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.

A Place of Travelers and Magicians

I remember one Friday afternoon in Kabul, we had little to distract ourselves with and decided to download and watch a film projected onto our dining room wall.  My very good friend and colleague found Travelers and Magicians, a Bhutanese film, depicting the tensions between the new and the old that the younger generations face.  Nyingma and Khajupa are the two sects of Buddhism practiced here, and while the former allows monks to marry, the more dominant latter limits life to prayer and the monastery.  More and more, monks are choosing to resign from such a life and join the movement towards modernization.  But, this generation is torn between two worlds because while one tempts them with an unknown future with the outside world, the other is a magical one that ties them very strongly to the magnificence of their past and present, woven by who possibly else but magicians.  I was beginning to feel convinced so as I made the two or so hour hike up to the Taktshang Goemba (Tiger’s Nest monastery), and upon reaching my destination, there wasn’t a single doubt left in my mind. 

Massive prayer wheels and strings upon strings of colorful prayer flags guided the way up to the Tiger’s Nest.  The monastery gained its name from the belief that Guru Rinpoche flew there on the back of a tiger, believed to have been a manifestation of his consort, Yeshe Tsogyal, to conquer the demon, Singey Samdrup.  He, then, stayed on to meditate in a cave for three months around which a temple has been built within the monastery.  The last stretch of the journey to the monastery included descending and then ascending a flight of 700 steps, crossing a small bridge under a waterfall, and passing the Singye Pelphu Lakhang (Snow Lion Cave), where Guru Rinpoche’s consort is believed to have meditated.  The views of the monastery grow increasingly magnificent throughout the hike, but once one reaches the entrance, it is a photographer’s torture.  Like with all temples, photography is not allowed within the walls of the structure.  It was painful to bear, but the rationale behind the rule is sound.  The monastery’s temples, like all Bhutanese temples, contain absolutely lovely bronze and gold-plated statues of the Guru, Buddha, various forms of Tara, and many other Buddhist deities.  Because the treatment of captured images by tourists can’t be controlled once removed from a memory card, the government believes the sanctity of the divine would be at risk.  The government established this rule after openings its doors to visitors to pre-empt any potential defamation of their gods and saints. 

Prayer wheel at the base of the Taktshang Goemba cliff

More prayer wheels and flags with the monastery in the backdrop

Prayer wheel, situated one hour into the hike

Prayer flags garland the hiking path

Singye Pelphu Lhakhang (Snow Lion Cave)

The monastery is comprised of a series of temples connected by courtyards lined with prayer wheels and walls covered with colorful murals depicting various scenes from Buddhist mythology.  Doorways gilded with gold and other metals with intricate designs mark the entry into each temple, the most breathtaking housing three massive statues of the divine with elaborate and colorful iron-welded backdrops of vines, lotus flowers, and celestial clouds.  Thangkas and multi-colored banners adorn the ceilings, while bronze cups of holy water and brass butter lamps embellish the shrines.  I could have remained there staring away for hours.  With such structural wonders embedded within mountain crevices or just inches from collapsing into stunning valleys, it’s no wonder that many believe Bhutan may be the long lost, elusive Shangri-La. 

Stunning Bhutanese architecture

A view of the Taktshang Goemba through prayer flags

Guru Sungjem Lhakang and Guru Tsengye Lhakhang

Another view of the Tiger's Nest, held by "angels' hairs"

Sun finally shines on the monastery

En route to the monastery

Drukpa playing the traditional chiwang (fiddle)

Before heading to Thimphu, we visited Paro (Rinpung) Dzong, which literally translates as ‘fortress on a heap of jewels.’  The dzong is overlooked by Bhutan’s national museum, which is somewhat rudimentary but still houses a spectacular collection of the colorful masks used during religious festivals.  Dzongs are some of the best examples of Bhutanese architecture and often house both civil service offices and monasteries.  The white-washed walls of the dzong are massive and are also ornamented with those stunning arch-framed windows described in yesterday’s post.  Within the outerwalls, lined with balconies at each level from which monks peer out, is the largest structure of the dzong--- a five story tower housing the government offices at the center of the courtyard.  Dzongs’ monumental size allowed for their use as fortresses from where the military could defend the country from the various invasions throughout its history. 

Manidhar flags along the banks of the Paro Chhu

Monks at their present home, Paro (Rinpung) Dzong

The Wheel of Life mural inside the Dzong

More stunning intricate word carvings

Main entrance to the Dzong

The 'Utse' or 'Central Tower' of Paro Dzong

Monk seated by the dukhang (prayer hall) entrance

LOVE these arched windows!

Guarding the dukhang

During the major festivals, the largest being tsechu, which occurs during the peak tourism season (September/October), the dzong’s courtyard is decorated with vibrant banners and thangkas as dancers adorn themselves in the most colorful of costumes and masks of animals, deities, and celestial beings to reinact significant stories and events from Buddhist folklore.  While unfortunately I’m missing out on observing and even engaging in these unique theatrical events at the heart of Bhutanese culture, I admittedly am thoroughly enjoying the opportunity to explore this mystical land with the sense that I have it all to myself!  

