Ultra Poor Program Research Articles

Long-Term Effects of the Targeting the Ultra Poor Program

This paper studies the long-run effects of a “ big-push” program providing a large asset transfer to the poorest Indian households. In a randomized controlled trial that follows these households over ten years, we find positive effects on consumption (0.6 SD), food security (0.1 SD), income (0.3 SD), and health (0.2 SD). These effects grow for the first seven years following the transfer and persist until year ten. One main channel for persistence is that treated households take better advantage of opportunities to diversify into more lucrative wage employment, especially through migration. (JEL I32, I38, J22, J31, O12, O18)

Poverty Alleviation and Interhousehold Transfers: Evidence from BRAC’s Graduation Program in Bangladesh

Abstract Poor households often rely on transfers from their social networks for consumption smoothing, yet there is limited evidence on how antipoverty programs affect informal transfers. This paper exploits the randomized rollout of BRAC’s ultra-poor graduation program in Bangladesh and panel data covering over 21,000 households over seven years to study the program’s effects on interhousehold transfers. The program crowds out informal transfers received by the targeted households, but this is driven mainly by outside-village transfers. Treated ultra-poor households become more likely to both give and receive transfers to/from wealthier households within their village; and less likely to receive transfers from their employers. As a result, the reciprocity of their within-village transfers increases. The findings imply that, within rural communities, there is positive assortative matching by socio-economic status. A reduction in poverty enables households to engage more in reciprocal transfer arrangements and lowers the interlinkage of their labor with informal insurance.

Long-Term Effects of the Targeting the Ultra Poor Program

This paper studies the long-run effects of a big-push program providing a large asset transfer to the poorest Indian households. In a randomized controlled trial that follows these households over 10 years, we find positive effects on consumption (0.6 SD), food security (0.1 SD), income (0.3 SD), and health (0.2 SD). These effects grow for the first seven years following the transfer and persist until year 10. One main channel for persistence is that treated households take better advantage of opportunities to diversify into more lucrative wage employment, especially through migration. Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.

How Far Does a Big Push Really Push? Long-Term Effects of an Asset Transfer Program on Employment Trajectories

AbstractBRAC launched its Challenging the Frontiers of Poverty Reduction: Targeting the Ultra Poor (CFPR-TUP) program in 2002 to address ultrapoverty in Bangladesh using an asset transfer approach ...

Crossfire: Microfinance can serve the very poor, but does it?

Microfinance was started as a tool to address extreme poverty, or even ‘to put poverty in a museum’. There is continuing debate about whether it can or cannot do this. Some argue that microfinance can and does alleviate or even ‘cure’ poverty, others that it has little or no impact, or even that it may even exacerbates poverty, particularly for the very poorest people. Two well-informed protagonists from South Asia discuss this issue. Rabeya Yasmin worked for Bangladesh Rehabilitation Assistance Committee (BRAC) in Bangladesh for 19 years, and was director of the well-known BRAC targeting the ultra poor (TUP) programme. She was educated at the University of Dhaka and at the IDS in Sussex, and is a member of the boards of several institutions in Bangladesh. Frances Sinha is a Director and co-founder of M-Cril, the international financial services and social business rating and research agency, based in Delhi. She is originally from the United Kingdom but has lived and worked for over thirty years in India, but also throughout South Asia and Africa.

Changes in extreme poverty in Bangladesh (2000–2015): trend, dynamics, and implications for research and interventions

Headcount extreme poverty in Bangladesh has been declining since 2000, but how has the profile and income distribution of the poorest changed and what do these mean for intervention design and directions for innovations? Using national and BRAC datasets, we find important changes among the extreme poor over time including their income distribution, which has become more dispersed with a stronger positive skew. The overall economic progress seems to be lifting all boats. However, most of the extreme poor remain trapped in chronic poverty. Long-term escape out of extreme poverty, even for well-designed and well-executed programmes such as BRAC’s Targeting the Ultra Poor (TUP) programme, remains modest, though the overall impact is extremely positive. We suggest a few directions for future design to accelerate progress. This will require a bolder knowledge partnership between researchers working on rigorous evidence using experimental methods and behavioural insights, and practitioners.

Exploring Impact of Targeting the Ultra Poor Programme on Health Issues in Bangladesh

This article attempts to provide an understanding to what extent institutional change of the functional activities of microfinance influences some specific health-related outcomes for the ultra-poor people in Bangladesh. It examines impact of the ‘Challenging the Frontiers of Poverty Reduction-Targeting the Ultra Poor’ (CFPR-TUP) programme on health-related outcomes using a large balanced panel data set (2002, 2005 and 2008) from rural areas of Bangladesh. The main objective of this article is to examine both short- and long-term impacts on health-related issues of the ultra poor using both conditional and unconditional difference-in-differences (DID). In particular, this article examines the distinction between treatment and control groups in base year and the year followed up as well as the impact on coping ability. This study finds the significant impact of the programme on investment in health and awareness indicator such as usage of sanitation though we are suspicious about its sustainability. The programme therefore has sustainable impact on health investment and to some extent, on coping ability.

