Theory of Change - Shiree

Theory of Change
1. Contextual Analysis
The 2010 Bangladesh Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) reported 17.6% of the
population as falling below the lower poverty line. That is over 28 million people. Perhaps three quarters
of these are chronically poor in that their poverty is not only severe but also multi-dimensional and long
lasting 1 . These people are not only income poor, but face chronic deficits in the realms of food security,
health, nutrition, education, physical security, housing, vulnerability to shocks, social empowerment and
access to rights. This depth and breadth of poverty is passed across the generations through economic
(eg lack of assets), physical (eg poor nutrition) and social transmission mechanisms, with the latter
including strong gender dimensions and the exclusion of marginalised groups.
Extreme poverty is present throughout Bangladesh but is particularly prevalent in 5 regions where the
Economic Empowerment of the Poorest Programme (commonly known as the shiree programme,
meaning steps in Bangla) has been active since 2009. These 5 regions are the Chittagong Hill Tractspolitically
and economically marginalised, the NE Haors region- remote with isolated villages flooded for
6 months, the North Western Region – prone to seasonal hunger or “monga” and periodic drought, the
Southern Coastal Belt - extremely vulnerable to climatic shocks including cyclones and tidal surges, plus
Dhaka urban slums and streets.
5 Cases
32 year old man living in Kurigram District. Married with 4
children. Engaged in sporadic day labour.
40 year old married man living in seasonally flooded Haor
region. Adult children. Isolated by floods during rainy season.
Seasonal migration for work.
23 year old physically disabled man, living in Dhaka slum
with wife. Begs for income.
60 year old widow belonging to isolated indigenous
community in remote Chittagong Hill Tracts.
17 year old girl living in climate change affected Satkhira
District. Recently married, working as domestic maid.
Despite being disaster prone, facing severe political disruption and suffering endemically poor
governance and corruption, the Bangladesh economy continues to exhibit strong macro-economic
growth with resultant reductions in aggregate poverty. A key contextual feature is that strong growth
alone will not be sufficient to eradicate extreme poverty given the chronic nature of the situation faced
by these and many millions of other cases. Purposive programmes targeted at the extreme poor are
needed.
1 See Andrew Shepard, Chronic Poverty Research Centre – Addressing Chronic Poverty 2013

2. A Set of Primary Assumptions
First Assumption: Latency to escape from poverty: there are no lost causes!
Despite the severity and multi-dimensional nature of their poverty, all extreme poor households have
the latent potential to graduate from extreme poverty.
Evidence: Global History provides evidence over sufficiently long periods of time as there are countries
that have successfully defeated or close to defeated extreme poverty in concert with transition to
middle or high income status. What is less clear is whether permanent exit from extreme poverty can be
achieved for the most chronically poor households within the lifetime of a, typically 3 year, livelihood
support project operating in a country that has yet to transition to even middle income status. However
there are sufficient case studies of dramatic transformation in the lives of extremely poor beneficiaries
within prior shiree cohorts to justify adopting the latency assumption.
Second Assumption: There are interventions that are proven to work!
There are well tried and tested interventions that can be implemented at Household Level that
demonstrate a strong likelihood of allowing the household to transition out of extreme poverty within a
2-3 year period.
Evidence: The shiree programme has targeted the poorest 3-5% of the population (ie well below the
lower poverty threshold) in the most difficult to access locations. Implementing NGOs have succeeded in
taking over 60% of households out of extreme poverty over 3 year intervention periods (Change
Monitoring System)
5 examples of direct interventions
Provided with a cow and artificial insemination technology.
Given nets and secured fishing rights to waterbody.
Provided with skills training and a garments sector job.
Transferred 3 piglets for rearing.
Further Receives support equipment for this assumption and training for is provided crab-fattening. by the success of prior programmes such as BRAC-
Further support for this assumption is provided by the success of prior programmes such as BRAC-
Challenging the Frontiers of Poverty Reduction (CFPR) that reports 90% graduation and the Chars
livelihoods Programme (CLP). The methods adopted by these programmes are broadly similar to shiree
in involving some combination of asset and cash transfer plus training and group mobilisation.

Steps out of extreme poverty
Graduation Checklist:
Food security
Net cash income
No. of Income Sources
Cash Savings
Value of Productive
Assets
Non-productive assets
Food diversity
Nutrition
Health
Drinking water
Sanitation
Gender empowerment
Access to land (rural)
Graduated from Extreme Poverty
Skills developed in multiple IGAs,
empowered, food secure, access
to services, savings accumulated.
Community groups formed to
facilitate market linkages, group
savings, support networks and build
confidence and empowerment.
Continued training on IGAs.
Receives asset and training on
asset
Targeted as extremely poor
Third Assumption: The costs of complexity can be managed!
It is possible to deliver many thousands of livelihood interventions at scale in an efficient manner
without losing the diversity of interventions necessary to address locally specific opportunities and
constraints.
Evidence: The shiree programme is already working successfully with 248,000 households in the 5 main
focus regions through about 25 NGO sub contracts. The challenge fund mechanism allows access to a
wide variety of region or client group specific NGO working experience and expertise. Client specialisms
amongst current contractors include Help Age, ADD and Handicap (disability), Plan-International (street
children) and DSK (Slum dwellers). Other major contractors have regional presence and established
networks dating back many years, for example – Oxfam and Uttaran in the Southern belt or Caritas and
Greenhill in the Hill Tracts. The Management Agency/Sub-contractor Model enables the diversity in the
portfolio necessary to address the multiple specific determinants of poverty while providing a common
monitoring and financial management function and, critically, mechanisms and spaces for knowledge
exchange and shared learning. The result of the latter processes is to allow continuous review and
enhancement of interventions.
Fourth Assumption: Sustainability - Self-sustaining Momentum towards permanent graduation can be
established.
The sustainability assumption is the most difficult to demonstrate given the impossibility of measuring
the post project impact within the lifespan of the project itself. The best that can be achieved is to
demonstrate that a positive upward trend is established amongst participating households with
behaviour that supports the conclusion that resilience to subsequent re-impoverishment is being

