The fifth in the Graduation and Social Protection blog series
The Graduation into Sustainable Livelihoods Approach (Graduation Approach) tries to put extremely poor people on a journey towards sustainable livelihoods and autonomous income within an 18 to 36 months timeframe. Policymakers attending the Reaching the Poorest Global Learning Event 2014 organized last February in Paris by the CGAP-Ford Foundation Graduation Program expressed enthusiasm for introducing the Graduation Approach in their countries to reach large numbers of the poorest.
The Graduation into Sustainable Livelihoods Approach (Graduation Approach) tries to put extremely poor people on a journey towards sustainable livelihoods and autonomous income within an 18 to 36 months timeframe. Policymakers attending the Reaching the Poorest Global Learning Event 2014 organized last February in Paris by the CGAP-Ford Foundation Graduation Program expressed enthusiasm for introducing the Graduation Approach in their countries to reach large numbers of the poorest.
It is estimated that there are nearly 1.2 billion people living
with less than US$1.25 a day. The Graduation Approach is an ambitious effort to
try to address the multiple constraints of the extreme poor, originally
developed by BRAC in Bangladesh. The CGAP-Ford Foundation Graduation Program has been testing the Graduation Approach with 10 pilots in eight countries since 2006.
What impact so far?
By 2012, between 75 percent and 98 percent of participants at six
of the 10 CGAP-Ford Foundation Graduation Pilots met locally-determined
criteria for graduation into sustainable livelihoods, including indicators of
improved nutrition, increased assets, and enhanced social capital. The
Program’s robust learning agenda includes 8 randomized control trial (RCT) impact evaluations, and
qualitative research in all sites, on top of regular monitoring by program
staff. A pooled analysis of research results will be available mid-2014. Early
results so far from randomized RCTs in Bangladesh
and at six of the 10 CGAP-Ford Foundation Graduation Pilots show that the Graduation approach can significantly improve the
lives of the poorest. There are signs of significant and sustained positive impact for households participating in the program, especially in terms
of increased income, consumption and food security. Improvements in other
measures of well-being are also documented by qualitative research in particular: “hope” and/or “happiness”, and female empowerment
have increased in all sites where it was measured. Early research also suggests
that the
cost-effectiveness of the program is high.
How does it work?
The Graduation Approach
combines a mix of interventions to escape
extreme poverty, ranging from safety nets and the creation of livelihoods, to
access to financial services. Participants receive consumption support, access
to savings services, technical skills training, a variety of assets, and
regular individualized life skills coaching over a period of 18-36 months.
Purposefully targeting the extreme poor, the Graduation Approach is built on five core elements:
1) Consumption support
gives participants “breathing space” by stabilizing their consumption and
easing the stress of daily survival. It can be offered through a pre-existing
government safety net program, in contexts where this is available.
2) Savings allows
households to build assets, instills financial discipline, and familiarizes
participants with formal financial services.
3) Asset transfers help jump-start
one or more economic activity. Livelihood support services and market
infrastructure must be analyzed beforehand through a thorough market analysis
in order to identify sustainable options that can absorb new entrants.
4) Technical skills training provides knowledge on managing assets, running a business, and
information on where to go for assistance and services (e.g., veterinary care).
5) Life skills coaching on
a weekly basis over the 18 to 36 months of the program helps to boost
participants’ self-confidence, while supporting them with business planning and
money management, along with health and disease prevention services and social
support.
What are the
next steps?
We are excited that a number of governments – such as Peru and
Colombia-- and large donors -- such as the UNHCR, and IFAD -- view the
Graduation Approach as offering a significant opportunity to strengthen their
strategies and programming for people living in extremely poor conditions. They
are in the early stages of planning or implementing this approach on a large
scale: some will serve the extreme poor through their safety net programs,
whereas others will focus on specific segments such as, refugees, internally displaced
persons, or food-insecure households. From their experiences over the next few
years we hope to learn how the key components of the graduation approach can be
integrated into existing social protection, poverty alleviation, food security
or economic development programs.
For more information, please see graduation.cgap.org and Reaching the Poorest: Lessons from the Graduation Model.
Aude de Montesquiou is a Microfinance Specialist at CGAP.
This blog post is part of a series for the international
conference on ‘Graduation and Social Protection’ which is co-hosted by the
Government and Rwanda and the Centre for Social Protection from the UK
Institute of Development Studies, with financial support from Irish Aid, the UK
Department for International Development (DFID) and UNICEF. The content of this
blog series reflects the opinions of each individual author, and not
necessarily those of IDS, UNICEF, DFID, IRISHAID or the Government of Rwanda.
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