RAISING >2 BILLION HUMANS INTELLIGENCES BY 25 YEARS. After helping with recovery 1970 cyclone killing half a million of his compatriots, Fazle Abed was nearly assassinated by his employer Royal Dutch Shell and the Pakistani army. Fortunately he spent his remaining 50 years celebrating intelligence development of the poorest 2 billion parents notably growth of 1billiongirls. For over quarter of a century all networking was done by word of mouth and sight of book because in Asia 20th c village life still meant no access to electricity grids or telephone lines. Fortunately both Computing Whizs Jobs & Gates were both partly dis-satisfied with western apps of pc networks which they had begun in 1984. Around 2001 they both hosted silicon valley 65th birthday wish parties for Abed as global village tech envoy. Partners in life critical challenges had begun to bring abed's village mothers solar and mobile to co-create with. Abed changed the way Jobs saw tech futures of education (see ) and how Gates saw global health fund foundations and overall the valley's university stanford started to see as far as intelligence of Women and Youth goes the most life critical knowhow for 2 billion humans wasnt directly measurable in 90 day monetary flows; it was measurable in increased life expectancy by over 25 years during Abed's community servant leadership. Probably the greatest lift in intelligence until celebrations of what Fei-Fei Li opened the worlds eyes to in 2012, and Melinda Gates and Nvidia's Jensen Huang were first to helped AIforall lift since 2014.

Thursday, September 30, 2021

1.3 ultra poor keys

 https://bracupgi.org/

Shameran Abed- 1.3              Ultra Poor Graduation
We are witness to monumental human progress.
... Over the past few decades, the expansion of the global marketplace has lifted a third of the world's population out of extreme poverty.Yet we are also witness to an astounding failure.Our efforts to lift people up have left behind those in the harshest forms of poverty-the ultra-poor.

00:35

What it means to be ultra-poor goes beyond the monetary definition that we're all familiar with:living on less than two dollars a day.

It goes even beyond not having assets like livestock or land. To be ultra-poor means to be stripped of your dignity,purpose and self-worth.

It means living in isolation, because you're a burden to your own community. It means being unable to imagine a better future for yourself and your family.By the end of 2019, about 400 million people were living in ultra-poverty worldwide.That's more than the populations of the United States and Canada combined.

And when calamity strikes, whether it's a pandemic, a natural disaster or a manmade crisis, these numbers spike astronomically higher.

01:28

My father, Fazle Abed, gave up a corporate career to establish BRAC here in Bangladesh in 1972.

Bangladesh was a wreck, having just gone through a devastating cyclone followed by a brutal war for independence.

Working with the poorest of the poor, my father realized that poverty was more than the lack of income and assets. It was also a lack of hope. People were trapped in poverty, because they felt their condition was immutable. Poverty, to them, was like the sun and the moon --something given to them by God.For poverty reduction programs to succeed, they would need to instill hope and self-worth so that, with a little support, people could lift themselves out of poverty. BRAC went on to pioneer the graduation approach, a solution to ultra-poverty that addresses both income poverty and the poverty of hope.

02:27

The approach works primarily with women, because women are the most affected by ultra-poverty but also the ones most likely to pull themselves and their families out of it. Over a two-year period,we essentially do four things.

One, we meet a woman's basic needs by giving her food or cash, ensuring the minimum to survive.

Two, we move her towards a decent livelihood by giving her an asset, like livestock,and training her to earn money from it.

Three, we train her to save, budget and invest her new wealth.

And four, we help to integrate her socially, first into groups of women like her and then into her community.

 

Each of these elements is key to the success of the others, but the real magic is the hope and sense of possibility the women develop through the close mentorship they receive.

03:24

Let me tell you about Jorina.Jorina was born in a remote village in northern Bangladesh.She never went to school, and at the age of 15, she was married off to an abusive husband. He eventually abandoned her, leaving her with no income and two children who were not in school and were severely malnourished. With no one to turn to for help, she had no hope.

