In the Tanzanian Bush

We were discussing how grateful we were that it wasn’t the rainy season when the offshoot path from the main road would have been impassable. Perhaps, we should have knocked on wood. A few minutes later, we found ourselves stuck deep in a muddy section of the cleared bush several kilometers “off the beaten track.” No traction could be gained no matter how hard the driver pressed on the accelerator. If anything, the vehicle was sinking deeper with each attempt to propel out, almost comparable to attempting to break free from a constrictor’s grip (alright, not quite that comparable). As villagers passed by on foot or bike, they dropped their buckets of water, machetes, or whatever other livelihood or household-related good was in their arms and proceeded to help dig out the vehicle from the mud. In the end, 9 village members had banned together, and three hard attempts and 10,000 Tanzanian shillings later, the vehicle was pushed out and parked before the mud pit. To avoid the risk of plunging back in, we continued on by foot. As we approached the village, we heard several women singing in Swahili at a high tempo. They approached us one by one with massive smiles spread across their faces, shaking our hands with the traditional 3-grip movement as they welcomed us into their village.  The laughing, dancing, and singing continued through the coconut tree “forest” and through the village until we reached the place of their weekly meeting. I suddenly felt as if we were lone travelers who had lost our way and had suddenly come upon a lost society that had decided to take us in. It was sort of an Indiana Jones moment….but, not really.

The optimism of the savings group members we’ve met this past week doesn’t cease to amaze me. Their song and dance help them to forget their hunger and other daily struggles. They feel empowered as they adopt ways to carve out a better future for themselves and their families. This is especially the case in Lindi region, where poverty and food insecurity are far more prevalent. As I visited villages, I was taken aback by the sight of starved children with massive tummies, evidencing the intense malnourishment. Savings groups in these villages were some of the youngest in the program we were evaluating, and much of the greater program’s interventions hadn’t yet reached this region due to low population density, highly dispersed villages, and extremely poor infrastructure.

CBSG group in Masasi District celebrates their first shareout



Heading into a CBSG meeting



Client of a savings group

Child of a savings group client in Lukuledi District, Lindi

Where the program’s interventions and outputs had had sufficient time to mature, the impact was inspiring and noteworthy. Men and women came together into groups, met and saved each week, accessed loans that supported their livelihoods, agriculture production, paying of school fees for their children, and purchasing materials to build a new or improve an existing home. These were the most common purposes for credit. Concluding each 12 month cycle, savings (the deposit handled as a purchase of value-assigned share(s)) are added up with the interest paid on loans, and members celebrate the momentous shareout of the accumulated funds through festivities comprised of music, song, dance, and an extravagant meal of pilau, meat, and potatoes. It is the day, especially after the first cycle, that a member has held the most amount of money he or she has ever seen in a lifetime. It is long-awaited and enthusiastically anticipated, as if a lottery-winning moment. Members use the massive wad of cash towards bulkier purchases that they would never have been able to save up for had they not been members of the group. Some used the cash to purchase a small plot of land for agriculture production, while others applied the fund to start a microbusiness, or again, invest in constructing a new home altogether. We were fortunate to have some of our group meetings coincide with shareout festivities. We were invited to give speeches and take part in the memorable event that I will cherish for a long time to come. On one occasion, after I was introduced as being from the United States, the Tanzanian music instantly transitioned to Rihanna and Akon’s newest hits. I watched with so much enthusiasm as village children got down and dirty to the beats. It was incredibly adorable! My translator colleague, Alfred, whispered to me, “I think they’re trying to make you feel more at home by playing these songs from your country.” I was, to say the least, amused.



