This bulletin summarizes the results from seven randomized evaluations of the Graduation approach, a multifaceted livelihood program for the ultra-poor.… Read more This particular approach was designed by BRAC and has since been adapted in eight countries with support from the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) and the Ford Foundation. Researchers conducted randomized evaluations of the program in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Ghana, Honduras, India, Pakistan, and Peru. By evaluating a similar approach across a diverse set of contexts and implementing partners, results shed new light on important policy questions. Can a “big push” intervention targeted at the ultra-poor help them transition to more secure livelihoods and increase their income even after the two-year program ends? Can the intervention also improve psychosocial well-being and empowerment? Is the Graduation approach effective when implemented across diverse geographical, institutional, and cultural contexts? Read less ...

States and aid agencies use employment programs to rehabilitate high-risk men in the belief that peaceful work opportunities will deter… Read more them from crime and violence. Rigorous evidence is rare. We experimentally evaluate a program of agricultural training, capital inputs, and counseling for Liberian ex-fighters who were illegally mining or occupying rubber plantations. 14 months after the program ended, men who accepted the program offer increased their farm employment and profits, and shifted work hours away from illicit activities. Men also reduced interest in mercenary work in a nearby war. Finally, some men did not receive their capital inputs but expected a future cash transfer instead, and they reduced illicit and mercenary activities most of all. The evidence suggests that illicit and mercenary labor supply responds to small changes in returns to peaceful work, especially future and ongoing incentives. But the impacts of training alone, without capital, appear to be low. Read less ...

Authors present results from six randomized control trials of an integrated approach to improve livelihoods amongst the very poor. The… Read more approach combines the transfer of a productive asset with consumption support, training and coaching plus savings encouragement and health education and/or services. Results from the implementation of the same basic program, adapted to a wide variety of geographic and institutional contexts and with multiple implementing partners, show statistically significant, costeffective impacts on consumption (fueled mostly by increases in self-employment income) and psychosocial status of the targeted households. The impact on the poor households lasted at least a year after all implementation ended. It is possible to make sustainable improvements in the economic status of the poor with a relatively short-term intervention. Read less ...

Authors analyze a randomized trial of an innovative anti-poverty program in South India, part of a series of pilot programs… Read more that provide “ultra-poor” households with inputs to create new, sustainable livelihoods (often tending livestock) Read less ...

The world's poorand programs to raise their incomesare increasingly concentrated in fragile states. We review the evidence on what interventions… Read more work, and whether stimulating employment promotes social stability. Skills training and micronance have shown little impact on poverty or stability, especially relative to program cost. In contrast, injections of capitalcash, capital goods, or livestockseem to stimulate selfemployment and raise long term earning potential, often when partnered with low-cost complementary interventions. Such capital-centric programs, alongside cash-for-work, may be the most eective tools for putting people to work and boosting incomes in poor and fragile states. We argue that policymakers should shift the balance of programsin this direction. If targeted to the highest risk men, we should expect such programs to reduce crime and other materially-motivated violence modestly. Policymakers, however, should not expect dramatic eects of employment on crime and violence, in part because some forms of violence do not respond to incomes or employment. Finally, this review nds that more investigation is needed in several areas. First, are skills training and other interventions cost-eective complements to capital injections? Second, what non-employment strategies reduce crime and violence among the highest risk men, and are they complementary to employment programs? Third, policymakers can reduce the high failure rate of employment programs by using small-scale pilots before launching large programs; investing in labor market panel data; and investing in multi-country studies to test and ne tune the most promising interventions Read less ...

This article describes a multifaceted livelihood program that provided ultra-poor households in seven low- and middle-income countries with a… Read more productive asset, training, regular coaching, access to savings, and consumption support led to large and lasting impacts on their standard of living. Read less ...

This study focus on the impact of linking conditional cash transfers to agricultural credit on productive assets accumulation of rural… Read more households in Peru Read less ...

Most safety net programs in low and middle-income countries have hitherto been conceived for rural areas. Yet as the global… Read more urban population increases and poverty urbanizes, it becomes of utmost importance to understand how to make safety nets work in urban settings. This paper discusses the process of urbanization, the peculiar features of urban poverty, and emerging experiences with urban safety net programs in dozens of countries. It does so by reviewing multidisciplinary literature, examining household survey data, and presenting a compilation of case studies from a 'first generation' of programs. The paper finds that urban areas pose fundamentally different sets of opportunities and challenges for social protection, and that safety net programs are at the very beginning of a process of urban adaptation. The mixed-performance and preliminary nature of the experiences suggest putting a premium on learning and evidence-generation. This might include revisiting some key design choices and better connecting safety nets to spatial, economic and social services agendas compelling to urban areas. The mixed-performance and preliminary nature of the experiences suggest putting a premium on learning and evidence-generation. This might include revisiting some key design choices and better connecting safety nets to spatial, economic and social services agendas compelling to urban areas. The mixed-performance and preliminary nature of the experiences suggest putting a premium on learning and evidence-generation. This might include revisiting some key design choices and better connecting safety nets to spatial, economic and social services agendas compelling to urban areas. Read less ...

The importance of improving outcomes for the ultrapoor is emphasised in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), whose first target is… Read more to eradicate extreme poverty for all people everywhere by 2030. An intervention showing promise in helping the ultra-poor move onto a sustainable trajectory out of poverty, is a comprehensive livelihood programme providing a ‘big-push’ with complementary investments in productive assets and skills training. First pioneered by the NGO BRAC in Bangladesh, the programme has been replicated in 20 other countries. This brief describes key findings from a rigorous seven-year evaluation of the first of these livelihood programmes, BRAC’s ‘Targeting the Ultra-Poor’ programme in rural Bangladesh. Targeted households increase earnings by 37% and improve their consumption, savings, and asset accumulation. Results from Bangladesh are consistent with evidence from randomised evaluations of pilots in six other countries, that suggest BRAC’s approach improves outcomes for the ultra-poor across diverse contexts. Longer-term evaluations (four and seven years later) suggest long-run impacts may be even larger than two-year effects. Read less ...

As USAID and other donors explore approaches and issues that can improve the poverty-reducing impact ofits market systems development work,… Read more labor markets—and in particular labor that is relevant to the poorest in rural, agriculture-based economies—emerge as a priority. Thus this LEO initiative on “Highlighting Labor in Agricultural Market Systems” aims to raise awareness and to develop practical resources to support better integration of labor into the practice of market systems development. As its first output, this report provides a stock-take on the current literature on employment and pathways out of poverty, with a special focus on rural wage labor. It also proposes some initial implications for programs in order to yield greater employment and poverty reduction impacts. Read less ...