How far does a big push really push?

BRAC implemented the Challenging the Frontiers of Poverty Reduction: Specially Targeted Ultra-Poor (CFPR) program in 2002 to mitigate ultra-poverty in the poorest districts of Bangladesh, providing multifaceted support in the form of asset-transfer, food-stipends, education, healthcare and social support for two years. Utilizing a four-round panel data spanning 9 years and combining regression and propensity score weighting, we evaluate CFPR’s short and long term impact on income, employment, social status, food security and asset ownership. While remarkable effects of CFPR are evident in short and medium-term (up to 6 years since baseline), longer-term effects (up to 9 years) are smaller. The latter happens due to a variety of factors including faster catch-up by the control group, due partly to various new interventions by state and non-state sectors. We see a shift from begging, working as maids and day-laboring to entrepreneurial activities in the short and medium term, but many CFPR households revert back to their baseline employment by 2011. Analyses of the heterogeneity of effects across baseline employment and gender of the household-head reveal greater long-term impact on per-capita income for entrepreneurs and greater short-term impact for female-headed households. Overall, despite the deceleration of the effects in the long run, the program was able to successfully bring its participants out of ultra-poverty and had important demonstration effects

Building resilience in the chars of Bangladesh: An impact assessment

Recent evidence highlights that integrated interventions have sustainable impacts on household welfare. This paper evaluates the ‘Char Development and Settlement Program,’ which targets marginalized, coastal populations of Bangladesh and is implemented by the NGO BRAC, which pioneers integrated programs in over 20 countries. The analysis exploits household panel data (2012, 2016) for over 2500 households living in 11 chars to measure the impact of a programme, comprising microfinance, health services and legal aid. Employing a difference-in-difference approach, we find considerable, programme-induced increases in consumption, food security and legal awareness suggesting that an integrated ‘big push’ is efficient for poverty alleviation

How far does a big push really push?: Mitigating ultra-poverty in Bangladesh

BRAC implemented the Challenging the Frontiers of Poverty Reduction: Specially Targeted Ultra-Poor (CFPR) program in 2002 to mitigate ultra-poverty in the poorest districts of Bangladesh, providing multifaceted support in the form of asset-transfer, food-stipends, education, healthcare and social support for two years. Utilizing a four-round panel data spanning 9 years and combining regression and propensity score weighting, we evaluate CFPR’s short and long term impact on income, employment, social status, food security and asset ownership. While remarkable effects of CFPR are evident in short and medium-term (up to 6 years since baseline), longer-term effects (up to 9 years) are smaller. The latter happens due to a variety of factors including faster catch-up by the control group, due partly to various new interventions by state and non-state sectors. We see a shift from begging, working as maids and day- laboring to entrepreneurial activities in the short and medium term, but many CFPR households revert back to their baseline employment by 2011. Analyses of the heterogeneity of effects across baseline employment and gender of the household-head reveal greater long-term impact on per-capita income for entrepreneurs and greater short-term impact for female-headed households. Overall, despite the deceleration of the effects in the long run, the program was able to successfully bring its participants out of ultra-poverty and had important demonstration effects