Challenging the Frontiers of Poverty Reduction: Programme Experience

1. Challenging the Frontiers of Poverty Reduction:Programme Experience | Rabeya Yasmin | Coordinator | |CFPR |

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

5. CFPR is – A “Pushing Down” strategy to combat ultra poverty and A “Pushing Out” strategy to combat broader social constraints

6. 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

7. 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

8. Pushing down to reach the Ultra Poor: Definition of the Ultra Poor • Households with < 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

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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

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

14. 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

15. “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

16. Support programmes • Advocacy and Social Communication • Action Research

17. 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

18. 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

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

20. 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

21. Generating Knowledge and Evaluating Progress:A summary of five years of CFPR/TUP research | Imran Matin | Director | | Research and Evaluation Division |

22. 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

23. CFPR/TUP Impact Evaluation:Using various perspectives

24. 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.

25. Highlights of Findings: Objective Measures • Baseline in 2002: NSUPs>SUPs • Panel survey in 2005: SUPs> 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

26. The Shape of Asset Pentagon Changes for the SUPs…

27. Highlights of Findings:Self 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.

28. Highlights of Findings:Self Perception Food Security Measure

29. Highlights of Findings:Self 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.

30. Highlights of Findings:Participatory 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.

31. Are the improvements sustainable?

32. Are the improvements sustainable?

33. Puzzles that emerge…. • No significant impact on SUP children’s 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 children’s nutrition status • Need for special nutritional focus for this critical age group

34. 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?

35. 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 RED’s website: www.bracresearch.org

36. 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.

37. 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.