While climate change is likely to increase weather risks in many developing countries, there is little evidence on effective policies… Read more to facilitate adaptation. This paper presents experimental evidence on a program in rural Nicaragua aimed at improving households’ risk-management through income diversification. The intervention targeted agricultural households exposed to weather shocks related to changes in rainfall and temperature patterns. It combined a conditional cash transfer with vocational training or a productive investment grant. The authors identify the relative impact of each complementary package based on randomized assignment, and analyze how impacts vary by exposure to exogenous drought shocks. The results show that both complementary interventions provide full protection against drought shocks two years after the end of the intervention. Households that received the productive investment grant also had higher average consumption levels. The complementary interventions led to diversification of economic activities and better protection from shocks compared to beneficiaries of the basic conditional cash transfer and control households. These results show that combining safety nets with productive interventions can help households manage future weather risks and promote longer-term program impacts. Read less ...

Cash transfer programs have become extremely popular in the developing world. There is a large literature on… Read more the effects of these programs on schooling, health and nutrition, but relatively little is known about possible impacts on child development. This paper analyzes the impact of a cash transfer program on cognitive development in early childhood in rural Nicaragua. Identification is based on random assignment. We show that children in households assigned to receive benefits had significantly higher levels of development nine mon ths after the program began. There is no fade-out of program effects two years after the program had ended and transfers were discontinued. We show that the changes in child development we observe are unlikely to be a result of the cash component of the program alone. Read less ...

With more than one-fifth of Bangladesh's population living in extreme poverty, surmounting it still remains a substantial predicament for development… Read more practitioners. To combat this issue, BRAC initiated the multifaceted Challenging the Frontiers of Poverty Reduction programme with a grant-based approach, reinforcing its efficacy with background services such as health and social development. Using propensity score matching, this paper analyses a three-round panel dataset (2002–2005–2008) to evaluate the impacts of the programme. We find that Challenging the Frontiers of Poverty Reduction is successfully able to increase the per-capita income, the productive asset bases and the overall food security of its participants in the long run. Read less ...

An ongoing and highly politicised debate concerns the relative efficacy of cash transfers versus food aid. This paper aims to… Read more shed light on this debate, drawing on new empirical evidence from Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP). Our data derive from a two-wave panel survey conducted in 2006 and 2008. Ethiopia has experienced unprecedented rates of inflation since 2007, which have reduced the real purchasing power of PSNP cash payments. Our regression findings confirm that food transfers or ‘cash plus food’ packages are superior to cash transfers alone – they enable higher levels of income growth, livestock accumulation and self-reported food security. These results raise questions of fundamental importance to global humanitarian response and social protection policy. We draw out some implications for the design of social transfer programmes and describe some steps that could be taken to enable ‘predictable transfers to meet predictable needs’. Read less ...

In 2006 CGAP and Ford Foundation launched the CGAP-Ford Foundation Graduation Program, a global effort to understand how safety nets,… Read more livelihoods and microfinance can be sequenced to create pathways for the poorest out of extreme poverty, adapting a methodology developed by BRAC in Bangladesh. The CGAP-Ford Foundation Graduation Program is helping to implement ten Graduation Pilots in eight countries including in Ethiopia, in partnership with local organizations. Impact assessments and/or qualitative research are being implemented in all sites. This paper presents findings from the Graduation Pilot in Ethiopia1 through a narrative of participants’ life stories. Faced with severe food insecurity and scarce livelihood opportunities, much of the rural population depends on the Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP) administered by the Government of Ethiopia (GoE), for indeterminate periods of time. In response, Relief Society of Tigray (REST) is implementing the pilot in partnership with Dedebit Credit and Savings Institution (DECSI). Overall, REST’s intervention is a cost effective, easily scalable programme that has been very successful in creating credit worthy micro-entrepreneurs. Based on the results of a self evaluation exercise and participant evaluations by field staff, 3 types of respondents are identified: fast, slow and intermediate climbers. An in-depth qualitative analysis reveals that while participants’ pre-existing circumstances are predictive of their livelihood performance, it is the programme’s capacity to respond to peculiarities of each household which finally determines whether there is a story of change, or not. Read less ...

This document lays out the social security strategy of the International Labour Organization on the extension of social security. The… Read more ILO's two-dimensional strategy provides clear guidance on the future development of social security in countries at all levels of development. Its horizontal dimension aims at establishing and maintaining social protection floors as a fundamental element of national social security systems. The vertical dimension aims at pursuing strategies for the extension of social security that progressively ensure higher levels of social security to as many people as possible, guided by ILO social security standards. Together, these two dimensions aim at building comprehensive social security systems in line with national priorities, resources and circumstances. Read less ...

In 2003, Liberia’s 14-year civil war finally came to an end. The war was disruptive and destructive, displacing the majority… Read more of Liberia’s 3 million inhabitants, halting economic activity, deepening poverty, and depriving a generation of basic education. The bulk of Liberia’s youth remain poor and underemployed. While the security situation has steadily improved since 2003, many rural youth continue to make their living through unlawful activities, including unlicensed mining, rubber tapping, or logging. Many of them are ex-combatants, and some remain in loose armed group structures. From 2009 to 2011, Christopher Blattman (Yale) and Jeannie Annan (International Rescue Committee) worked with IPA (www.poverty-action.org) and LMA todo a quantitative and qualitative study of the LMA program. The centerpiece of the research strategy was a randomized evaluation. The NGO recruited 1,330 youth, and the researchers randomly assigned these to either “treatment” (receiving the program) or “control” (not receiving the program). By comparing the “treatment” group to the random “control” group 18 months after the program, we can see the effect of the intervention on agricultural livelihoods, shifts from illicit to legal employment, poverty, social integration, aggression, and potential for future instability. The research does not simply evaluate the success of a single program, but uses the findings to weigh in on the broader implications for security and poverty reduction in Liberia and beyond. Additional questions addressed in the report include: Are rural youth interested in agriculture? What kinds of agricultural support can help them expand their activities? Can anti-poverty programs reduce illegal activities, peacefully open up concessions, and reduce the propensity for crime and violence? What are the most cost-effective means to reduce poverty and improve security in rural towns and villages? Read less ...

This operational guidance to livelihood programming is aimed primarily at UNHCR Field Operations, starting with representatives and senior managers in… Read more field operations; at Multi-Functional Teams (MFT) that include Protection, Programme, Community Services, Field and Livelihoods Officers, where applicable; and at government counterparts and operational and implementing partners, including potential new partners that may include microfinance institutions, the private sector, foundations and academic institutions. Regional representations and decision-makers in headquarters are also addressed. These guidelines address all urban persons of concern (PoC) currently under UNHCR’s mandated and designated responsibility, including refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced persons (IDP), stateless persons and returnees. This operational guidance is based on lessons learnt and good practices gathered across urban operations since 2008. Read less ...

This report assesses the impact of the Productive Safety Net, Other Food Security and Household Asset Building Programs on food… Read more security, assets, and agricultural production. It also examines whether these have led to investments in new nonfarm business activities and whether they have had disincentive effects. Read less ...

Microfinance is about extending financial access to poor and excluded people. However, apart from a few notable exceptions, microfinance has… Read more not typically reached extremely poor people—those at the lowest level of the economic ladder. The majority of the world’s estimated 150 million microcredit clients are thought to live just below and, more often, just above the poverty line. This paper highlights the lessons learned from the Graduation Program first by describing how the model works and how various partner organizations implement it in the field. A subsequent section distills the early findings and is followed by a section on costs. The final section takes stock of the learning to date, including key constraints and outstanding questions. Read less ...