Jorina joined BRAC's Graduation program in 2005. She received a dollar a week, two cows, enterprise training

and a weekly visit from a mentor. She began to build her assets, but most importantly, she began to imagine a better future for herself and her children.

If you were visit Jorina's village today, you would find that she runs the largest general store in her area. She will proudly show you the land she bought and the house she built.

Since we began this program in 2002,two million Bangladeshi women have lifted themselves and their families out of ultra-poverty.That's almost nine million people.The program, which costs 500 dollars per household, runs for only two years,but the impact goes well beyond that.

04:40

Researchers at the London School of Economics found that even seven years after entering the program,

92 percent of participants had maintained or increased their income, assets and consumption.

Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee, the MIT economists who won the Nobel Prize last year (2019), led multicountry evaluations that identified graduation as one of the most effective ways to break the poverty trap.

But my father wasn't content to have found a solution that worked for some people. He always wanted to know whether we were being ambitious enough. in terms of scale. So when we achieved nationwide scale in Bangladesh, he wanted to know how we could scale it globally. And that has to involve governments.

Governments already dedicate billions of dollars on poverty reduction programs. But so much of that money is wasted, because these programs either don't reach the poorest, and even the ones that do fail to have significant long-term impact.

05.45

We are working to engage governments to help them to adopt and scale graduation programs themselves,

maximizing the impact of the billions of dollars they already allocate to fight ultra-poverty.

Our plan is to help another 21 million people lift themselves out of ultra-poverty in eight countries over the next six years with BRAC teams on-site and embedded in each country.

In July of 2019, my father was diagnosed with terminal brain cancerand given four months to live.

As he transitioned out of BRAC after leading the organization for 47 years, he reminded us that throughout his life, he saw optimism triumph over despair, that when you light the spark of self-belief in people, even the poorest can transform their lives.

My father passed away in December. 2019.He lit that spark for millions of people,and in the final days of his life, he implored us to continue to do so for millions more.

This opportunity is ours for the taking, sp let's stop imagining a world without ultra-poverty and start building that world together. Thank You.

We are witness to monumental human progress. Over the past few decades, the expansion of the global marketplace has lifted a third of the world's population out of extreme poverty.Yet we are also witness to an astounding failure.Our efforts to lift people up have left behind those in the harshest forms of poverty-the ultra-poor.

00:35

What it means to be ultra-poor goes beyond the monetary definition that we're all familiar with:living on less than two dollars a day.

It goes even beyond not having assets like livestock or land. To be ultra-poor means to be stripped of your dignity,purpose and self-worth.

It means living in isolation, because you're a burden to your own community. It means being unable to imagine a better future for yourself and your family.By the end of 2019, about 400 million people were living in ultra-poverty worldwide.That's more than the populations of the United States and Canada combined.

And when calamity strikes, whether it's a pandemic, a natural disaster or a manmade crisis, these numbers spike astronomically higher.

01:28

My father, Fazle Abed, gave up a corporate career to establish BRAC here in Bangladesh in 1972.

Bangladesh was a wreck, having just gone through a devastating cyclone followed by a brutal war for independence.

Working with the poorest of the poor, my father realized that poverty was more than the lack of income and assets. It was also a lack of hope. People were trapped in poverty, because they felt their condition was immutable. Poverty, to them, was like the sun and the moon --something given to them by God.For poverty reduction programs to succeed, they would need to instill hope and self-worth so that, with a little support, people could lift themselves out of poverty. BRAC went on to pioneer the graduation approach, a solution to ultra-poverty that addresses both income poverty and the poverty of hope.

02:27

The approach works primarily with women, because women are the most affected by ultra-poverty but also the ones most likely to pull themselves and their families out of it. Over a two-year period,we essentially do four things.

One, we meet a woman's basic needs by giving her food or cash, ensuring the minimum to survive.

Two, we move her towards a decent livelihood by giving her an asset, like livestock,and training her to earn money from it.

Three, we train her to save, budget and invest her new wealth.

