70 million people in India living under extreme poverty. What could be our best response today?

Listening to John Paul who leads The/Nudge Ultra Poor program in Jharkhand can be very captivating, if one has an ear to know what’s ailing people in extreme poverty and what could be a possible solution. John can speak for hours tirelessly and as he spoke, I was coming to terms with the reality.

Firstly, understanding the characteristics of extreme poor families:

·     Living on less than 1 meal a day

·     Little or no land or productive asset

·     Little savings (80% of income on Food)

·     Socially withdrawn and excluded from communities

·     Living on less than INR 34 per day

·     Annual household income less than INR 12,000

·     Family size of 5-8 members

·     Tied to availability unpredictable wage labor

And it’s not that there hasn’t been any help or support from the Government and social sector. There are various program and initiatives addressing specific needs, be it water, sanitation, food, livelihoods, education or financial literacy. While these programs are implemented at scale they do not reach the extreme poor.

What’s lacking is the implementation of multi-dimensional programs that target the extreme poor and provide household level support for a prolonged period of time until they pull themselves out of extreme poverty. The good thing is that we have models that are tried and tested, and it works. What is required is resources to implement those models for large-scale impact.

Understanding the Graduation Approach and its elements.

Designed in 2002 by BRAC, one of the world’s largest non-profits the graduation approach is a carefully planned program where the implementation is methodically, and impact can be measured.

• selection and targeting – careful selection of excluded extreme poor families through participatory appraisal and surveys. Since the program is tailor made for each vulnerable communities the selection becomes the criteria to ensure maximum impact.
• social and financial inclusion - formation of women led Self Help Groups (SHGs), initiate savings activities and prepare for credit absorption. The “didis” are empowered to lead these initiatives.
• consumption support - provision of stipend / food transfer to provide breathing space to focus on building skills and learning. There is this constant worry for the next meal among the group members and this can jeopardise the overall program success.
• livelihood planning- creation of a diversified and customised plan for each family to increase productivity and decrease risk. Someone could be planning a dried fish business but it requires little planning on demand, sales, procurement etc. small things but need attention to detail.  
• asset transfer and training- provision of physical asset or grant along with technical skills training to initiate economic activity. Be it a goat rearing or Agri business the program envisages that the “Didis” will require the skills to manage the activity and grow.
• life skills coaching- finally and most importantly weekly coaching through individual and group level visits on health, nutrition, financial literacy, etc.

Taking a family out of extreme poverty to sustainable livelihood is a 36-month effort and the average increase in annual income has been INR 29,000.

What’s required is resources to scale the model to impact more and more households as soon as possible.

John tells me that it has now become his passion to serve these communities and he draws his inspiration from the field workers who toil day in and day out, rain or sunshine to make the program successful to take that one family out from extreme poverty. 

John when can I join you in field ? I say.