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Ultra-poor Conference 2015 Session Videos
The IGC-BRAC Ultra-poor conference, held on 9 December 2015 at LSE, served to discuss and...
As the first of the newly adopted United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals, eradicating extreme poverty constitutes a major challenge for governments and organisation across the globe entering the post-2015 era. Despite progress over the last few decades, a large proportion of the world’s population still remain in extreme poverty. These people, who are majority women, often lack both the necessary skills and capital to lift themselves out of poverty. Simultaneously, policies designed to address the necessities of the ultra-poor often fall short of reaching the people most in need. Any attempt to alleviate extreme poverty on a large scale must therefore consider a process that incentivises increases in both assets and skills for those in ultra-poverty over a long time horizon.
Through a ground breaking approach created by BRAC, a global international organisation, significant steps has already been taken towards financial inclusion and livelihood development targeting the ultra-poor.
This conference served to discuss and evaluate graduation approaches, looking at both short and long term effects of this type of policy intervention. In cooperation with leading economists the conference presented data on the effect of the programme so far and sought to unpack the mechanisms of the programme’s success. The conference debated the opportunities and risks of scaling up the programme and analyse the concerns moving forward seeking to answer questions like:
Time | Presentation Title | Presenter |
0900-0945 | “Eradicating Extreme Poverty: Ultra-poor Graduation as a Social Protection Tool” | Mushtaque Chowdhury (BRAC) |
0945-1015 | “Results from a long-run evaluation in Bangladesh” | Robin Burgess (IGC, LSE) |
1015-1130 | “The Design of Social Protection Programs for the Poor: In-Kind Asset Transfers versus Unconditional Cash Transfers” | Imran Rasul (University College London) |
1015-1130 | “Comparing assets versus cash transfers in social protection schemes” | Qazi Isa (Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund) |
1145-1300 | “Targeting the Ultra Poor in Ghana” | Abhijit Banerjee (MIT) |
1345-1500 | “Graduation in the longer term” | Oriana Bandiera (IGC, LSE) |
1345-1500 | “Targeting the Ultra Poor: Long Run Results” (Presentation not available for download) | Esther Duflo (MIT) |
The IGC-BRAC Ultra-poor conference, held on 9 December 2015 at LSE, served to discuss and...