And four, we help to integrate her socially, first into groups of women like her and then into her community.

Each of these elements is key to the success of the others, but the real magic is the hope and sense of possibility the women develop through the close mentorship they receive.

03:24

Let me tell you about Jorina.Jorina was born in a remote village in northern Bangladesh.She never went to school, and at the age of 15, she was married off to an abusive husband. He eventually abandoned her, leaving her with no income and two children who were not in school and were severely malnourished. With no one to turn to for help, she had no hope.

Jorina joined BRAC's Graduation program in 2005. She received a dollar a week, two cows, enterprise training

and a weekly visit from a mentor. She began to build her assets, but most importantly, she began to imagine a better future for herself and her children.

If you were visit Jorina's village today, you would find that she runs the largest general store in her area. She will proudly show you the land she bought and the house she built.

Since we began this program in 2002,two million Bangladeshi women have lifted themselves and their families out of ultra-poverty.That's almost nine million people.The program, which costs 500 dollars per household, runs for only two years,but the impact goes well beyond that.

04:40

Researchers at the London School of Economics found that even seven years after entering the program,

92 percent of participants had maintained or increased their income, assets and consumption.

Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee, the MIT economists who won the Nobel Prize last year (2019), led multicountry evaluations that identified graduation as one of the most effective ways to break the poverty trap.

But my father wasn't content to have found a solution that worked for some people. He always wanted to know whether we were being ambitious enough. in terms of scale. So when we achieved nationwide scale in Bangladesh, he wanted to know how we could scale it globally. And that has to involve governments.

Governments already dedicate billions of dollars on poverty reduction programs. But so much of that money is wasted, because these programs either don't reach the poorest, and even the ones that do fail to have significant long-term impact.

05.45

We are working to engage governments to help them to adopt and scale graduation programs themselves,

maximizing the impact of the billions of dollars they already allocate to fight ultra-poverty.

Our plan is to help another 21 million people lift themselves out of ultra-poverty in eight countries over the next six years with BRAC teams on-site and embedded in each country.

In July of 2019, my father was diagnosed with terminal brain cancerand given four months to live.

As he transitioned out of BRAC after leading the organization for 47 years, he reminded us that throughout his life, he saw optimism triumph over despair, that when you light the spark of self-belief in people, even the poorest can transform their lives.

My father passed away in December. 2019.He lit that spark for millions of people,and in the final days of his life, he implored us to continue to do so for millions more.

This opportunity is ours for the taking, so let's stop imagining a world without ultra-poverty and start building that world together. Thank You.

--------------------------------------

related background research ultra poor at brac's institutional depository 

Sunday, September 26, 2021

1.3

 Jul 26, 2021

Even before the pandemic reversed progress in reducing extreme poverty, policies and programs largely failed to meet the needs of the poorest and most marginalized. Unless that failure is corrected, the most severe forms of poverty will remain entrenched long after the COVID-19 crisis ends.

DHAKA – From 1990 to 2019, the number of people living in extreme poverty (according to the World Bank threshold of $1.90 per day) plummeted, from 1.9 billion to 648 million. COVID-19 has reversed much of this progress. By the end of 2021, the pandemic will have pushed approximately 150 million people back into extreme poverty.

Even before COVID-19, however, the world was not on track to end extreme poverty in the next decade. Progress on poverty reduction had been slowing long before the pandemic hit, with global poverty rates falling by less than half a percentage point per year between 2015 and 2019. At that pace, even without COVID-19, 537 million people would have still been living in extreme poverty in 2030, implying failure to meet the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, in particular SDG 1.

At BRAC, the world’s largest Global South-led NGO, decades of designing, implementing, advising on, and adapting poverty reduction interventions have given us insights into how to make anti-poverty programs and policies more effective.

First, programs need to reach people in the most extreme states of poverty. People living in extreme poverty face hurdles to accessing social programs and services. They are less likely to have bank accounts, permanent addresses, or formal identification – all of which may be required for registration. They also face social stigma associated with receiving public services, and often lack sufficient information about the programs for which they are eligible.