Children getting down in Masasi District at shareout festivities



CBSG members



Fishing in Mnazi Bay during the low tide





Big brother brings his brother along to enjoy in the dancing festivities




Shy to dance





Shareout in Kilwa District



Almost stranded

During Mtwara visits, each night required a different accommodation. We felt like nomads traversing through southern Tanzania. We typically had no access to food during the day and energized off of water, warm soda, and cashew nuts or bananas bought along the roadside. I was glad to reach Lindi and learn that I would have the main town as my central base for the subsequent 4 days of visits. It’s difficult to cohesively weave the many experiences and unique events, traditions, and people I met along the way. One person who comes to mind is the Italian-Ethiopian man from Rome, who moved to Tanzania 20 years ago for what he anticipated would be a 6 month getaway. He fell in love with a mountain top of Lindi town and opened a small guesthouse offering some of the best Italian food I’ve had in a while. Every time I passed through, he would say, “Ah, Luxury, my dear! Come see me tomorrow, and I will make a pizza for you. No charge!” I didn’t have the heart to correct him.

Well, I’ve returned to Dar as of this morning, and what a contrast. But, I will stop here. It’s time to get back to my assignment.  Over and out. ;)



Hillary Clinton's Visit

Yes, you read correctly. But no, I did not get the what-I-imagine-would-be-fabulous opportunity to meet her myself. In May of this year, DAI won a USAID-funded contract to deliver the program, Integrating Nutrition into Value Chains, a three-year effort in Malawi with the goal to enhance food security and nutrition and reduce rural poverty through an agriculture-led, integrated economic growth and nutrition strategy. The INVC program is expected to:

1. Increase the competitiveness of select agricultural value chains, especially food staples, to mitigate food insecurity and increase incomes of the rural poor;

2. Facilitate improvements in productivity (land, water, labor), through soil and water management practices (taking long-term stress due to climate change into account);

3. Reduce chronic undernutrition;

4. Foster innovation and adaptive technologies and techniques that improve agricultural value chain competitiveness and nutritional outcomes, while increasing participation of the poor in agriculture-led growth; and

5. Develop the capacity of local organizations and systems to promote sustainability and climate change resilience.

In basic terms, the program is expected to increase the efficiency of the legumes and dairy sectors all the way from production (the field) to consumption (our mouths) with the aim of producing better quality produce, expanding employment along the value chains, and increasing incomes of the smallholder producers, 73% of who live below the $1.25 a day poverty line. The program will also promote a third value chain --- groundnut. Through the promotion of nutritious crop production and biofortification, the program also aims to improve household access to diverse and nutritious foods and nutrition-related behaviors that will reduce child-stunting and malnutrition in Central Malawi. On my second day on the job, this fascinating program was added to my technical management portfolio, and I look forward to heading to the program site in the near future. Malawi’s newest president, Joyce Banda, attended the program launch in early June, and last week, we had the pleasure of hosting Hillary Clinton at one of the program sites during her whirlwind 5-country tour in Sub-Saharan Africa. The full story is below, or click here to access it on the DAI website.

Secretary of State Clinton Lauds Malawi Dairy Milk Bulking Group

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week praised a community managed dairy enterprise in Malawi that is strengthening small farmers to increase their incomes and communities to live more nutritiously.

“For the past decade, the United States has been supporting Malawi’s dairy sector, including this center,” Clinton said during a stop at the Lumbadzi Milk Bulking Group. “And thanks to your work and the support we have given you, Malawi’s milk production has increased 500 percent. Thousands of farmers have benefited.”

The Lumbadzi center—supported by the Malawi Milk Producers Association (MMPA)—is being upgraded and strengthened further through the recently launched Feed the Future’s Integrating Nutrition in Value Chains (INVC) project, a three-year effort implemented by DAI and funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). As part of her visit, Clinton donated Emanuel, a purebred dairy bull to contribute to the community’s dairy cattle breeding program.

“These kinds of projects might not always get the kind of attention that they deserve, but they are making a difference in the lives of so many men and women and children here in Malawi,” Clinton said. “We can point to lives we have saved and changed, and in the long run, I am so proud of that, because that’s what matters.

“Government-to-government relations are, of course, very important, and historically, traditionally, that’s what we’ve worked on. But in the 21st century, it’s people-to-people relations. It is how we reach out and get to know somebody and build relationships and learn and then perhaps help if possible.”

