Poverty Selection at Trickle Up Program

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Poverty Selection at Trickle Up Program
Presentation at Poverty Assessment Working Group
Meeting October 22, 2003
Jan Maes Program Officer for Asia
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OVERVIEW

• Trickle Ups Mission
• Trickle Ups Model
• Selection of Target Areas
• Poverty Assessment Tool
• Who are the Poorest of the Poor

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MISSION
The mission of TUP is to help the lowest-income
people () worldwide take the first step out of
poverty, by providing conditional seed capital
and business training essential to launch of a
microenterprise.
() poorest of the poor
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Trickle Ups MODEL

• Selection of the Poorest (reflecting local
  context)
• Seed capital grants and business training
• Local Coordinating Partner Agencies (PAs)

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Conceptual Framework Impact Chain
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Selection of target areas

• Country based in general on HDI
• State, Province based on national poverty data
• District
• Poverty data, if available
• Additional poverty factors (HIV, refugees, f.i.)
• Presence of PA
• Conclusion mostly geographic

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Selection of the Poorest of the Poor

• No Clear Definition
• Context Specific
• Participatory (CPA and Clients)
• Relative, not absolute
• No Upper Limit
• Poverty Assessment Tool

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Poverty Assessment Tool - PAT

• Goals
• Selection of Poorest in a given community
• Baseline Data for future Impact Assessment
• Method
• Choose 5 local Poverty Criteria
• Select households by scoring 1-5

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PAT Poverty Criteria

• Any five criteria the community and/or PA deems
  most relevant
• 10 categories dwelling, education, sanitation,
  health/nutrition, assets, land, income, social
  status, transportation, seasonal vulnerability

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Baseline Poverty Status

• Not required now
• SIX categories
• Dwelling
• Education
• Sanitation
• Health and nutrition
• Assets
• Other
• Choose Indicator in each
• Determine three Levels

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PAT - Example

• Poverty Selection
• HH owns less than 10 decimals of land
• No male wage earner
• At least one of school age children not in school
• HH food production lasts lt 6 months
• At least one person with disability

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Baseline - Example

• Dwelling indicator type of roof
• Straw/thatch
• Tin
• Tiles
• Nutrition indicator food intake last week
• Rice less than once a day
• Rice once a day
• Rice more than once a day
• Assets indicator womans clothing
• One sari, no blouse
• One sari and blouse
• More than one sari

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Trickle Ups PAT Benefits

• Flexible local poverty context
• Cost-effective
• Participatory clients and field staff
• Transparent
• Helps to allocate scarce resources
• Makes clients think about their own poverty
• Room for intangible poverty

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Trickle Ups PAT Issues

• No universal comparison
• No established relation to national poverty line
• Difficult for some PA
• Criteria sometimes too broad
• Hidden selection criteria
• Indicators equally weighted

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Robust Indicators?

• RURAL
• Land ownership
• Food Intake
• Housing dwelling
• Dependency ratio
• Education of (especially female)

• URBAN
• Food Intake
• Housing location (f.i. slum versus pavement
  dwellers)
• Education of children
• Health

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Is TUP successful in reaching the very poor?

• I guess
• I am sure
• But, I cant prove it
• We want a standard to measure against
• Ways forward
• simple approach geographic
• targeting with PAT

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FINAL COMMENT

• Anyone thought about what kind of microfinance to
  offer to the very poor?