Bangladesh, often held up as a model for poverty reduction, has influenced many poverty reduction initiatives around the world.
In 2002, Bangladeshi development organisation BRAC pioneered a new approach to transform the lives of women in extreme poverty within two years. The model has been tried out in other parts of the world since, but recent evaluations deliver a lesson in why there’s no one-size-fits-all solution to poverty.
A pilot in India’s West Bengal ran between November 2006 and August 2009. Around 300 women were chosen to participate in the pilot and were supplied with mainly goats, sheep, poultry and fish. They were prompted to organise themselves into peer-support groups and were trained to manage the revenue generated from their assets. They were also provided a basic monthly income and health support in the initial phase of the project. Local microfinance banks were asked not to offer services to the 24 villages covered by the project in order to protect the pilot from the influence of their financial services.