The INVC project is led by DAI in partnership with Save the Children and Michigan State University. The team is taking a comprehensive, market-driven approach to support the dairy, groundnuts, and soya value chains and increase the competitiveness of related farms, firms, and industries. By integrating agricultural investments with nutritional programming, INVC is enhancing agricultural productivity, agro-enterprise profitability, and nutritional outcomes for 275,000 households over three years.

“We want to help agriculture in Malawi get even stronger, so that all the children will have better lives,” Clinton said. “And I particularly thank the women farmers for their hard work, and their families, their husbands, and their children for being part of this successful program.”

A forum to converse on International Agriculture and Rural Development

I, along with two of my colleagues, recently became the newest (and very proud) members of the Association for International Agriculture and Rural Development (AIARD). To join the plethora of associations and working groups in Washington, DC, AIARD brings together professionals from the public and privates sectors and academia to set learning agendas and create a forum for learning exchange on topics related to agriculture, food security, nutrition, and everything in between. The association is entirely run on a voluntary basis, and this year, I’m thrilled to share that my boss was elected President; the gavel was literally passed on during this year’s annual conference, held last month in DC.

The 48th annual conference was titled, “Priorities for Inclusive Agriculture and Rural Development,” a very pertinent topic that has infiltrated both donor and practitioner agendas in the last couple of years. As stated in the conference opening, “The current thinking of many development agencies around the world has been to include poor households as a target for development and keep the focus on using market-led approaches. While these two development objectives are not mutually exclusive, most current development activities either focus on the poor, where scale and market inclusion are a challenge, or focus on value chain development, which does not meaningfully include the participation of resource-poor households.” Practitioners are increasingly researching and attempting to design programs that incorporate approaches that are “market-based” yet inclusive of marginalized populations such as those of so-called ‘low caste’ and women, among others. Another link that practitioners have attempted to strengthen is that between agriculture development and food security and again, between food security and nutrition. Even in May of this year, prior to the G8 Summit, President Obama encouragingly spoke to the importance of global agriculture and its link to food security and has complemented his Feed the Future initiative with the newly announced (and very aptly named) New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition. There are some very obvious and very pertinent trends here that AIARD integrated into its agenda this year.

Inclusive Agriculture and Rural Development. As we engage in programming to increase incomes and strengthen economies, market-based solutions are key to sustainable economic growth. Development should not be seen as charity; rather, it must be stimulated and then perpetuated through the extension or transformation of existing market systems that anchor new approaches and systemic changes. On that note, over half of the world’s population is comprised of women, who must be taken into account when promoting workforce development, job creation, and market development. The potential is immense. Women and marginalized populations do not and should not rely on charity; rather, they must be integrated into the system just as you and I are in the countries and economies that we are fortunate to work in. Provided with the right skills, equal opportunity, financing, voice, greater control of assets, and greater decision-making power, the potential for women, youth, and the poor to contribute to economic growth is spectacular. I almost feel I’m perpetuating a negative construct by categorizing women with the marginalized in my writing and ponder this as I write proposals and design program interventions that seem to do the same. I would like to move away from this practice, and this means changing perceptions of women, and simply seeing them as people too.

Market-based also means realizing the importance of public-private partnerships (PPPs) and private sector investment to spur sustainable economic growth. Unfortunately, the sorts of such partnerships that appear to be most prevalent in high potential developing economies, such as those in Africa, are focused on extraction of resources with very little wealth, if any, being reinvested into the local economy. Particularly in rural economies, PPPs should focus investment in inclusive agriculture development that boosts local economies, while also securing household food security. Making markets work for the poor means making markets work for all!

Integrating Nutrition and Agriculture. Promoting agriculture development and the production of crops that not only have high income potential, both domestically and for export markets, but are also nutritious and can enhance food security and nutritional status is an increasingly obvious priority, but one that is rarely remembered. USAID’s Feed the Future initiative aims to embed food security and nutrition into its programming, which is a major stride in this area. To achieve this, women, again, need to be integrated into production, sales, and household-level programming that increases their access to all pertinent resources (e.g., water, land, credit). Production and livelihoods should be diversified, with production focusing on more nutrient-dense foods. As discussed in a post on Bangladesh in May, reducing post-harvest losses through improved technologies and improving processing to retain the highest nutritional value is immensely important. Finally, increasing market access and opportunities to all -- the inclusive factor -- will help individual and overall economies and greatly reduce the seasonality of food insecurity.

