What Cultivating Resilience Means for Women Living in Extreme Poverty – Trickle Up

Joint Blog by Trickle Up and BRAC Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative Communication team members This article originally appeared on Trickle Up on March 8, 2022. Read it here. As we approach a third year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world continues to face unprecedented challenges and deep uncertainty, especially as the issues of conflict and climate … Continued

UK International Development Committee Formal Meeting: Extreme Poverty and the Sustainable Development Goals

On Tuesday 1 March, the UK House of Commons International Development Committee (IDC) began taking evidence on extreme poverty and the Sustainable Development Goals. Experts sharing evidence included: Dr. Sabina Alkire, Director at Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) at the University of Oxford Romilly Greenhill, UK Director at ONE Campaign Shameran Abed, Executive … Continued

OPINION: Will COP27 Still Be Conducting Fire Drills as the World Burns? – Thomson Reuters Foundation

By Asif Saleh | Executive Director, BRAC Bangladesh This article originally appeared in Thomson Reuters Foundation News on February 23, 2022. Read it here. It has been 100 days since COP26 in Glasgow and temperatures continue to peak, fires decimate crops, wildlife and forests, and flooding washes away lives and livelihoods. COP26 was a vitally important global gathering … Continued

Looking Back to Move Forward: A Letter from BRAC UPGI’s Managing Director

By Greg Chen | Managing Director, BRAC Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative I am delighted to have joined BRAC UPGI as the Managing Director late in 2021. I have long been inspired by BRAC and its Graduation approach. For more than 25 years, I’ve worked to advance financial inclusion through microfinance and digital finance. I have a … Continued

What ‘Cash Plus’ Programs Teach Us About Fighting Extreme Poverty – SSIR

By Dr. Imran Matin | Executive Director, BRAC Institute of Governance and Development This article originally appeared in Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR) on January 5, 2022. Read it here. The development community has been heavily researching and discussing cash transfers over the past decade, publishing hundreds of studies and scores of articles on their … Continued

Will COVID-19 Relief Plans Reach the World’s Poorest People? – World Economic Forum

By Shameran Abed | Executive Director, BRAC International; Joanne Carter | Executive Director, RESULTS; and Barbara Jackson |  Vice President: Programs, TrickleUp This article originally appeared in World Economic Forum (WEF) on November 24, 2021. Read it here. A whopping $90-100 billion is on the World Bank’s International Development Association‘s (IDA) negotiating table in 2021 … Continued

OPINION: Global leaders are funding a historic COVID response for the world’s poorest countries, but will it reach those who need it most?

By Shameran Abed | Executive Director, BRAC International; Joanne Carter | Executive Director, RESULTS; and Barbara Jackson |  Vice President: Programs, TrickleUp Far from the limelight, global leaders are on the cusp of striking a historic and unprecedented financing deal for spurring pandemic recovery through the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA), a mechanism overseen … Continued

OPINION: Why Global South Leadership on Climate Change Adaptation Matters – Thomson Reuters Foundation

By Shameran Abed | Executive Director, BRAC International This article originally appeared in Thomson Reuters Foundation News on November 10, 2021. Read it here. As this year’s UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) unfolds, the world is facing coinciding crises. Multiple regions hit their highest-ever recorded surface temperatures this year, tens of millions of people are being displaced by climate-related disasters, thousands … Continued

BRAC UPGI TED 2020 Audacious Project Announcement

Over the next six years, BRAC’s Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative will work with governments in countries with the greatest potential to scale BRAC’s Graduation approach to help millions more people to lift themselves from extreme poverty. Today, BRAC, a Global South-led NGO that combats inequality and poverty around the world, was announced as one of this … Continued

The Impact of a Graduation Program on Livelihoods in Refugee and Host Communities in Uganda

Lasse Brune, Nathanael Goldberg, Dean Karlan, Doug Parkerson, Christopher Udry (Ongoing) Evidence from multiple contexts suggests that the Graduation Approach, which provides holistic livelihood support for ultra-poor households, has lasting positive impacts on a range of outcomes. However, graduation programs are relatively expensive because of the intense level of support they offer. The costs pose … Continued