The changing poverty landscape in Bangladesh and the COVID-19 pandemic have left marginalized populations, including widows, elderly, persons with disabilities,… Read more and ethnic minorities, even more vulnerable than before. This In Focus from the team Bangladesh, a PEI grantee, outlines the current policy framework considerations within the country, as well as the extent and inclusiveness of its primary social protection programs for marginalized groups, offering an analysis on how the Government can implement Economic Inclusion interventions that leverage its expansive social safety nets  Read less ...

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the socio-economic prospects for the youth in Bangladesh. In response, the Government of Bangladesh launched… Read more in 2021 the World Bank-financed Recovery and Advancement of Informal Sector Employment (RAISE) program. RAISE aims to provide services that can improve earning opportunities for 375,000 low-income urban youth, micro-entrepreneurs affected by COVID-19, and returning migrants. This policy note draws on lessons from global economic inclusion programs to illustrate the rationale and design considerations in the RAISE program. In addition, it provides recommendations on key areas to track in the impact evaluation, which will be critical in identifying the most effective approach for youth populations and providing lessons on cost-effectiveness for national scale. Read less ...

New to the Jordanian context, the graduation approach (GA or graduation) has gained traction as a promising methodology to life… Read more households in Jordan out of extreme poverty and into self-reliance. Graduation programs like the RYSE project are exploring ways to overcome these challenges, including through engagement with the private sector to develop complementary “pull strategies” that help to expand the quality and diversity of economic opportunities available. Notable opportunities within the tech-enabled and information and communications technology (ICT) sector and food processing and agribusiness have been identified as high-growth opportunities that would also be appropriate for women, youth, and Syrian refugees, who often face additional barriers to market engagement. This study, conducted by the Durable Solutions Platform (DSP) and the Resilient Youth, Socially and Economically Empowered (RYSE) project, examines the barriers and prospects for a successful application of the graduation model in Jordan. Read less ...

This paper examines how FHI 360’s utilization of labor market assessments (LMA) ensures that extremely poor youth (EPY) and adolescent… Read more girls and young women (AGYW) programming is market-driven and aligned, linking the extreme poor to sustainable livelihood opportunities. The article reviews three LMA case studies from projects in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Liberia, and South Africa. Read less ...

This document provides a gender and inclusion analysis in Ghana. It summarizes the legal and institutional framework in the country… Read more in regard to gender equality and describes an analysis of the sociocultural norms and power dynamics that can affect women participation and performance in economic activities, including access and control of resources, as well as their participation in the political and civil life.  Read less ...

A multi-faceted program comprising a grant of productive assets, training, unconditional cash transfers, coaching, and savings has been found to… Read more build sustainable income for those in extreme poverty. We focus on two important questions: whether a mere grant of productive assets would generate similar impacts (it does not), and whether access to a savings account with a deposit collection service would generate similar impacts (it does, but they are short-lived). Read less ...

This chapter of the DIME report "Reducing Poverty 2,0" examines the effectiveness of a government-led graduation program in Nigeria that… Read more targeted the ultra poor. The author finds that the program was highly cost-effective and positively impacted household consumption, food security, revenue, income, and women’s psychosocial well-being. Read less ...

Behavioral science-the study of how humans make decisions and take actions—can provide insight into a host of issues that impact… Read more the effectiveness of programs that rely on people acting in certain ways. Behavioral science can be utilized to understand how living in poverty, with chronically scarce resources, affects people's decisions and actions. This can be particularly effective when combined with other program components in economic inclusion programs, which offer a bundle of coordinated, multidimensional interventions that support individuals, households, and communities in their efforts to increase their incomes and assets. By incorporating an understanding of behavioral science into economic inclusion programming, governments and nongovernment organizations seeking to bring millions out of poverty with limited resources can ensure that their programs are designed to account for human behavior. Read less ...

This note is one of two designed to serve as a resource for policy makers and practitioners aiming to introduce… Read more or scale up economic inclusion programs in urban and peri-urban areas. The first note explores the potential of economic inclusion programs to promote the social and economic inclusion of the urban poor and vulnerable. It lays out a framework for such programming based on the current landscape and evidence and points to the central role economic inclusion programs can play in meeting the urban jobs challenge, facilitating a Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) recovery, and building inclusive cities. This note addresses the question of how to operationalize these programs. It shows that a rethink is needed about the ways in which programs are designed and delivered to fit the needs and lifestyles of the urban poor. The emerging experience from a growing pipeline yields some important operational insights, but several questions remain to be answered in coming years, as programs continue to evolve and customize to the urban context. Read less ...

Many policies attempt to help extremely poor households build sustainable sources of income. Although economic interventions have predominated historically, psychosocial… Read more support has attracted substantial interest, particularly for its potential cost-effectiveness. Recent evidence has shown that multi-faceted ‘graduation’ programmes can succeed in generating sustained changes. Here we show that a multi-faceted intervention can open pathways out of extreme poverty by relaxing capital and psychosocial constraints. We conducted a four-arm randomized evaluation among extremely poor female beneficiaries already enrolled in a national cash transfer government programme in Niger. The three treatment arms included group savings promotion, coaching and entrepreneurship training, and then added either a lump-sum cash grant, psychosocial interventions, or both the cash grant and psychosocial interventions. All three arms generated positive effects on economic outcomes and psychosocial well-being, but there were notable differences in the pathways and the timing of effects. Overall, the arms with psychosocial interventions were the most cost-effective, highlighting the value of including well-designed psychosocial components in government-led multi-faceted interventions for the extreme poor. Read less ...