Tackling Ultra-Poverty Through the Graduation Approach: Situating Sustainable Livelihoods in the Landscape of Social Protection and Safety Nets

BRAC was founded in Bangladesh in 1972 and now works in nine other countries with very impoverished populations: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Myanmar, Philippines, Uganda, Tanzania, South Sudan, Sierra Leone and Liberia. From its years of experience designing and implementing microfinance and other programs, BRAC gained the insight that a unique set of interventions is required to bring out of extreme poverty those who they, and now others, call the "ultra-poor": people living on half or less of a US $1.25-a-day poverty threshold. BRAC pioneered the approach in 2002 by combining social safety nets with support for income-generating, and named it the Graduation approach, or Targeting the Ultra Poor (TUP) program. Graduation programs complement small cash stipends and in-kind asset transfers with several other sequenced interventions including savings, training, social integration and health care services. Over the last decade the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), the Ford Foundation, and other donors have supported ten pilots across different continents which have been carefully analyzed, and in which over 75% of participants have met Graduation requirements. This paper summarizes the landscape and institutional context within which the Targeting the Ultra-poor program sits, in order to help BRAC and other organizations to expand its scale and encourage others to support and adopt this approach, thereby helping an additional one million families graduate from ultra-poverty by 2020

Women's Rights in the Cocoa Sector: Examples of emerging good practice

Women cocoa farmers are central to the sustainability of the cocoa supply chain and cocoa-growing communities. Too often unrecognized and undervalued, women's labor makes significant contributions to the amount of cocoa produced, which is under increasing demand. Empowering women cocoa farmers not only has a positive impact on the lives of women, men and communities, but also has a business advantage.  When women have control over their own income or family earnings, they reinvest in their families, children and communities, increasing the well-being and the sustainability of cocoa-growing communities.Through its Behind the Brands campaign, Oxfam challenged the cocoa sector to take action to strengthen the rights of women cocoa farmers. Within months, they responded and made significant commitments to address women's empowerment at the farm level. But there remains little shared knowledge of what emerging good practice actually looks like. This report provides examples of good practice to increase gender equality in the cocoa sector in West Africa, and shows where there is potential to make even greater change