Agriculture programs can help improve access to diverse and quality foods, but increased nutrition requires complementary health services that will promote improved utilization of food and maternal and child care practices. The complementarity of high nutrition crops, increased dietary intake of these nutritious foods (rather than selling the whole harvest), increased agricultural incomes, improved nutrition knowledge and practice, and improved policy coordination are critical to the successful integration of nutrition and agriculture development.

Back in the Bang

I've just returned from a two and a half week "recon" to Bangladesh, my second in just over a month's span. "I don't envision you traveling much," said my boss upon my signing an employment contract that stated at least 30% travel in my scope of work. Already at a 50% travel rate two months into my employment, I think, "ha!" and am very pleased -- exhausted, at the moment -- but, pleased. And, how opportune that food should feed into dual interests, a personal one that now literally feeds the professional one.  I would never have imagined that I would end up working in a field that literally now takes me into fields and requires me to understand farming and livestock rearing. My Appappa worked for Sri Lanka's Department of Agriculture, and traveled wide and far in the country for his livelihood, and in at least once instance, to India at the time of my Appa's birth.  I would have never guessed in a million years that my profession and interests, particularly in this day and age, would boil to this, and well, here I am, focusing largely (though, not entirely) on market development and production for agriculture. Funny how, in the most unexpected way, we've now come full circle. I wonder what Appappa would have had to say to that. When I was a little girl on one of our trips to Jaffna town, where my Appa's family had finally settled, Amma told me that Appappa took me -- and only me -- in his dusty quaint car to visit our heritage village of Vattakotai. I haven't been back since. O, the conversations we would have enjoyed on those car rides if we could do them now!

The Feed the Future solicitation for Bangladesh to which we are responding is a complex but absolutely fascinating one. The goal of the project is to 'improve food security through strengthened agriculture value chains over a five year period.  To do this requires achievement of several, interlinked outcomes: 1) enhance the economic functions, skills, and production capacity of small holder farmers, women, youth, and the poor along several value chains in Bangladesh; 2) sustainably link these actors to strengthened markets and support services such as appropriate financing or producer group building/strengthening; and 3) promote innovation and research for agriculture-related technology and increase private sector investment into and value addition of agricultural products.  To expand and enhance the market for select sub-sectors (e.g., floriculture, vegetables, coir products, jute), the awardee will also be expected to work with agro-processors, manufacturers, and retailers to strengthen their ability to respond to the demands of a growing middle class market and potential export markets.  All of this will hopefully result in higher financial returns all the way down to the producer household level.  The key cross-cutting component, improving nutritional messaging and practices, will help translate increased income and the production of more nutritious crops into the practical act of consuming these foods, contributing to the overall health of all members in a household.  It will undoubtedly be a challenging program to execute, but to effect change of this breadth and scale for so many lives from the farm to the marketplace would be a very rewarding and humbling experience. 

The competition to win is incredibly intense, and other 'contractors' and their partner agencies have also deployed teams of employees and consultants, who are also scrambling across Bangladesh to gather 'intelligence,' fortify relationships with key partners, and court key staff to assemble winning teams for a winning bid. I don't miss the vulture-like behavior that is a natural reaction to the tendering process; there is a certain thrill in being a part of it that is exhilerating and exhausting all at the same time. Agencies, as per the 'intelligence' that is gathered over years, will budget as much as a quarter of a million dollars' investment towards winning contracts like this one and begin preparation for a bid based on surmise as per country strategies. Once the solicitation is released, the roller coaster ride begins, and all one can do is gear up for an intense 45-60 day period, depending on the time allotted to respond, and say, "Here we go!" Upon submission, the panting comes to a halt, but there's no point in holding one's breath while awaiting award announcements.  Bilateral aid agencies, like our own, can take as much as six nerve-wracking months to make a final decision. And so, we wait the painstaking wait, distracted with having to respond to other bids and deliver on existing projects worldwide.

