Publications (BRAC Institute of Governance and Development)
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Item গ্রামীণ সমাজে নৈতিক অবক্ষয়ে অর্থনৈতিক ও রাজনৈতিক ক্ষমতা কাঠামো পুনর্বিন্যাসের প্রভাব: একটি বিশ্লেষণ(বাংলাদেশ উন্নয়ন সমীক্ষা, 2018) জাকারিয়া, সুলতান মুহাম্মদগ্রামীণ সমাজে এখন যে ক্রান্তিকাল চলছে সেটি বাংলাদেশের ইতিহাসে নজিরবিহীন, অভূতপূর্ব। বাংলার গ্রামীণ সমাজে অর্থের এতটা অন্তর্মুখী সরবরাহ হাজার বছরের ইতিহাসে এই প্রথম এবং বর্তমান লক্ষণগুলো এরই নানামুখী পার্শ্বপ্রতিক্রিয়া উদ্ভূত। অর্থনীতির এই বিকাশ শত বছরের গ্রামীণ ক্ষমতা কাঠামোকে যেমন নাড়িয়ে দিয়েছে, তেমনি ক্ষমতা-কাঠামোর এই ভাঙনে প্রায় অ‣নতিক উপায়ে অর্জিত সম্পদের যথেচ্ছ ব্যবহার ও প্রসারের অনিবার্য প্রভাব সামাজিক মূল্যবোধ ও ভিত্তিকেও নাড়িয়ে দিয়েছে।Item Intentions to participate in adolescent training programs: Evidence from Uganda(Oxford Academic, 2010-05-01) Bandiera, Oriana; Goldstein, Markus; Rasul, Imran; Burgess, Robin; Gulesci, Selim; Sulaiman, MunshiAlmost one-third of the population in developing countries is under age 15. Hence improving the effectiveness of policy interventions that target adolescents might be especially important. We analyze the intention to participate in training programs of adolescent girls in Uganda, a country with perhaps the most skewed age distribution anywhere in the world. The training program we focus on is BRAC's Adolescent Development Program, which emphasizes the provision of life skills, entrepreneurship training, and microfinance. We find that girls who are more likely to benefit from the program are more likely to intend to participate. The program attracts girls who are likely to place a high value on financial independence: single mothers and girls who are alienated from their families. The program attracts girls who are more likely to benefit from training: girls who believe they could be successful entrepreneurs but currently lack the quantitative skills to do so. Reassuringly, girls who are in school full-time are less likely to intend to participate. We also find that the program attracts girls from poorer villages but we find no evidence that poorer girls within each village are more likely to want to participate. Finally, girls from villages who have previously been exposed to NGO projects are less likely to intend to participate.Item How much can asset transfers help the poorest? Evaluating the results of BRAC's ultra-poor programme (2002–2008)(Taylor and Francis, 2012-02-28) Krishna, Anirudh; Poghosyan, Meri; Das, Narayan ChandraThe impacts of an innovative programme in rural Bangladesh, which has assisted extremely poor households, literally the poorest of the poor, were assessed over a six-year period (2002–2008). The provision of a substantial dose of assets has helped produce very positive results, by and large. Vulnerability to downturns on account of negative events, such as illnesses and house damage, has resulted in asset losses for several assisted households. Additional measures that reduce vulnerability and risk will help complete the good work commenced by the asset transfer plan.Item Can ultra-poverty be sustainably improved? Evidence from BRAC in Bangladesh(Taylor & Francis, 2012-06-19) Raza, Wameq A.; Das, Narayan Chandra; Misha, Farzana A.With more than one-fifth of Bangladesh's population living in extreme poverty, surmounting it still remains a substantial predicament for development practitioners. To combat this issue, BRAC initiated the multifaceted Challenging the Frontiers of Poverty Reduction programme with a grant-based approach, reinforcing its efficacy with background services such as health and social development. Using propensity score matching, this paper analyses a three-round panel dataset (2002–2005–2008) to evaluate the impacts of the programme. We find that Challenging the Frontiers of Poverty Reduction is successfully able to increase the per-capita income, the productive asset bases and the overall food security of its participants in the long run.Item Evaluation of land suitability for urban land‐use planning: Case study Dhaka city(Wiley Online Library, 2015-03-16) Ullah, Kazi Masel; Mansourian, AliThe aim of this research is evaluation of land suitability for urban land-use planning. Four factors and fourteen criteria were selected for suitability analysis and land-use planning. Factors and criteria were defined based on literature survey, experts’ opinions, local contexts and availability of data. GIS-based Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) was used as a Multi-criteria Decision Making model. The study was conducted on a selected area of Dhaka city, which is one of the fastest growing mega-cities of the world. The research result shows that highly suitable area (13%) should be used for urban residential zone; moderately suitable area (35%) should be designated as mixed use zone; low suitable area (42%) should be reserved for agricultural use and open spaces; and not suitable area (10%) should be protected from any types of activities except agriculture. The research approached an urban land-use planning at a regional scale.Item “Flypaper effects” in transfers targeted to women: Evidence from BRAC's “Targeting the Ultra Poor” program in Bangladesh(Science Direct, 2015-11) Roy, Shalini; Ara, Jinnat; Das, Narayan Chandra; Quisumbing, Agnes R.Many development interventions target transfers to women. However, little evidence directly explores the “flypaper effects” of whether women retain control over these transfers once within the household and how reallocation of the transfers affects women's empowerment. We study these dynamics in the context of BRAC's randomized CFPR-TUP program in Bangladesh, which provides livestock and training to rural women in “ultra poor” households. Our analysis confirms previous findings