In low-income countries, 79% of the bottom quintile of earners receive no social assistance whatsoever. To ensure that help reaches those most in need, governments and their partners must design policies and programs that overcome the barriers people living in extreme poverty face and integrate them into existing social safety nets.

Second, programs must empower people living in extreme poverty to build long-term resilience. Governments and their partners must do more than improve the provision of basic needs. They must also invest in enabling people in extreme poverty to acquire the skills and resources they need to avoid falling back into the poverty trap. This approach is crucial in times of crisis, as our team at BRAC found when advising the Philippine government, in partnership with the Asian Development Bank, on a recent anti-poverty intervention.

Bundle2021_web4

Subscribe to Project Syndicate

Enjoy unlimited access to the ideas and opinions of the world’s leading thinkers, including weekly long reads, book reviews, topical collections, and interviews; The Year Ahead annual print magazine; the complete PS archive; and more – for less than $9 a month.

SUBSCRIBE NOW

During the pandemic, the program connected participants to cash assistance from the national government and food assistance from their local government. Meanwhile, it provided the resources and training they needed to establish multiple sources of income. As a result, 76% of participants were able to continue earning income even during strict lockdowns.

Third, programs need to treat poverty as multifaceted and context-specific. Extreme poverty is multidimensional. An accurate definition must account for the many areas of deprivation people living in extreme poverty face, from lack of clean water and electricity to malnutrition and social exclusion. These deprivations and the interventions needed to overcome them vary across populations and geographies. Based on an assessment of factors related to specific locations and socioeconomic contexts, governments and their partners need to create more holistic interventions that empower poor people to face their unique challenges.

Fourth, these programs must engage local communities and governments, whose active participation can help anti-poverty interventions better reflect the realities of people’s daily lives and gain local buy-in. Bringing civil society into the process can also play an important role in holding government accountable and sustaining demand for more effective programs and policies. And local governments can help national governments and their partners identify marginalized households and support their social inclusion.

Fifth, governments and their partners must learn what is working and what is not, then adapt programming accordingly. To maximize the impact of anti-poverty interventions at scale, governments and their partners must commit to monitoring, evaluating, and learning from programs as they are implemented, then revise them as needed.

Such evaluations should begin by identifying the principles driving programs’ design. Program components must then be tweaked and tested with those principles in mind, and the outcomes carefully monitored. Only through evidence-based adaptation can governments and their partners ensure that the programs they implement have a long-lasting impact and adjust to meet the unique and evolving needs of their people.

This must be a collaborative effort. If the international community adopts these steps, anti-poverty programs and policies can become more inclusive, adaptive, and comprehensive. Beyond engaging civil society and academia, governments need development actors, including multilateral institutions and donor countries, to help close resource gaps until they can independently mobilize sufficient domestic resources. Many low- and middle-income countries simply lack the fiscal space and state capacity to pursue large-scale poverty reduction measures on their own.

SDG 1 is deeply connected to the other SDGs, from ensuring gender equality to advancing sustainability to improving nutrition. COVID-19 has reversed decades of progress in these areas, and we need cross-cutting interventions that support multiple areas of development simultaneously if we are to recover. The only way to prevent leaving many people behind is to ensure that anti-poverty interventions are better funded, more holistic, and more effective at scale.

