Challenging the Frontiers of Poverty Reduction: Programme Experience

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Challenging the Frontiers of Poverty
ReductionProgramme Experience

• Rabeya Yasmin Coordinator
• CFPR

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Presentation Outline

• Extreme Poverty Bangladesh Record
• Definition of Ultra Poor
• Pushing down and Pushing out strategies in
  CFPR
• Key Lessons Learnt
• What makes the programme work
• Future Challenges and CFPR Phase II

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Extreme Poverty Bangladesh Record

• Head count poverty decreasing from 70 in
  1973-74 to 47 in 1995-96.( 2200 k.cal.)
• About 20 still remains below the lower poverty
  line of 1805 k.cal/person/day
• The Ultra Poor spend 80 of their income on food
  but fail to reach 80 of their recommended
  calorie intake
• Ultra Poor are largely remaining left out of the
  mainstream development programmes

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Background of CFPR

• BRAC has worked successfully with focused
  programme for the ultra poor since 1985
• Conventional microfinance programs often view the
  ultra poor as high risk group
• Generally the disciplines of microfinance do not
  suit the livelihood patterns of the ultra poor

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• CFPR is
• A Pushing Down strategy to combat ultra poverty
• and
• A Pushing Out strategy to combat broader
  social constraints

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Pushing down BRAC interventions to reach the
ultra poor effectively

• Objectives
• Assist the ultra poor to improve their
  livelihoods by achieving positive economic,
  social and aspirational changes
• Assist the ultra poor to access mainstream
  development services

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Coverage in the First PhaseDuration 5 year

• Year 2002 2003 2004 2005
  2006 Total
• Members
• served 5000 5000 10,000 30,000 50,000
  100,000
• No. of
• districts 3 7 12 15 15
  15

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Pushing down to reach the Ultra Poor Definition
of the Ultra Poor

• Households with lt 10 decimals of land.
• Those who earn livelihood as beggar, day laborer,
  domestic aid.
• Households with no productive assets.
• Children of school-going age
• taking up paid work .
• No adult active male member in the household

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Pushing down to reach the Ultra Poor A Brief
Overview of HH Identification Process

• Geographical Area Selection
• Areas and villages with high incidence of ultra
  poverty
• B. Household Selection
• Participatory Rural Appraisal
• Door to door mini survey
• Verification

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Some baseline information on the ultra poor
(2002)

• 54 completely landless
• 50 of household cannot afford two meals a day
• 70 depend on irregular day labour for income
  source
• 95 ultra poor have no fixed place for defecation
• Only 3 of the ultra poor household reported ever
  participation in development programmes

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• Supports and services provided to ultra poor
  members through the pushing down strategies
• Enterprise Development Training
• Special Investment /Asset Transfer
• Stipend as short term
• income support

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• Tailor Made Health Interventions for the Ultra
  Poor Members
• Promotive (eg. Health education, awareness
  raising)
• Preventive (e.g. Immunization, ANC, Vitamin A)
• Limited curative care (e.g.TB and other
  treatments)
• Financial Assistance For Mild and Severe
  morbidity

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• Tailor Made Social Development Programme for The
  Ultra Poor Members
• Social Awareness Education
• Community Mobilization (Village Poverty Reduction
  Committee)
• Confidence building

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Tailor made Social Development Community
Mobilization for The Ultra Poor Members

• Village Poverty Reduction Committee to
• Provide social security , resolve social
  conflicts
• Install tube well , sanitary latrines
• Repair/ rebuild houses
• Support ultra poor during illness
• Help enroll their children in school

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Pushing out the agenda to challenge broader
socio political constraints

• Objectives
• Creating an enabling environment to sustain the
  livelihoods and realize the rights of the ultra
  poor
• by
• Supporting essential health services as public
  goods, and
• Building community level institutions to provide
  social protection and work with local government

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• Support programmes
• Advocacy and Social Communication
• Action Research

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• What makes the programme work
• Thoughtful and well-consulted programme design
  taking past experiences of BRAC
• Careful staff recruitment and development process
• Effective monitoring and supervision
• Close Coordination
• Continuous research and evaluation
• Enormous support from development partners

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Key Lessons Learned

• The ultra Poor are not homogeneous group
• Special efforts needed to change the mind set at
  all levels .
• Close follow-up is a must for any program for
  the ultra poor.
• Educating/assisting the ultra poor on making
  their future plan is critical
• Social mobilization is necessary to create an
  enabling environment for the ultra poor

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• Future Challenges and CFPR Phase II
• Rethinking targeting
• Addressing diversity
• Continuing health support for the graduates
• Capacity building