So, readers, stay tuned for later this year when the final verdict is made. All positive energy is welcome. And, don't forget to not hold your breath!

A Double Bottom Line Business Case for Serving Very Poor Households

Five weeks after having moved on from Grameen Foundation, I'm so pleased to announce that the fruit of a laborious two-year long study has finally materialized.  Today, the organization published "A Double Bottom Line Business Case for Serving Very Poor Households," a paper that I co-wrote with my colleagues Brian Slocum and Kate Griffin, which explores, as the title aptly states, whether there is a business case to be made for microfinance institutions (MFIs) to serve very poor populations:

"Does reaching the poorest households actually cost an institution more? Can organizations build sustainable business solutions while reaching poorer populations? Are clients who graduate from ultra-poor loan products into mainstream lending programs actually successful?

We are extremely pleased to announce the publication of "A Double Bottom Line Case for Serving Very Poor Households" written by Luckshmi Sivalingam, Brian Slocum, and Kate Druschel Griffin in which these questions are answered and more. This paper investigates the “double” (financial and social) bottom line implications for two microfinance institutions, Fonkoze in Haiti and The Small Enterprise Foundation (SEF) in South Africa, that have added product lines to serve very poor households. The analysis seeks to understand how two product lines that successfully targeted poor clients affected the ability of these MFIs to meet both their social and financial goals. In the process, we also articulated a methodology for creating a double bottom line business case for reaching very poor households.

The punch line? The targeted products contributed to social goals in significant ways, and poorer clients saw faster gains against social outcomes than less poor clients. Financially, for SEF - where the product was profitable - there was no significant difference in terms of portfolio quality, retention, or profitability between clients of different poverty levels. At Fonkoze, where the product cost $38 a person, clients stayed with the program longer and had higher repayment rates. This allowed Fonkoze to see the $38 as a reasonable client acquisition cost to attract and retain good clients while significantly contributing to their social goals."

To read the full study, please visit www.grameenfoundation.org/doublebottomline.

Economic-Strengthening Pathways for the Bottom Billion

Hello, my lovely readers!  As mentioned in a recent post, it's very exciting to see the literary fruits after two years in my current role at the Grameen Foundation, working with some of the poorest populations of the world.  Of course, nothing beats seeing impact and an improvement in their lives.  As a practitioner, documenting our processes and learnings that allow for these outcomes is becoming increasingly important.  In May 2010, a group of practitioners gathered virtually to discuss how we can intentionally and more effectively reach and service the poorest to facilitate a sustained movement out of poverty.  This report summarizes the main issues raised during the e-consultation, “Economic-Strengthening Pathways for the Bottom Billion: Connecting the Dots,” sponsored by Poverty Outreach Working Group of The SEEP Network, May 17–19, 2011. A complete transcript of the discussion is available at http://tinyurl.com/2011econsult.

The e-consultation brought practitioners from different economic development disciplines together in order to learn about one another’s recent innovations in reaching the very poor and helping them move along an economic-strengthening pathway toward increased economic self-reliance and growth. By better understanding various dimensions of extreme poverty and identifying different segments within very poor populations, e-consultation participants started to lay a foundation for a common conceptual framework for economic strengthening. This framework reveals relevant entry points for different interventions and services along a pathway from extreme poverty to economic self-reliance.


The paper can be accessed by clicking here or copying and pasting the following link in your browser: http://www.seepnetwork.org/economic-strengthening-pathways-for-the-bottom-billion--connecting-the-dots-resources-349.php.

Livelihood Pathways: Sequencing for Sustainable Market Integration of the Poorest

Blog posts have come to be recognized as a form of professional writing that can be consumed in real time and en masse by fellow practitioners.  They, like articles, can be digested quickly and provide a forum for a rapid exchange of ideas, debate, and clarification.  While I’ve written and shared quite a few through various sites, including my own,  I’ve been busy these last two years researching, documenting, and writing more formal technical pieces that I’m thrilled to report are under review for publishing.  On the first day of this new year, a case study on the ‘Livelihood Pathways for the Poorest’ project in Bihar, India was published by USAID's Microenterprise Development Office as part of a series under the Advanced Microenterprise Advancement Program (AMAP).  The publication, titled, 'Livelihood Pathways: Sequencing for Sustainable Market Integration of the Poorest,' details the flow of the integrated livelihoods model and how our interventions, products, and services are strategically sequenced to support the poorest's elevation out of poverty.  Please click here to access the full study.