Evaluating the Long-Run Impact of an Innovative Anti-Poverty Program: Evidence Using Household Panel Data

Using a four-round panel data set from the first phase of the Challenging the Frontiers of Poverty Reduction – Targeting the Ultra Poor (CFPR – TUP) programme of BRAC, we investigate whether a one-off transfer of livestock assets improves well-being of the very poor women in Bangladesh. Programme impact is assessed on a wide range of monetary and nonmonetary measures of wellbeing using difference-in-difference (DD) as well as matching methods. We find significant positive long-term impact on food security, household savings, assets and participation in microfinance. Participant women are less likely to be in distress occupation and more into self-employment. However, the long-term effect is much smaller for most outcomes when compared to short- and medium-run impacts. We conclude by discussing the significance of the institutional and regional context for the observed time path of estimated programme effect.

Evaluating the long-run impact of an innovative anti-poverty programme: evidence using household panel data

ABSTRACTUsing a four-round panel data set from the first phase of the Challenging the Frontiers of Poverty Reduction – Targeting the Ultra Poor (CFPR – TUP) programme of BRAC, we investigate whether a one-off transfer of livestock assets improves well-being of the very poor women in Bangladesh. Programme impact is assessed on a wide range of monetary and nonmonetary measures of well-being using difference-in-difference (DD) as well as matching methods. We find significant positive long-term impact on food security, household savings, assets and participation in microfinance. Participant women are less likely to be in distress occupation and more into self-employment. However, the long-term effect is much smaller for most outcomes when compared to short- and medium-run impacts. We conclude by discussing the significance of the institutional and regional context for the observed time path of estimated programme effect.

How Do Intrahousehold Dynamics Change When Assets Are Transferred to Women? Evidence from BRACCs Challenging the Frontiers of Poverty Reduction Targeting the Ultra Poor Program in Bangladesh

We study BRAC’s Challenging the Frontiers of Poverty Reduction — Targeting the Ultra Poor (CFPR-TUP) program in Bangladesh, which targets asset transfer (primarily livestock) and training to rural women in poor households. Previous research has shown large, significant positive program impacts at the household level. In this paper, we examine intrahousehold impacts using mixed methods. We focus on the Specially Targeted Ultra-Poor (STUP) component of the program, which targets households selected following a randomized controlled trial design. Adding a new round of data collection with quantitative sex-disaggregated information and qualitative exploration, we exploit the randomized design to assess intrahousehold impacts of STUP. Our analysis confirms that the program significantly increases household ownership of various assets but has complex effects on the targeted women.

Assessing the Frontiers of Ultrapoverty Reduction: Evidence from Challenging the Frontiers of Poverty Reduction/Targeting the Ultra-poor, an Innovative Program in Bangladesh

AbstractThis article uses household panel data to provide robust evidence on the effects of BRAC’s (Building Resources across Countries) Targeting the Ultra-poor (TUP) program in Bangladesh. We use alternative treatment-comparison pairs; in addition to BRAC’s own classification, we exploit type 1 errors in assignment in BRAC’s selection process to create a second treatment-comparison pair. This allows us to estimate the program effects on the target group, not contaminated by mistargeting. To address selection on unobservables, we implement heteroskedasticity-based identification and two recent estimators based on matching and propensity score reweighting. The results show that participation had significant positive effects on food security, clothing, shoes, livestock, and cash savings, but there is weak or no evidence of an impact on the number of household durables and assets and indicators of health and women’s empowerment. The effects on the poorest of the poor (the target group) may be different from...

An Exercise to Evaluate an Anti-Poverty Program with Multiple Outcomes Using Program Evaluation

Anti-poverty programs implemented in developing countries typically have multiple goals beyond improving income levels. In order to provide a comprehensive measure of program effectiveness in the presence of multiple outcomes, I introduce multidimensional poverty measures to the program evaluation literature. I combine robust multidimensional poverty measures with difference-in-difference matching estimators to evaluate the impact of the Targeting the Ultra-Poor (TUP) program undertaken in Bangladesh. This project aimed to improve the well-being of families living in chronic poverty. I find that the TUP program reduced multidimensional poverty among the treated group by 18 percentage points relative to the comparison group.

How Effective is a Big Push to the Small? Evidence from a Quasi-Experiment

Summary This paper investigates whether a big push to the extreme poor in terms of a one-off large grant enables them to participate in the microfinance program. The analysis uses data from a quasi-experiment on BRAC’s ultra poor program in Bangladesh. The results for the baseline and repeat survey data for the treatment and comparison groups show that such a big push does make a significant impact on graduation to the microfinance program. The results are robust to correction for self-selection bias. Social capital and awareness also play important role in their decision on NGO membership and borrowing.