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• CFPR Phase II
• Five year programme 2007-2011
• 300,000 Ultra poor families in most deprived
  regions with rigorous support package
• Another 500,000 ultra poor families in
  comparatively less deprived regions with reduced
  package
• Strengthened advocacy
• More research on ultra poverty

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Generating Knowledge and Evaluating ProgressA
summary of five years of CFPR/TUP research

• Imran Matin Director
• Research and Evaluation Division

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The broad objective

• Understand dimensions and dynamics of extreme
  poverty to support programme and create a
  knowledge base for others to use.
• We organized our work to deliver on three fronts
• Establishing solid evidence of impact
• Doing responsive research to serve programme
  needs
• Leveraging knowledge

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CFPR/TUP Impact Evaluation Using various
perspectives
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A few terms

• Selected Ultra Poor (SUPs) Households finally
  selected by the CFPR/TUP programme.
• Not Selected Ultra Poor (NSUPs) Households
  ranked as ultra poor (the bottom wealth category)
  by the community but not finally selected by the
  CFPR/TUP programme.

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Highlights of Findings Objective Measures

• Baseline in 2002 NSUPsgtSUPs
• Panel survey in 2005 SUPsgt NSUPs in almost all
  dimensions
• Better access to land
• Diversification and more physical assets
• Reduced illness, but taking more days off,
  spending more on illness, and better
  health-seeking behaviour
• Better access to formal and informal credit
  market
• Greater social and legal awareness
• Improved nutrition and calorie intake

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The Shape of Asset Pentagon Changes for the SUPs
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Highlights of FindingsSelf Perception Measures

• Better overall improvement for SUPs
• In 2005, almost 70 of the SUPs felt their
  economic standing had improved over the one year
  before interview, compared to only 21 of the
  NSUPs.
• SUPs are now more food secure
• SUPs households also feel more secure regarding
  availability of food throughout the year.
• SUPs now have better social standing
• Ability to spend during festivals has increased
  for SUPs.

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Highlights of FindingsSelf Perception Food
Security Measure
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Highlights of FindingsSelf Perception Measures

• SUPs are now more confident
• More of the SUPs are confident that villagers
  will lease land to them.
• SUPs believe they can borrow a larger amount from
  different sources in times of crisis NSUPs
  report a significantly lower amount. 
• 83 of SUPs are confident that their crisis
  coping ability has improved, and they need less
  time to recover from crises
• SUPs feel more healthy, especially women
• Programme intervention had a significant effect
  on self perceived health status of women in SUP
  households.

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Highlights of FindingsParticipatory Change Rank

• Although the general trend is of a widening gap
  between the richest and the poorest, SUP
  households according to the community, have fared
  better than non-beneficiaries in terms of change
  ranks.

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Are the improvements sustainable?
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Are the improvements sustainable?
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Puzzles that emerge.

• No significant impact on SUP childrens education
  status (enrolment and continuation)
• how does assetization affect household strategy
  regarding schooling decision?
• What strategy should the programme have to
  incentivize schooling? Conditionilizing stipend?
• No significant impact on U-5 childrens nutrition
  status
• Need for special nutritional focus for this
  critical age group

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Puzzles that emerge/2

• Latest HIES suggests that the bottom 10 have
  been doing well. But, we find, using
  participatory methods, that the poorest (NSUP)
  are perceived by the community to be on the whole
  getting poorer.
• Is this a region specific phenomenon?
• Are national surveys missing out on the ultra
  poor households?
• Is there a reverse Jodha effect? If so, in what
  ways and why?

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Outputs thus far

• A CFPR/TUP Working Paper Series. 15 WPs until
  now.
• 10 publications in peer reviewed journals.
• 20 presentations based on CFPR/TUP research and
  evaluation work made in various national and
  international conferences.
• All study reports posted on REDs website
  www.bracresearch.org

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Outputs planned

• BRAC, CPRC, University of Manchester Conference
  on What Works for the Poorest? Knowledge,
  Policies and Practices , Dhaka, Dec 2006.
• Book on CFPR/TUP research, evaluation and
  programme experience for the conference
• Edited book on What in the World Works for the
  Poorest? Programmes, Policies and Practices,
  based on the conference.

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The Next Years Establishing more rigorous and
complete evidence of impact

• Continue with the current panel at least for
  another round to assess sustainability of
  changes.
• Randomized Control Design for a small sub sample.
• Exploring seasonalities in consumption and crisis
  coping.
• Sample design to include other wealth categories.
• Go beyond household level and capture meso level
  changes in market and non market institutions.