Addressing Psychological Wellbeing: Does it Matter for extreme poverty programmes

1. Graduation as Resilience
BRAC - IDS
Addressing Psychological Wellbeing: Does it
matter for extreme poverty programmes?
Proof of concept research
March 16th 2016
Martin Greeley, IDS, Sussex
ESRC-DFID Conference: Lessons from a Decade’s
Research on Poverty

2. • Ultra poverty is an inability to meet even the barest of basic needs.
• The ultra poor are typically food insecure, have few or no assets, lack education, and
suffer from poor health.
• Ultra poor households are often headed by women.
• Ultra poor women tend to be the victims of social exclusion and lack self-confidence or
opportunities to build the skills and resilience necessary to plan their own futures.
• Often chronic and intergenerational, ultra poverty creates a trap that is incredibly difficult
for women and their families to escape. -
Who do extreme poverty graduation
progammes target?

3. The Poorest : A Structural Break
Variables PWR
‘Poorest’
PWR
‘Just above the poorest’
% widow 20% 6%
% HHs with no adult male 21% 3%
% HHs having school aged children
labouring rather than school
12% 7%
% HHs no cultivable land 90% 76%
% HHs not owning homestead land 44% 24%
% HHs current MFI participation 8% 35%
*PWR = participatory wealth ranking
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4. Definition of the Ultra Poor
• Households with < 10 decimals of land.
• Those who earn livelihood as beggar, day
labourer, domestic aid.
• Households with no productive assets.
• Children of school-going age
taking up paid work .
• No adult active male member in the household
.
A Bangladesh example – BRAC’s Targeting the Ultra
Poor programme
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5. Key Interventions CFPR-TUP
• Targeting
• Enterprise Development:
• Life Skills Training
• Asset Transfer
• Consumption Stipend
• Customised Healthcare Services
• Community Mobilisation and Social Integration
• Hands-On Coaching/Training
• Confidence-building training:
• Financial Services:

7. Per capita income (BDT)
Had available/surplus
food in last one year
Programme effect after 4 years 2,049*** 0.0407**
(217.5) (0.017)
Programme effect after 6 years 3,042*** 0.156***
(294.6) (0.021)
Mean of outcome in the treated
communities at baseline 6,648 0.140
Number of eligible households 5225 5225
Adjusted R-squared 0.111 0.106
Observations 15,675 15,675
Impact on per capita income (BDT) (2007 constant price) and food
security
CFPR-TUP Phase Two results 2007 -2014 (draft)

8. 8
Impact Assessment of CGAP-Ford Pilots

9. • Statistically significant impacts on all 10
key outcomes:
Abhijit Banerjee et al. Science 2015;348:1260799
• Impacts still evident 12 months after
end of intervention and 36 months
after asset transfer
• Income and revenues significantly
higher in every country
• Consumption
• Food security
• Productive and
household assets
• Financial inclusion
• Time use
• Income and revenues
• Physical health
• Mental health
• Political involvement
• Women’s
empowerment
Program Evaluation Results

10. 3 Motivations for the research
A.Conceptualising Extreme Poverty - Learning
from poverty analysis
B. Field experience
C. Behavioural economics and impact reports

11. The research process
A. Choice of Ryff’s model of Psychological Wellbeing and
developing the instrument
Six dimensions: self-acceptance, positive relationship
with others, autonomy, environmental mastery,
purpose in life and personal growth.
B. Canvassing the research instrument – the randomised
control trial on BRAC’s Challenging the Frontiers of
Poverty Reduction – Targeting the Ultra Poor
programme (CFPR-TUP)

12. Development of the survey Instrument
The psychological wellbeing (PWB) Questionnaire has been finalised through a step wise reduction method described
briefly below.
Item construction. Preliminary items (total 97 items) were constructed through extensive literature review consulting
different models of wellbeing as well as existing wellbeing questionnaires. After completing the literature review, three
separate Focus Group Discussions were conducted with the stakeholders –ultra-poor rural women- to explore their views
in relation to psychological wellbeing. Based on insights from the FGDs and literature review, the total items were reduced
to 56 and then they were written in the form of statements. Then there was a peer review for language suitability and
conceptual fitting of the items to the local context.
First field trial of initially developed items. These 56 items were tried out on 8 ultra-poor households to judge concept
familiarity, ambiguity and language. The selected items were then modified and reduced to 48 items.
Final field survey instrument. These 48 modified statements were then given to 2 subject matter experts (SME) to assess
ambiguity and appropriateness for the local culture including choice of scale and presentation format. After further
modification 44 items were retained. These items were then converted to a 10 point Likert scale format. Scores on all the
44 items were obtained from a sample of 1,200 ultra-poor households.

13. C. Exploratory Factor Analysis - five of six
dimensions identified based on 44 responses
(scores) from 1,200 participants.
D. Integration of wellbeing factors with impact
survey results. We know for the impact survey
that Programme participation was good for
material wellbeing outcomes.
Two dimensions of wellbeing positively associated
with programme participation – personal growth
and self-acceptance (autonomy was negatively
associated).

14. Next Activities:
Finalising Stage One report and journal article
Stage Two funded through the ESRC-DFID Development Frontiers Challenge Programme
Moving from correlation to causation by examining two programmes on graduating households out
of extreme poverty – one which has serious levels of psychological support to the female
participants and one that does not.

15. Increasing the effectiveness and impact of poverty
alleviation research: communications, research
uptake and and pathways to impact
Effective engagement between research, policy and practice;
Role in national and global ‘graduation programme advocacy’
Further research already funded on the extreme poverty graduation programme (CLM) run by
Fonkoze in Haiti
Capacity building of researchers and institutions located in the global South (including early career
researchers)
Southern-owned programme; Economist, Jinnat Ara (BRAC RED) and Social Psychologist, Asheek
Shimul, (Dhaka University)
Involving communities and stakeholders in the co-construction of research questions, methods, data gathering
and analysis
Research instrument validation process; ground-truthing of findings
Effective collaboration between institutions and sectors in both ‘North’ and ‘South’.
Ten year MoU BRAC-IDS; multiple research partnerships and capacity-building initiatives)

16. The Lifecycle Approach: Poverty Dynamics Linked to Risks Faced by
People Across Lives
Source: Dr. Stephen Kidd, September 2013
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The Lifecycle Approach: Poverty Dynamics Linked to Risks Faced by
People Across Lives