https://bracupgi.org/
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
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.
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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.