Where the 'Integrated Livelihoods Model for the Poorest' (ILM) Stands Today

The Value of Group Savings and Lending to the Poorest People

Happy new year to my readers! I've lagged yet again on keeping the blog updated on recent travels from India to Qatar to Montreal and Quebec City that concluded 2011- a tremendously active year on the travel and professional front. I hope to eventually write 'catch up' posts over the coming weeks. In the meantime, I'd like to share a very touching story from the field in Bihar, written by one of our field executives (equivalent to an officer), Sudarshan Behera, which was posted on the Grameen Foundation blog, 'Creating a World Without Poverty' in December 2011. In this post, copied below, Sudarshan shares how nominal savings has proven to be a tremendous resource for our clients in Bihar:

Sugia Devi was a changed woman on November 7, 2011. She had just left the free cataract clinic in Bodhgaya in India’s northern state of Bihar and was grateful for her improved eyesight. She couldn’t wait to thank the people who had made it possible: the members of her adapted self-help group (ASHG), Durga.

The group is part of Livelihood Pathways for the Poorest, a joint project of Grameen Foundation’s Solutions for the Poorest group and BASIX/The Livelihood School that is designed to enhance the skills of the ultra poor, link them to income-generating activities, and build their savings habits.

Sugia lives in Khaneta village with her husband and her son, and his family. When she first heard about the ASHG in August, her husband did not want her to join the program because of mistrust and a lack of understanding on the benefits of participation. She persisted and began attending meetings and saving a small amount each week. Starting with an initial deposit of Rs. 10 (US 2 cents), by November, she had saved Rs. 130 (roughly US$2.40). But it still wasn’t enough to pay her fare to get to the free clinic in Bodhgaya some 30 kilometres (19 miles) away.

That’s when Sugia turned to the members of her ASHG. In addition to providing a safe place to save, the groups also provide its members with quick access to short-term loans. Sugia’s group members approved her loan of Rs. 100 (US$2), enabling her to cover her transportation costs for her operation.

Today, Sugia’s husband has a better appreciation for the value of the self-help groups, and she knows that her family can rely on the group when they need help. As her husband noted, before the ASHG, the family would have had to borrow from moneylenders who typically don’t lend less than Rs. 500 (US$9) and at very high rates.

Sugia has recovered from her operation and now Friday – the day her ASHG meets – has a special importance in her life.

Building Skills, Building Confidence: Ultra Poor Women in India Are Taking a Step Toward Self-Reliance

Until our households are able to build their skills to engage in more productive livelihood activities that can help them to generate increased income, through the Livelihood Pathways project, we have identified ways to help households meet their immediate consumption needs in the interim. The first is to link households to government welfare schemes that provide them with a minimum guaranteed wage employment or the equivalent wages, food rations, and other cash tansfers. The second is to train members of the household to engage in low skill activities, such as kitchen gardening and incense stick rolling, and link them to these local markets to generate relatively small but immediate and stable incomes. Avinash Kumar, our project manager in Gaya, blogs about these activities here. Special thanks goes to Julia Arnold for her immense editing contributions.

Building Skills, Building Confidence: Ultra Poor Women in India Are Taking a Step Toward Self-Reliance

Asha Devi’s eyes sparkled as she rolled agarbatti (“incense sticks” in Hindi) for the first time. Asha is a member of an adapted self help-group (ASHG) in Pali, a village in India’s Bihar state, where the Livelihood Pathways for the Poorest, a joint project of Grameen Foundation’s Solutions for the Poorest group and BASIX/The Livelihood School, is being implemented. The sparkle in Asha’s eyes reflects newfound self-confidence and pride that by selling handmade agarbatti, she will be able to supplement her family’s income.

