Is the BDP Ultra Poor Approach Working? Survey of Some Key Issues

The objectives of this paper are to assess the knowledge retention on IGA training, and to explore the quality of participation in financial and non-financial services by the BDP ultra poor. We found that participants’ engagement in the IGA, their self-interest, training settings and number of training participants have strong association with the level of knowledge retention. The quality of microfinance participation of BDP ultra poor is encouraging in terms of increasing their regularity of microfinance involvement. The borrower member ratio of the BDP ultra poor who were recruited in 2003 is now over 85%, which is the industry standard. Such high borrower member ratio results from regular borrowing of the members, a reflection of their quality of participation.[CFPR Working Paper Series No. 16]