In the Land of the Dragon

It’s not every day that your pilot announces through the intercom, “And, in roughly twenty minutes, we’ll be passing by Mt. Everest, which can be viewed from the left side of the aircraft.”  My side!  Um, wow?  As the aircraft entered Bhutan, the terrain and climate immediately shifted to a mountainous, cold one amidst blankets of blue pine and cypress trees.  The pilot unsuccessfully attempted to pre-empt a sense of alarm in us passengers as we descended into Paro airport, cautioning us of the usual heavy turbulence.  Shortly before touchdown, it appeared we would crash right into the side of a mountain as the plane veered to the left before miraculously hitting the run way in a final moment of perfection.  This was clearly not the first time this pilot had flown into Paro International airport.  Panic was suspended and replaced with awe.  We had reached the Land of the Dragon at last.

Mt. Everest from a Druk Air aircraft

Day one in this breathtaking country has been magnificent!  Paro is a tiny, barren town cushioned in its namesake valley with a population widely dispersed across paddy fields and apple orchards.  White prayer flags for the dead (manidhar) emerge vertically from the pine covered mountain slopes, blowing vigorously in the wind, while the colorful flags of the live (lhadhar), garlanding trees, fences, bridges, and temple courtyards dance vivaciously.  Their reflections can be seen in the crystal blue waters of the Paro Chhu, its banks lined with white pebble stones of all sizes, as it flows through the middle of the town.  Houses built in the traditional style, as decreed by Bhutanese law, are either white-washed or made of stone and are ornamented with intricately carved, wooden arched windows, usually two rows of three arches, one atop the other, painted in maroon, orange, and yellow hues.  The arches are typically filled in with purple, blue, or turquoise curtains or shutters, making each set of windows appear like marvelous ornaments.  The walls of the top level of a home are only of a waist-level height ad used for storage of household goods, straw, and animal feed.  Each home, to me, seemed worthy of being a national monument.

I suppose that was the king’s purpose.  Bhutan only recently opened its doors to tourism, and roads, telephones, the internet, and television followed only shortly after.  While its leadership has accepted that an isolated existence is no longer viable, it has, with tremendous thought and prudence, strategically embraced what is considers are necessary aspects of modernization while minimizing any compromise of national identify and culture to the extent possible.  Men and women are required to wear the national dress, gho and kira, respectively, when at work, school, and religious and state functions.  Selling cigarettes is illegal, and Bhutan was the first country to ban plastic bags and smoking in public places.  Most noteworthy is the country’s method of measuring its development--- through gross national happiness (GNH) --- an index reflecting the fourth king’s dream of a country where “compassion is favored over capitalism and wellbeing is measured alongside productivity.”

Paro (Rinpung) Dzong on the banks of the Paru Chhu

Paro Valley and the Drukgyel Dzong

Drukpa chewing paan near the Dzong

General store in the typical Bhutanese architectural style

The country’s history is a vibrant mix of modern fact with an ancient one deeply rooted in Buddhist folklore and mythology.  Many monuments, temples (lakhang), and monasteries (guemba) are hundreds of years old and have origins linked to the most significant and famous saint of all, Guru Rinpoche (also known as Padhmasambhava), who is believed to be an incarnation of Buddha.  My first stop in Paro was to Bhutan’s oldest and most beautiful temples, Kyichu Lakhang, which houses one of the largest statues of the Guru, alongside a red Tara holding a bow and arrow made of flowers.  According to lore, when the Tibetan king, Songtsen Gampo, believed that a demoness embedded in the earth was blocking the transportation of what is now Bhutan’s most sacred treasure, the Jowo Sakyamuni statue, he ordered for one hundred and eight temples to be erected in a single day to pin down the demoness to the earth forever.  The Kyichu Lakhang is believed to be the temple built on the left leg of the demoness, the most troublesome part of her body.

We wrapped up the day at one of Bhutan’s many significant dzongs (fortresses), the Drukgyel Dzong, which has largely been destroyed after a butter lamp accident set it ablaze in 1951.  The Dzong was built in 1659 to commemorate the victory over Tibetan invaders.  I was told that Tibet is only a two-day trek from there, just through the two mountains in the Dzong’s backdrop. 

Prayer wheels of Kyichu Lakhang

Walls of Kyichu Lakhang

Lhradha prayer flags in Paro Valley

Knob of the Kyichu Lakhang entrance door

A Drukpa circumambulating the Kyichu Lakhang 

As we made our way back to the guesthouse, I gazed up at the Taktshang Goemba, perched 900 meters above on the side of a cliff.  The Tiger’s Nest Monastery is Bhutan’s most famous site, and I’ll be exploring it in about twelve hours!

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.