Case Study: Adapting BRAC’s Graduation Program to the Changing Poverty Context in Bangladesh

This case study explores BRAC’s experience evolving the graduation approach over the last 20 years, paying special attention to the lessons for governments and NGOs alike that have emerged from the most recent periods of implementation. Specifically, this case study looks at how, since the program started in 2002, BRAC has sought to ensure high … Continued

Policy in Focus: Debating Graduation

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)

Leave No One Behind: Time for Specifics on the Sustainable Development Goals (Chapter 3)

In the fall of 2019 we were honored to join with others committed to bringing the slogan “leave no one behind” to life in the new book Leave No One Behind: Time for Specifics on the Sustainable Development Goals, published this fall by the Japan International Cooperation Research Institute (JICA) and the Global Economy and … Continued

Mainstreaming Graduation into Social Protection in Asia

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

Policies and Practices to Enhance the Gender Transformative Potential of Multi-faceted Social Protection Programs

Anoushka Bhari and Sonia Laszlo, McGill University (2020) ABSTRACT This scoping paper documents current practices used by Graduation Program practitioners to produce meaningful and sustainable improvements in women’s wellbeing. To do so, it builds on the theory of change in Rao and Kelleher (2005) and adapted by Hillenbrand (2015) and identify practices that affect change … Continued

No Household Left Behind: Afghanistan Targeting the Ultra Poor Impact Evaluation – World Bank Group

By Guadalupe Bedoya, Aidan Coville, Johannes Haushofer, Mohammad Isaqzadeh, Jeremy Shapiro (2019) Abstract The share of people living in extreme poverty fell from 36 percent in 1990 to 10 percent in 2015 but has continued to increase in many fragile and conflict-affected areas where half of the extreme poor are expected to reside by 2030. … Continued

Graduation-Based Social Protection for Cambodia’s Extreme Poor – UNDP

Author: Dr. Stephanie Levy, London School of Economics (LSE) This study explores activist approaches to social protection, through interventions that tackle poverty by addressing the multiple dimensions of economic exclusion of the rural extreme poor in Cambodia. It explores the potential of so-called graduation packages, which consist of a combination of transfers of productive assets, vocational … Continued

Mainstreaming Graduation into Social Protection Floors – International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth

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