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BRAC's Graduation approach is a comprehensive, timebound, integrated and sequenced set of interventions that enable extreme and ultra-poor households to achieve socioeconomic resilience in order to progress along a pathway out of extreme poverty. Participants become the agents of their own development and make sustainable progress in overcoming extreme poverty. Read more»
This second newsbrief features articles on Inequalities and Leave No One Behind, the estimated impact of COVID-19 on global poverty and what the current crisis has taught us about social protection, and more. Read more»
Stephanie Guha / May 2020
New analysis shows the economic crisis caused by coronavirus could push over half a billion people into poverty unless urgent and dramatic action is taken. This virus affects us all, but the equality ends there. By exploiting the extreme inequalities between rich and poor people, rich and poor nations and between women and men, unchecked this crisis will cause immense suffering. In its new paper Dignity not Destitution, this observation led OXFAM to call for an Economic Rescue Plan For All that meets the scale of the crisis, mobilizing at least $2.5 trillion dollars to tackle the pandemic and prevent global economic collapse. It prioritizes helping people directly: giving cash grants to all who need them. An immediate suspension of the debt payments of poor countries, combined with a one-off economic stimulus by the IMF and an increase in aid and taxes, can pay for this. Read more»
Estelle Gagnebin / April 2020
On the 8th of April, United Nations University's World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER) released a worrying report on the impact of the Covid-19 crisis on global poverty which could increase for the first time since 1990. In developing countries, half a billion (8% of the global population) might be pushed into poverty. In some regions, the adverse impacts could result in poverty levels similar to those recorded 30 years ago, posing a threat to the SDG's goal of ending poverty by 2030. Read more»
Stephanie Guha / April 2020
The well-known Indian writer and human rights/ecology activist Arundhati Roy wrote a gripping article on the political context and immediate impact of containment measures in India. She explains how the containment - applied two hours after having been announced - has ignored the reality of about 460 Mio disadvantaged people: migrant workers, people living on daily wages, who have suddenly lost their livelihoods. Further, this crisis is coming in the middle of politically created tensions opposing Muslims and Hindus. The Covid crisis is still to come she says and we can be sure that it "will be dealt with, with all the prevailing prejudices of religion, caste and class completely in place." But this crisis as all others can also be an opportunity to break with the past and imagine our world anew. Read more»
Laurent Ruedin / April 2020
In its latest Pathways' Perspectives on social policy in international development, two experts on social protection reflect on some of the key lessons they have learned about social protection in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis. The paper argues strongly for a universal coverage approach against the mainstream social protection concept of only reaching out and targeting the poor and the marginalized. The global pandemic is teaching us that we are all vulnerable and at risk of being affected by the virus and its socio-economic consequences. The uncertain time we are living therefore offers an opportunity to rethink social protection systems. Read more»
