This study presents the results of a multi-arm randomized evaluation of the Government of Zambia’s Supporting Women’s Livelihoods (SWL) program,… Read more which included business and skills training, a productive grant, saving groups support and mentoring. Researchers found that the multifaceted program yielded increases in consumption, food security, assets, household income, and mental health, without negative economic spillovers on non-beneficiaries. However, the effects were entirely driven by the grant portion of the intervention, indicating a streamlined package could be a promising poverty alleviation strategy for developing-country governments.   Read less ...

As gender equity becomes more central to social and economic development, practitioners are increasingly focused on women and girls’ empowerment… Read more as a sustainable way to enhance well-being and close gender gaps. This literature review intends to provide a curated set of examples of interventions in developing countries that aim to affect the context and agency factors impeding women’s and girls’ empowerment. The report includes examples from programs  that include life skills training, savings and self-help groups and entrepreneurship, to mention a few.  Read less ...

Home-grown school feeding (HGSF) programs have the potential of strengthen local food systems by encouraging local production and creating both on-… Read more and off-farm jobs across the school meal value chain. This report documents the results and challenges of HGSF program in Kenya and proposes changes in the design of its modality to realize its full potential. Read less ...

In Bangladesh, economic inclusion programs are primarily  implemented by civil society organizations. Yet, the government has an opportunity to leverage… Read more its strong and expansive social safety net (SSN) system. This report examines three groups of SSN beneficiaries in Bangladesh - working-age widows, people with disabilities, and households with young children - to understand their potential to benefit from economic inclusion programming. Authors describes the socioeconomic characteristics of these three groups and identifies gaps in their access and coverage by main social protection programs; presents findings on their potential to benefit from economic inclusion programming; and examines the factors that need to be in place for economic inclusion programs to succeed. Finally, the report provides recommendations on how the government can build capacity to implement economic inclusion at scale in Bangladesh. Read less ...

The Clarissa Cash Plus program is an innovative social protection scheme that provides unconditional cash transfers and a needs-based community… Read more organizing for tackling social ills, including the worst forms of child labor. This brief shares the intervention's design, theory of change and unique features, such as its unconditional and universal components.   Read less ...

This case study offers perspectives and learnings on the implementation of the Labor-Intensive Public Works (LIPW) and Productive Inclusion (PI)… Read more programs, as part of the Ghana Productive Safety Net Project (GPSNP).  LIPW aims to provide short-term employment to poor people during the lean season and to build productive assets in their communities and it has gradually been adapted to respond to women’s needs in terms of changing the location of work sites, allowing for piecework to accommodate women’s time constraints, and providing on-site childcare. On the other side, PI's goal is to assist poor households to improve their productivity by supporting targeted beneficiaries with sustainable livelihoods.  Read less ...

Between 2020 and 2022, the Grameen Foundation provided gender and power dynamics (GPD) training to key managerial, technical and administrative… Read more staff of partner organizations in Honduras, El Salvador, Ghana, Eswatini and Timor-Leste. The training's objective was to help organizations address harmful gender norms that limit women's participation in society, including their economic engagement. This report consolidates lessons learned from these workshops and provides practical recommendations to organizations interested in GPD training. Read less ...

This three-pager summarizes recommendations for designing and implementing gender and power dynamics (GPD) training on the basis of the publication "Global… Read more Evaluation for Application of Grameen Foundation’s Gender and Power Dynamics Trainings within Women and Girls Empowered (WAGE) Initiatives". Read less ...

Evidence from multiple contexts suggests that the Graduation Approach, which provides holistic livelihood support for ultra-poor households, has lasting positive… Read more impacts on a range of outcomes. However, Graduation programs are relatively expensive because of the intense level of support they offer. The costs pose a challenge for governments that want to implement the approach at scale. In Uganda, researchers worked with Innovations for Poverty Action to conduct a randomized evaluation to better understand the effectiveness of several variants of a Graduation program focused on improving nutrition and self-reliance among populations in and around a refugee settlement. The program had significant positive impacts for both program participants and their households on key outcomes, including food security, nutrition, and self-reliance. All variations of the program also had large positive returns on investment. Read less ...

This paper provides a framework to move progressively from gender-sensitive or gender-responsive approaches towards promoting a more ambitious gender transformative… Read more agenda (GTA). To do so, it reviews a range of social protection policies and livelihoods programmes in Sub-Saharan Africa, including those that target women’s economic inclusion through asset grants, public works and training. Read less ...