This study explores social inclusion of poor women and children as both process and outcome in Niger and Malawi.

This report is a synthesis of the research developed in the framework of the project 'Disability, poverty and poverty dynamics: a preliminary analysis of panel data, policies and politics in Bangladesh' and aims to summarises its main finding and policy implications. 

Persons with disability are often considered as a specific chronic poverty group. However, little empirical evidence exists for developing countries on the size of disabled population. Even less is known about the interface between disability and poverty. The present study aims to provide statistically robust analysis of the state of disability and its interface with poverty and vulnerability through different pathways. 

Authors: Binayak Sen, Mainul Hoque 

This paper focuses on the economic empowerment of poor and very poor women and girls. Advice  on  the  practical  interventions  to  enable  WEE  is  rarely  disaggregated  by  the  intersecting inequalities that magnify poverty and inequality. As such, it fails to address the significant barriers to WEE for chronically poor women. This paper seeks to fill this gap in the literature. 

This report assesses drivers of the economic empowerment of chronically poor women and girls in rural Bangladesh and rural Nigeria. The focus is on drivers related to assets, both intangibly in terms of education, and tangibly in terms of ownership of consumption and productive assets including land.

Thispaper provides the latest analysis of development policies and programmes that work best for the poorest people. It has a particular focus on the poorest women and girls and it also focuses on the work carried out by a number of leading donors, assessing the extent to which they attempt to reach the poorest, and among them the poorest women and girls.

This briefing paper provides recommendations for stakeholders on how toimprove accountability and performance in local governance through a local governance performance index (LGPI) at the district level in Tanzania. 

Authors: Rachel Hayman, Anna Mdee and Patricia Tshomba

This working paper details the process of creating a Local Governance Performance Index (LGPI) in Mvomero and Kigoma-Ujiji Districts of Tanzania and of studying its applicability. 

Authors: Anna Mdee, Patricia Tshomba & Andrew Mushi 

This paper explores the relationship between disability and poverty dynamics in rural Bangladesh drawing from 293 life-history interviews conducted by the author and a small team of researchers in 2007. The aim of the paper is to use existing life-history interviews to provide initial insights into the relationship between poverty and disability in Bangladesh.

Author: Peter Davis 

This briefing paper summarises findings around the key questions of what ‘development’ means at the local level, who is responsible for it, and how local government can be held to account in practice. Findings are illustrated with selected quotes from interviews, focus groups and workshops, which demonstrate the challenges that need to be overcome to design and implement a performance index.

This paper explores the links between poverty and disability drawing from 60 qualitative life-history interviews conducted in rural Bangladesh, in 48 households, in three districts, in March 2016. The paper provides insights into the relationship between poverty and disability with the aim of informing policy and practice concerned with both reducing poverty and improving the life chances of people with disabilities.

Author: Peter Davis

The focus of the paper is on persistently poor women with disabilities in Bangladesh. It seeks to contribute to the disability and chronic poverty policy discourse and work towards developing effective poverty reduction measures by investigating daily activities and coping strategies of poor persons with disabilities.

Author: Vidya Diwakar

Efforts to tackle discrimination in access to basic services have shown mixed results in different country settings. This study examines the positive and negative outcomes attributed to anti-discrimination measures adopted in different country contexts and analyses the factors contributing to these outcomes, with a specific focus on anti-discrimination measures in education.

The selection of indicators for the creation of an index is critical if it is to be used as a mechanism to hold local government to account. Clear lines of responsibility and accountability need to be incorporated into the selection of indicators so the index can be applied at the local level.

This report is a rigorous review of 470 pieces of evidence on the effectiveness of anti-discrimination measures in low and middle-income countries. The review focuses on women and girls, children, young people, disabled people, marginalised ethnic and racial groups and marginalised castes.

The guide highlights the potential trade-offs that policy-makers, programme designers and implementers face in using social protection with the specific objective of preventing impoverishment. 

Authors: Lucy Scott and Vidya Diwakar

Urbanisation and labour force participation can be powerful drivers of women economic empowerment. This paper reviews the empowering and disempowering effects of urbanisation on the the main areas of work performed by women in cities and analyses the interventions which have been implemented to support the different types of female urban livelihoods

A performance index for local governance in Tanzania needs to provide a clear indication of how effectively local government and partners are delivering public services, supporting livelihoods and ensuring peace and security.  This paper sets out the context of good governance, local governance, accountability and local service delivery in Tanzania.  

Authors: Anna Mdee and Lisa Thorley

One of the most powerful ideas in development in recent years has been good governance. This review of available evidence considers how the performance of local governance can be improved in relation to the better delivery of services, through the use of a local governance performance index. It also considers how the public tracking of locally meaningful measures of governance can be used to improve the accountability of local government bureaucracies and politicians.

