have to be our reality. Decades of experience and rigorous evaluations show us that multifaceted, ‘big push’ approaches offer one of several pathways … Continued

From Poverty to Prosperity: How Scaling Ultra-Poor Graduation Programmes Drive Sustainable Change – Oxford Martin School

This article was originally published on the Oxford Martin School’s blog on July 12, 2024.  With around 700 million people globally living on less than $2 per day, there is an urgent international agenda to eliminate extreme poverty. The Ultra-Poor Graduation (UPG) approach, first launched by the international development organisation BRAC in the early 2000s, … Continued

How to Scale Up: An Interview with the Authors of ‘Scaling Up Development Impact’ – The Good Feed

This article was originally published on the Good Feed on July 9, 2024. Siddhant Gokhale and Jossie Fahsbender, co-authors of Scaling Up Development Impact, talk about their new book, the challenges local organisations face when trying to scale up successful interventions, and how organisations like BRAC offer insights for scaling that can benefit the world. The … Continued