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 ultra-poor need to stop being invisible to policymakers. We need to pay closer attention to the poorest and the unique set of challenges they face, for without a better understanding of the lived reality of ultra-poverty, we will fail to live up to the promise of “leaving no one behind.” Without programs tailored for … Continued
The Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) cites the Graduation approach as a leading innovation for families beyond the reach of traditional development programs (March 2011). Syed M. Hashemi and Aude de Montesquiou (March 2011)
Clare Balboni, Oriana Bandiera, Robin Burgess, Maitreesh Ghatak and Anton Heil (March 2020) There are two views as to why people stay poor. The equal opportunity view emphasizes that differences in individual traits like talent or motivation make poor people choose low productivity jobs. The poverty traps view emphasizes that access to opportunities depends on … Continued
The International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth presents a multitude of articles all focused on various aspects of the Graduation approach and programming, including a piece written by BRAC’s own members of the Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative team entitled “What does the future hold for graduation?” International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth (IPC-IG) (November 2017)
People in ultra-poverty make up over half of the estimated 797 million people living in extreme poverty around the world (Reed et al. 2017, 4). This group tends to be food insecure, typically excluded from mainstream services and programs, including formal market systems and financial services, and in some contexts live in isolated and hard-to-reach … Continued
By Richard Sedlmayr, Anuj Shah, Munshi Sulaiman (2020) Abstract Can training and mentorship expand the economic impact of cash transfer programs, or would such extensions waste resources that recipients could allocate more impactfully by themselves? Over the course of two years, a Ugandan nonprofit organization implemented alternative poverty alleviation approaches in a randomized manner. These … Continued
By Reajul Chowdhury, Elliott Collins, Ethan Ligon, Kaivan Munshi (2016) — Abstract Several previous studies have found that the “graduation” or “Transfers to the Ultra-Poor” (TUP) framework is an effective approach to alleviating the constraints that prevent extremely poor households from increasing their productivity. The framework consists of a sizable transfer of productive physical capital, … Continued
Munshi Sulaiman, Nathanael Goldberg, Dean Karlan, Aude de Montesquiou (December 2016) Targeted interventions that sustainably improve the lives of poor people will be a critical component in eliminating extreme poverty by 2030. The poorest households tend to be physically and socially isolated and face disadvantages across multiple dimensions, which makes moving out of extreme poverty … Continued
By Harshani Dharmadasa, Ian Orton and Lauren Whitehead With the recent adoption of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), eradicating extreme poverty presents a major challenge for governments worldwide. Despite recent progress, 902 million people remain in extreme poverty. To attain the right to social protection for people living in extreme poverty and, simultaneously, … Continued