Paper

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

Assessing quality of participation in financial and non-financial services by BDP ultra poor
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This paper assesses knowledge retention on income generating activities (IGA) training, which is a part of the “BRAC Development Program (BDP) ultra poor.” It also explores quality of participation in the financial and non-financial services offered by the program. The BDP ultra poor is part of BRAC's Challenging the Frontiers of Poverty Reduction –Targeting the Ultra Poor (CFPR-TUP) project. Its key components are training on IGA and provision of microcredit along with some other non-financial services. Study results indicate that participants engagement in the IGA, their self-interest, training settings and number of training participants have a strong association with the level of knowledge retention. Findings include:

  • Quality of microfinance participation of BDP ultra poor is encouraging in terms of increasing their regularity of microfinance involvement;
  • Borrower member ratio of the BDP ultra poor who were recruited in 2003 is over 85%, which is the industry standard;
  • Such high borrower member ratio results from regular borrowing of members, a reflection of their quality of participation.

About this Publication

By Barua, P. & Sulaiman, M.
Published