How Much Can Asset Transfers Help the Poorest? Evaluating the Results of BRAC's Ultra-Poor Programme (2002–2008)

The impacts of an innovative programme in rural Bangladesh, which has assisted extremely poor households, literally the poorest of the poor, were assessed over a six-year period (2002–2008). The provision of a substantial dose of assets has helped produce very positive results, by and large. Vulnerability to downturns on account of negative events, such as illnesses and house damage, has resulted in asset losses for several assisted households. Additional measures that reduce vulnerability and risk will help complete the good work commenced by the asset transfer plan.

Overcoming Extreme Poverty in India: Lessons Learnt from SKS

Swayam Krishi Sangam (SKS), a leading microfinance institution in India, has implemented an innovative approach to poverty reduction known as the Ultra Poor Program (UPP). SKS believes that income generation is the key to breaking the cycle of poverty, but that the poorest are too vulnerable, too risk adverse and lack the entrepreneurial skills to make use of a microfinance loan. SKS therefore offers carefully targeted individuals with productive assets, close accompaniment, a cash stipend, a savings scheme and health services for 18 months, in order to ‘graduate’ them out of extreme poverty. The remit is to provide social safety nets with an effective ‘exit’ strategy, with particular attention to the challenge of scaling‐up nationally.

Assessing the Frontiers of Ultra-Poverty Reduction: Evidence from CFPR/TUP, An Innovative Program in Bangladesh

This paper uses household panel data to provide robust evidence on the effects of BRAC’s Targeting the Ultra-poor Program in Bangladesh. Our identification strategy exploits type-1 errors in assignment, comparing households correctly included with those incorrectly excluded, according to program criteria. Evidence from difference-in-difference matching and sensitivity analysis shows that participation had significant positive effects on income, food consumption and security, household durables, and livestock, but no robust impact on health, ownership of homestead land, housing quality and other productive assets. Using quantile difference-in-difference, we find that the income gains from program participation is smaller for the lowest two deciles.

Assisting the Poorest in Bangladesh: Learning from BRAC's 'Targeting the Ultra Poor' Programme

This paper commences by examining the evolution of a programme designed to reach the poorest people in Bangladesh, to improve their immediate situation and to give them the assets and other skills to move out of poverty and dramatically reduce their vulnerability - BRAC's Challenging the Frontiers of Poverty Reduction/Targeting the Ultra Poor Programme, or CFPR-TUP. It then reviews what is known about the impacts of TUP, and finds evidence that the programme is both reaching significant numbers of Bangladesh's poorest people and improving their economic and social condition. The concluding sections draw lessons from the TUP about the types of programme design features and the processes required in order to develop such ambitious initiatives.

Engaging elite support for the poorest? BRAC's Targeted Ultra Poor programme for rural women in Bangladesh

This article draws preliminary lessons from the experience of engaging village elites in support of a BRAC programme for ultra-poor women in rural Bangladesh. It describes the origins, aims, and operation of this programme, which provides comprehensive livelihood support and productive assets to the extreme poor. Based on field research in the rural north-west, the article examines the conditions under which elites can support interventions for the ultra-poor, and the risks and benefits of such engagement. It describes the impact of committees mandated to support ultra-poor programme participants, and attempts to understand the somewhat paradoxical success of this intervention. Conclusions and lessons from the experience involve revisiting assumptions that dominate scholarship and programmes relating to the politics of poverty in rural Bangladesh.

Changes in the lives of the ultra poor: an exploratory study

This Research Roundup reports on the pilot phase of BRAC's aeChallenging the Frontiers of Poverty Reduction/Targeting the Ultra Poor Programme' (CFPR/TUP), which was initiated in three of the poorest districts of northern Bangladesh (Nilphamari, Rangpur, and Kurigram) in January 2002. The authors find a close link between the initial conditions of the programme participants and the degree of change they have experienced in their lives since its inception, with the most vulnerable reporting the least change. Some modifications to the CFPR/TUP are recommended. This article is hosted by our co-publisher Taylor & Francis.

Environmental assessment of the poultry sector of CFPR/TUP programme: experience of BRAC's ultra-poor poultry programme

An environmental assessment of the poultry sector of "Challenging the Frontiers of Poverty Reduction/Targeting the Ultra Poor Program (CFPR/TUP)" programme of BRAC has been conducted. Special focus was given to health and environmental aspects of poultry rearing, including the housing and diseases of both humans and poultry, the surrounding environment, access to and sources of water, waste management, common property resources, and social conflicts related to the poultry programme. Data were collected through field observations, in-depth interviews, and case studies during August 2003. Poultry rearing was found to be a promising income-generating activity for the ultra poor. A few obstacles related to health, resource use, resource management, and social conflicts were identified. There were some innovative initiatives taken by the TUP poultry members related to waste management, other sources of income and water access. Some steps were suggested to resolve social conflicts and health problems, to improve poultry housing and waste marketing, to increase nutritional intake and initiate intermediate income-generating projects, and to highlight management issues of common property resource.