Globalising Southern approaches to reducing extreme poverty: policy adoption of BRAC’s Targeting the Ultra Poor graduation program

ABSTRACT

This paper explores how BRAC’s Targeting the Ultra Poor graduation program was globally adopted as a successful pathway for extremely poor households to build sustainable livelihoods and improve their conditions. It explores how this Southern model of development and transformation became an integral part of global knowledge. The paper also highlights a fundamental element of BRAC’s vision and pedagogical approach – enabling the powerless, especially women, to organise and exercise their agency for bringing about change – and suggests this as an important next step in graduation programming.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 In this article, we use “extreme poor” as it is commonly used in discussions of social development goals, i.e. people living on purchasing power parity–adjusted USD 1.90 a day, the updated international poverty threshold. This allows for international comparisons since most countries are tracking this indicator to determine progress on the goal of reducing or eliminating extreme poverty. BRAC uses the term “ultra-poor” to describe a similar cohort. This article retains the term “ultra poor” when it refers specifically to programs (e.g. BRAC’s TUP in Bangladesh) that employ that terminology. It should be noted, however, that graduation programs do not necessarily use only the USD 1.90 metric for targeting participants but often take other indicators of vulnerability into account, sometimes relying on community-based rankings reflecting relative poverty perceptions from the community. We use “extreme poor” and “the “poorest” interchangeably, where desirable for stylistic reasons at various points in the discussion.

2 Although graduation programs in isolated rural communities are likely to remain focused on self-employment livelihoods for the foreseeable future, for participants (especially youth) in urban and peri-urban settings where there are jobs to be found, graduation programs increasingly supplement livelihoods training with job training and placement.

3 BRAC’s TUP model is different to Grameen’s “Struggling (Beggars) Members Program” which is based on an interest-free loan. The purpose of Grameen’s Struggling (Beggars) Members Program is to provide financial support services to beggars to assist them to find a dignified livelihood. It is considered not only a financial service but also a social movement at a wide range. The loan is approved for the eligible person according to the following criteria: the actual situation of the person and ability to repay through income, not from begging money. These loans are automatically insured without any premium and are paid off from the insurance fund in case of death.

4 The Global Hunger Index shows Bangladesh is making progress in tackling hunger: https://www.globalhungerindex.org/case-studies/2018-bangladesh.html

5 BRAC’s work in this area has evolved over the years, starting with the Income Generation for Vulnerable Group Development (IGVGD) program and its more recent incarnation, the Challenging the Frontiers of Poverty Reduction/Targeting the Ultra Poor (CFPR/TUP) program.

6 The joint effort was led by the authors and CGAP senior management, with Frank DeGiovanni from the Ford Foundation.