Women from the program hold up their newly-rolled agarbatti (incense sticks) during training

Nearly 100 women from six village ASHGs participated in our week long training. Agarbatti rolling, which is a common activity in almost all of the villages in the Gaya district of Bihar, is one of two income-generating activities being promoted through the project. These activities require simple skills and provide modest increases in income to help households meet their immediate consumption needs. As the clients’ confidence levels and skills increase, the project team will transition them into entrepreneurial income generating activities, such as poultry farming and goat rearing, which require higher initial capital investment and skill sets but can significantly help fill income gaps throughout the year.

The agarbatti rolling training was unique not only because it was the first time women from the poorest families were receiving it, but also because it was the first time local women were given a leadership role to train their fellow community members. The experience of having a local woman train them in this skill helped increase the participants’ confidence, leaving them optimistic about their prospects and ability to contribute to their families’ income. While agarbatti rolling is common in the region, many of the households participating in our project had never done it because they live in relative isolation, making it more difficult for them to access agarbatti agents and vice versa. Instead, they have depended largely on wage labor from agriculture production, construction work, and road building.

Faced with very unpredictable and insecure income sources, these families have not had the luxury of time nor the opportunity to experiment with an entrepreneurial activity. In fact, these households often lack the necessary self-confidence to take up and learn a new activity, even such low-skill ones as agarbatti rolling. One of the aspects of the project is building the self-confidence of the members and, which, thus far, has been successful.

This training is the beginning of a change in this aspect of these women’s lives. As their self-confidence grows and they see their income rise, this positive change cycle will encourage them to seek out other opportunities. As they move forward, our team will work with them to continue on this path.

Take A Walk In Her Shoes

The Livelihood Pathways for the Poorest project was featured in this month's Grameen Foundation newsletter. The piece can also be viewed on the Grameen Foundation website.

We all know the old adage: you don’t really know someone until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes. This has taken on greater meaning for the Grameen Foundation team helping to build income-generating opportunities for poor people in Bihar, one of India’s poorest states. Together with colleagues from The Livelihood School at BASIX India – a noted livelihood-development organization – they have been slogging (sometimes barefoot) through muddy fields and monsoon rains to meet with clients of our Integrated Livelihoods Model project. One of team’s most challenging tasks involves understanding and working through the daily challenges of clients, who have faced a lifetime of chronic poverty, as well as the sacrifices that everyone in the household has to make to survive, irrespective of age.

The project’s goal is to identify and build immediate and long-term support for these households, which have been organized into groups. Over the past few months, the team has been working with the local government to link households to existing support programs that are available to them, such as child and women’s healthcare and short-term employment. These state services, which many of the poor did not even realize they were eligible for, help the households meet their immediate needs, while the livelihoods team develops and tests products and services that will offer long-term support.

In addition, we are working with groups to create an internal savings process that will give members access to funds in cases of emergency. Some of our more advanced groups have a savings box with a lock, which is held by one elected member, often the treasurer. There are also two sets of keys that are held separately by other elected members, typically the president and secretary of the group. This balance of powers allows no single person access to the group savings.

Two months ago, our team visited the group of Sunita Devi, whom you met back in April. The 35-year old widow and mother of two young children is her family’s sole breadwinner. Her sporadic work as a laborer earns her 21,600 Indian rupees (about $462) per year. Though her fledgling group still needs a higher level of support, she is already benefiting from our work with the local government. As a widow and head of household of a family living below the poverty line, she is eligible to receive a stipend and other services she didn’t know about. Our team will continue to make household visits, hold meetings with the village and provide concentrated mentoring to help strengthen her group, and will continue working with them to start their group savings plan.

Once our team’s target households have stabilized and the groups are further strengthened, we will begin training and introducing them to more high-skilled activities that generate stable yearly income. We hope this gradual transition will lead to a more effective and committed uptake of entrepreneurial activities and a very different approach to life itself. To ensure this, the final piece of our project will focus on financing products that support livelihood development, such as microloans and microinsurance.

Luckshmi Sivalingam, our program officer for the Integrated Livelihoods Model project, has been working on our project in Bihar since April 2010. Read her blog to learn more about her experiences living in and traveling through these poor communities.