Authors: Anna Mdee and Lisa Thorley

This policy guide looks at evidence from social protection programmes with innovative designs that combine different interventions, either following a graduation approach or by building integrated social protection systems.

Authors: Chiara Mariotti, Martina Ulrichs and Luke Harman

This blog explores the link between economic and social inclusion in Malawi and Niger

CPAN is currently working on evaluating the key set of policies in the 31 countries with more than 5 million extremely poor people in 2011, that have the potential to get equitable progress underway during the first 5 years. The goal is to contribute to national and international discussions regarding priority actions and practical first steps to ensure that no one gets excluded from the progress toward zero poverty.

A blog by Duncan Green, strategic adviser for Oxfam GB, on the CPAN Event ‘Shouting at the system won’t make it work!’ and his thoughts on the use of indexes to hold local officials to account. 

This event explores the latest debates, evidence and practice on social accountability, civil society advocacy and local government service delivery.  It considers how current policy and assumptions could be revised to more effectively address critical blockages in public service delivery.

Photo PANITA/ Save the Children Tanzania

On the 8th of March 2017, to celebrate women, and particularly poor women in developing countries, CPAN organised a very insightful round-table event to discuss the importance of including women and girls on the Leave No One Behind agenda. 

IWD 2017 CPAN Blog series: #2 - Why do we think women’s economic empowerment matters so much? Without it, many women cannot demand the right to go out to work, run their own business, own land or other assets or control the money that they earn. Without being able to do these things, getting out of poverty is difficult, and their children may also not get the good start in life they need to escape poverty.

IWD 2017 CPAN Blog series: #1 - Give a chronically poor woman a fish and you feed her for a day; teach a chronically poor woman to fish and you feed her (and her family and future generations) for a lifetime.

In celebration of the 2017 International Women’s Day (8th of March), the Chronic Poverty Advisory Network (CPAN) is holding an invitation-only ODI Roundtable to discuss Women’s Economic Empowerment and the practical measures to ensure no one is left behind.

One of the strongest messages of the Agenda 2030 framework is that no one will be left behind in the work to reach a sustainable development by 2030. This means that the poorest and most marginalized and discriminated people must be taken on board. The question is: What works best for whom, and why? 

Shofiqul, from Jessore district, Bangladesh, is now 60 years old. During the 1990s, he cultivated rice, jute, wheat and lentils on his own land.  By the early 2000s, him and his family were doing very well. Now however, he says that his family has fallen to its lowest level; “in present we only eat rice with salt…in the last few years I have only dreamed about buying an egg. In the last five years, I am unable to give any saree, soap and oil to my wife.”

“Moving from humiliation and exclusion to participation: Ending poverty in all its forms” was the theme for this year's International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. In the framework of a project on poverty dynamics and poverty escapes, the Chronic Poverty Advisory Network has been working towards this objective.

Adolescence is a time of change: between the age of 10 and 19, individuals are vulnerable to social exclusion based on differences in gender, location, ethnicity, sexuality and many other aspects. On the 27th of April 2016, the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) hosted a roundtable discussion on ‘Adolescent Transitions’, within the framework of the Global Coalition to End Child Poverty to discuss a forthcoming brief by the Global Coalition focused on Adolescent Transitions, Child Poverty and the SDGs.

Photo Credit: CPAN

To what extent are anti-discrimination policies and actions required to ensure the eradication of extreme poverty? Overseas Development Institute (ODI) in London hosted an event on the 16th June 2016  'Anti-discrimination measures: a path out of poverty' to launch the findings of an evidence review on impact of anti-discrimination measures and affirmative actions on the lives of the poorest people in middle and low-income countries.

Photo Credit: Panos Pictures

Mental ill-health and relatedly alcoholism is inextricably tied up with impoverishment and chronic poverty. CPAN is now engaged with the International Disability Alliance and Action on Disability and Development in a piece of research and policy engagement in Bangladesh focused on exploring disability and poverty dynamics. While surveys don’t adequately report on mental health issues,  linked qualitative research can pick it up powerfully

Photo Credit: CPAN 

In order to encourage local institutions to prioritize the needs of the poorest, CPAN Research Fellow, Anna Mdee, is in Tanzania to work on the Governance Performance Index Project from the 16th to the 20th of May. During this week ...

Photo credit: CPAN

CPAN is proud to announce the panel discussion "Anti-discrimination measures: a path out of poverty. Can anti-discrimination measures help getting out of poverty? Results of phase 1 of an evaluation in lower- and middle-income countries". The event will be held at the Overseas Development Institute, in London, UK, on the 16th of June 2016.

Photo Credit: Panos Picture