The social and ecomomic impact of COVID-19 has been deep, wide-ranging, and multidimensional. While anecdotal evidence of distress among the poor, particularly those with informal occupations, has been widespread, effective policy response has required real-time, researched data disaggregated...

Effective targeting is a hallmark of the BRAC’s CFPR/TUP programme. Like many other targeted programmes, CFPR/TUP combines a number of targeting methods. Launching in 2002, his programme has scaled up in 2005. Despite this scaling up, success in targeting has been maintained. Using...

This study takes a look at the beneficiaries who were selected at the first round in 2002 to explain various dimensions of their engagement with microfinance. With a lower borrower-member ratio and relatively smaller sized credit, microfinance for the poorest may take longer to achieve...

The ultra poor are caught in a below-subsistence trap from which it is difficult for them to break free using available resources and mechanisms. Time is not an ally for the ultra poor, as things generally do not get better for them over time. More often than not, ultra poverty tends to be...

Studies of poverty dynamics relying solely on household income-expenditure surveys can yield noisy results, overestimating transient poverty and underestimating persistence of poverty, especially for the poorest. In this study, we make use of an approach that relies on community based change...

To assess the effectiveness and draw lessons from the targeting strategy used in a new BRAC programme called Challenging the Frontiers of Poverty Reduction-Targeting the Ultra Poor (CFPR/TUP) that aims to experiment with a different type of approach to address extreme rural poverty. The...

For the chronically poor, the various livelihood constraints are structured and interlocked in complex knots that fail to carry forward automatic induced impacts through interventions, such as microfinance, that work on untying important strategic knots. BRAC, a poverty-focussed NGO in...

The social and ecomomic impact of COVID-19 has been deep, wide-ranging, and multidimensional. While anecdotal evidence of distress among the poor, particularly those with informal occupations, has been widespread, effective policy response has required real-time, researched data disaggregated...

To limit the social, economic and psychological damage caused by strict social distancing interventions, many low and middle-income countries (LMICs) are seeking to ease restrictions. However, it is unknown what a ‘safe reopening’ entails in LMICs given suboptimal diagnostic and surveillance...