Learning from Different Approaches: Grameen Foundation's Livelihood Pathways for the Poorest Pilot

I'm very thrilled to share a blog post that was recently published on the website of a prominent economic development initiative, Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), funded by the World Bank. CGAP is an independent policy and research center dedicated to advancing financial access for the world's poor. It is supported by over 30 development agencies and private foundations who share a common mission to alleviate poverty. Housed at the World Bank, CGAP provides market intelligence, promotes standards, develops innovative solutions and offers advisory services to governments, financial service providers, donors, and investors. The full post can be accessed here or on the Grameen Foundation blog. Happy reading!

Luckshmi Sivalingam, Program Officer within SfP, overseas the Livelihood Pathways for the Poorest (LPP) project at Grameen Foundation and has been working with the field team in Gaya since April of 2010 to design the livelihood and financial products, services and methodology comprising the integrated livelihoods model.

Grameen Foundation’s Solutions for the Poorest program has been working since last year to implement its own “ultra-poor “program , which takes inspiration from the BRAC graduation model, Fonkoze’s Ti Kredi program, and BASIX’s Livelihood Triad Strategy, as well as social enterprises that are experimenting with models to reach poor AND poorest households sustainably. The model we are testing – the ‘Integrated Livelihoods Model for the Poorest’ – combines financial services and livelihood support, sequentially providing these services to our target households as they gain confidence and momentum in the program. Our services are designed to have some measure of cost recovery as we aim to build a program that makes business sense for a double bottom line institution to implement.

Sunita Devi, a participant in Grameen Foundation's Livelihood Pathways for the Poorest Pilot

The current pilot – dubbed “Livelihood Pathways for the Poorest” – is operating in partnership with BASIX India’s The Livelihood School (TLS), in Gaya district in the Indian state of Bihar and is reaching two hundred very poor households. We designed and implemented a composite targeting tool to ensure the inclusion of households currently excluded from microfinance services and government social welfare schemes. Another fifty households of similar demographics are being monitored to make a comparative assessment of the impact of the products and services against a set of socio-economic indicators.

Developing a process to define and identify who the poorest are was a challenging one. Who are the “very poor”? What does poverty look like in their context, and what are its propagators? What are the needs of the very poor to propel them on a pathway out of poverty? It seems like it was only yesterday that I was in Gaya for the second time, working closely with the BASIX TLS team, trudging through our target villages to design and implement a targeting methodology to help us identify the poorest households and help us answer some of these key questions. Last August, our team of three slogged through kilometers of muddy or flooded lanes through villages absent of sewage and waste management systems. The monsoon rains, albeit short-lived, were particularly heavy those few days we worked to test the targeting process with a sample group of the target population before the final process would be scaled up across the entire project area.

We began by holding a community meeting to share the project goal and objectives with the entire village and its leaders before engaging in Participatory Wealth Ranking (PWR), an interactive and inclusive method of rural appraisal, whereby the community members themselves define what poverty means in their own context and categorize individuals according to local definitions. Shortlisted households in the bottom wealth category were visited individually and further surveyed to collect the Progress out of Poverty Index® (PPI®) score, a tool commissioned by Grameen Foundation to determine the likelihood of a household or individual falling above or below a specified poverty line. A household survey also captured a range of data, including their cash flow, livelihood portfolio, food security, health, and other indicators. The final data was measured against selection criteria that helped us identify the poorest households in a given community.

Such a multilayered filtering process ensures that interventions are reaching households not only living on less than $1.25/day, but also well below localized definitions of poverty. While an institution can target clients of varying poverty levels, the products and services it offers must be customized to meet the unique needs of these clients. Poverty targeting can strengthen market research outcomes and better inform institutions on how to service different gaps through appropriately designed products and services. In the case of the ‘Livelihood Pathways for the Poorest’ pilot project, this understanding proved invaluable in executing subsequent key activities such as product and service design and identification of viable delivery mechanisms.

For more information, you can refer to the full use case on this process here or on Grameen Foundation’s Solutions for the Poorest website.