that CFPR-TUP increased household asset ownership, but shows complex effects on targeted women. Women appear to retain ownership over transferred livestock, but new investments from mobilized resources are largely owned by men. CFPR-TUP also reduces women's movement outside the home and control over income, consistent with transferred livestock requiring maintenance at home. However, beneficiary women also report “intangible” benefits such as increased social capital and, even with limited mobility, a preference for work inside the home given a hostile environment outside the home.Item Does wealth increase affect school enrolment in ultra-poor households: Evidence from an experiment in Bangladesh(Practical Action Publishing, 2015-06) Sulaiman, MunshiAccess to education is usually found to be highly correlated with household income and wealth. This correlation often instigates an expectation that increasing income of the poor households will lead to greater human capital accumulation. This paper exploits randomized roll-out of a large-scale livelihood development programme for the ultra-poor in Bangladesh to measure the effect of asset transfer and livelihood supports on children’s schooling. We find limited impact on enrolment although this programme has been extremely successful in transforming the economic lives of the ultra-poor and causing substantial increases in their income and productive assets. The beneficiary households are also found to have increased their expenditures on education. This increase in educational investment, however, has not affected educational attainment during the evaluation period. We also find that the programme increased the extent of child labour immediately after asset transfers. The level of this impact on children’s work declines two years after the interventions ended. The increases in child labour are concentrated in activities related to livestock rearing, which is the primary type of asset transferred in this programme. However, we do not find evidence indicating a trade-off between children’s enrolment and work. The evidence suggests that asset transfer programmes can be more effective by including additional components focusing on improvement in educational outcomes instead of relying primarily on spillover effects through income gain.Item Evaluating the long-run impact of an innovative anti-poverty programme: Evidence using household panel data(Taylor & Francis Online, 2015-08-06) Asadullah, M Niaz; Ara, JinnatUsing a four-round panel data set from the first phase of the Challenging the Frontiers of Poverty Reduction – Targeting the Ultra Poor (CFPR – TUP) programme of BRAC, we investigate whether a one-off transfer of livestock assets improves well-being of the very poor women in Bangladesh. Programme impact is assessed on a wide range of monetary and nonmonetary measures of wellbeing using difference-in-difference (DD) as well as matching methods. We find significant positive long-term impact on food security, household savings, assets and participation in microfinance. Participant women are less likely to be in distress occupation and more into self-employment. However, the long-term effect is much smaller for most outcomes when compared to short- and medium-run impacts. We conclude by discussing the significance of the institutional and regional context for the observed time path of estimated programme effect.Item Ultra poor and asset transfer in Urban setting: Evidence from slums in Bangladesh(Wiley Online Library, 2016-08-09) Ara, Jinnat; Hossain, Nusrat Zaitun; Das, Narayan Chandra; Bayes, AbdulWe use cross-sectional data to assess the impact of the programme on livelihood where propensity score matching technique has been adopted in analysing the data. Results show that programme participants' self-employment, income, food consumption, saving, health seeking behaviour, empowerment and social awareness have been increased significantly. However, we find that addressing sanitation and hygiene practices remains the key challenge. So to bring a sustainable solution to the issue, a collective effort of slum owners, dwellers and slum community people along with program is needed. These findings are potentially important for expansion and replication of this type of programme.Item Labor markets and poverty in village Economies(Oxford Academic, 2017-03-20) Bandiera, Oriana; Burgess, Robin; Das, Narayan Chandra; Gulesci, Selim; Rasul, Imran; Sulaiman, MunshiWe study how women's choices over labor activities in village economies correlate with poverty and whether enabling the poorest women to take on the activities of their richer counterparts can set them on a sustainable trajectory out of poverty. To do this we conduct a large-scale randomized control trial, covering over 21,000 households in 1,309 villages surveyed four times over a seven-year period, to evaluate a nationwide program in Bangladesh that transfers livestock assets and skills to the poorest women. At baseline, the poorest women mostly engage in low return and seasonal casual wage labor while wealthier women solely engage in livestock rearing. The program enables poor women to start engaging in livestock rearing, increasing their aggregate labor supply and earnings. This leads to asset accumulation (livestock, land, and business assets) and poverty reduction, both sustained after four and seven years. These gains do not crowd out the livestock businesses of noneligible households while the wages these receive for casual jobs increase as the poor reduce their labor supply. Our results show that (i) the poor are able to take on the work activities of the nonpoor but face barriers to doing so, and, (ii) one-off interventions that remove these barriers lead to sustainable poverty reduction.