Wednesday, September 22, 2021

dc update 2016 2.1 2.2 1.3


1.3 decade round-up at lse of ultra poor - audio   related resources 

in dc region ultra poor led by lindsay coates 1 2 - see also bigd shameran
oct 2016, time for action IFPRI, washington dc compact25 agenda
iowa is epicentre of world food prize- celebrating borlaug and those who apply him so that a great 20th c achievement appeared to be ending deadly famines except where places are at war, or dictatorship

SDgoal 2 food wash dc 1 2  - main UN operational branches rome - wfp, ifad

highlights from transcript, Fazle Abed, video oct 2016

I have worked on poverty alleviation over the last 40 years in Bangladesh and when catherine used to be the head World Food Program we worked on a program called vulnerable group development program working with the poorest 10% of bangladesh's population providing support through food rations for two years but then we found that most of these people who received the food rations didn't really improve themselves to a level where they could come out of poverty

02:57 So in Bangladesh we started a differently designed program in 2001 called targeting the ultra poor 1.3 -again the poorest ten per cent) but this time we provided support in terms of an asset transfer -perhaps 3 goats --we also provided them training/ hand-holding and we gave them a stipend for their children to go to school

-mainly women headed households in Bangladesh;  so we aimed to graduate them out of extreme poverty to a level of poverty where they can access market-based solutions  eg by becoming a microfinance borrower and over the years we have now graduated about 1.5 million families in Bangladesh

Back in 2005 a delegation from CGAP consultative , part of the world bank's ultra poor team came to Bangladesh- they looked at our program and said why don't we replicate this program in other countries so Ford Foundation and CGAP funded a program in 10 countries three in Asia including  India Pakistan and then Ethiopia Ghana Liberia then haiti honduras and peru 

so these countries were pilot projects modeled on the bangladesh/brac program and there were three research institutions the MIT poverty action lab,  the Dean Karlan at Yale School of Management and also London School of Economics they were hired to monitor the progress on these ten projects

 the london school of economics which has been looking at the brac program over the last 12 years

 and the other programs were looked on for about six years by these institutions and last year there

was a report by these research organizations and what was published in science magazine

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/348/6236/1260799   which came out with a very positive indicators

this involved randomized control trials so what we are hoping is that if this is the way to graduate very poorest of the poor people

various governments and donor agencies will take this up

07:34

the first country that is now interested in scaling up a large is the Kenyan government with the help of funding and implememtation by CARE and one other agency which brac will offer tech support to- this will be the first major project outside Bangladesh

and I' talked yesterday to the president of World Bank, jim kim, trying to get him to visit brac program

in Bangladesh when he goes there in a couple of weeks from now and hopefully also to

try and support if he's convinced , application in other countries 08:28 so we have found one way of tackling extreme poverty and hunger in Bangladesh;  the point about this particular program is that is the poor themselves who do all the hard work to get themselves out of poverty so

All we have donei is  create the enabling condition for them 



=======================================


Accelerating Progress in Ending Hunger and Undernutrition

OCT 6, 2016 - 04:15 PM TO 05:45 PM EDT

Welcome: Shenggen Fan, Director General, IFPRI  (Video)

Keynote: Kanayo Nwanze, President, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) (Video)

Perspectives:

ModeratorCatherine Bertini, Professor of Public Administration and International Affairs, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University 

Discussion Video

Closing Remarks: Shenggen Fan, Director General, IFPRI (Video)

Blog recap: A Window of Opportunity to End Hunger and Undernutrition

Hunger and undernutrition persist as major global challenges, yet some countries have proven successful at rapidly reducing both. For example, Compact2025 focal countries—Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Malawi, and Rwanda—have each reduced the prevalence of hunger by roughly half from 1990 to 2015. In Peru, hunger rates fell by even more than half, from 32 percent to just 7.5 percent in the same period. Some countries have also made great strides to reduce undernutrition. Bangladesh reduced child stunting rates by 1.3 percent annually from 1997 to 2007—and then made accelerated reductions from 2011 to 2014 when stunting rates fell from 41 to 36 percent. Successes like these show that rapid progress is possible. How to sustain progress in these countries and accelerate progress in others are key questions that will be addressed in this special event convened by Compact2025.

Compact2025, a bold new initiative facilitated by IFPRI, aims to accelerate progress and scale up investments in ending hunger and malnutrition by 2025. Since its launch, the initiative has hosted country roundtables, released the book Nourishing Millions: Stories of Change in Nutrition, and is developing a Knowledge and Innovation hub, and much more.