gradually established. Positive indicators include re-investment in productive asset accumulation,
diversification of income sources (a strong indicator of resilience), investment in health and education
outcomes for the entire family, accumulation of savings, the re-combination of families that had become
fragmented through severe traumatic poverty and the increased engagement of families with local elites
including government officials and politicians. There is evidence from programme monitoring systems to
verify all of these positive indicators and there is evidence from longer running programmes of a similar
nature, such as those of BRAC, that livelihood gains continue on an upward trend. Nevertheless it is
indisputable that families remain highly vulnerable to shocks felt either at the level of the household,
the community or even the nation (eg a national flood of 1998 proportions, major cyclone or
earthquake). Systemic social protection reform and/or the advent of affordable and effective social
insurance are key medium to long term conditions for protecting the gains from livelihood interventions
and achieving the ultimateeradication of extreme poverty. These systemic changes are not entirely
exogenous to the intervention given the inclusion of a strong advocacy stream (see below).
Fifth Assumption: “the boundaries of permissible thought 2 “can be expanded to encompass the
eradication of extreme poverty in Bangladesh
This is the key assumption underlying the research and advocacy work that is core to the programme
model. For research to demonstrate that extreme and chronic poverty can be effectively treated and
how it can be treated. For advocacy to use multiple sources of programme and research evidence to
convince those with access to power and resources to take on the idea and to act on the objective of
achieving zero percent extreme poverty. Without an acceptance of this idea as a realistic, doable,
“SMART” objective the perception of the extreme poor will continue to be as being worthy of charity
but largely excluded,through some combination of location, gender, caste, race, age, ability and
education, from the benefits of national economic success.
Current programme experience working with the extreme poor has identified the following 6 challenge
areas:
Access to employment opportunities
Vulnerability to external shocks
Gender inequity
Health and Nutrition Vulnerability
Access to Public services and transfers
Marginalised group specific risks and vulnerabilities
The value of the research and advocacy activities already underway but scheduled for further support
through the resource bid is that a realistic national programme to address all of these areas with the
ultimate objective of the eradication of extreme poverty is adopted by the political, economic and
intellectual elite of the country - across deep political divides. If the combined elite can accommodate,
breed and be motivated to action by this thought it will be possible to eradicate extreme poverty in
2 Shephard - CPRC

Bangladesh- perhaps even by 2021- the 50 th anniversary of the formation of the country. This would
require taking about 1 million households out of extreme poverty each year.
Donors, multilaterals, INGOs and other external actors will play a key facilitating role through their
funding, advocacy and implementation functions.
To summarize:
Assumption Verified Evidence
Sufficient extreme poor
beneficiary households can be
found
√ Programme has successfully recruited 248,000HH in 5
regions. BBS statistics indicate many millions of
unserved extreme poor despite other programmes
These people have the
potential to emerge from
extreme poverty
A range of appropriate
interventions exists
A robust management
mechanism can deliver
appropriate interventions at
scale despite complexity
The continued progression of
households towards a position
of resilience can be supported
√
√
√
√
with a similar target group.
Several large programmes have demonstrated good
success rates with NGO implemented livelihood
support interventions based on asset/cash transfer
with associated training and support.
Implementation experience has led to improved
targeting and design of the right intervention based
on analysis of individual household need and capacity.
It is no longer “one size fits all” and household level
monitoring using mobile technology provides a rapid
learning loop about what works best.
The challenge fund/Management Agency model
provides this mechanism and value is added through
the inclusion of critical learning, sharing and project
enhancement forums and tools based on a dynamic
stream of monitoring and research evidence
Within the programme timeframe through continued
monitoring, top up support and contingency
resources. Beyond the programme timeframe through
work with government and other counterparts to
establish a strong national vision and shared
commitment to the eradication of extreme poverty –
that will result in systemic reform to social protection
mechanisms and targeting of core public services.

thousands more people enabled to graduate from
extreme poverty
(Source: HIES 2010)
Management
Agency and
established
NGO
partnerships
Change
Monitoring
System
DFID
funds
Effective
implementation
of evidence based
interventions
Effective national
and local level
advocacy and
research
Each extreme poor household faces a
unique geographical, economic,
politicalandsocialcontext
But each has the potential to move out
from a life in extreme poverty
32 year old man living in Kurigram District. Married with 4
children. Engaged in sporadic day labour.
Effective project
mgmt. and
financial
oversight
Comprehensive
HH level
information
funding
There are a set of
conditions necessary for
these interventions to
succeed at scale
Proven
approaches to
poverty reduction
Wider enabling
environmentaccess
to public
services
5 examples of locally
appropriate livelihood
interventions
Provided with a cow and
artificial insemination
technology.
5 Cases
40 year old married man living in seasonally flooded Haor
region. Adult children. Isolated by floods during rainy
season. Seasonal migration for work.
23 year old physically disabled man, living in Dhaka slum
with wife. Begs for income.
60 year old widow belonging to isolated indigenous
community in remote Chittagong Hill Tracts.
17 year old girl living in climate change affected Satkhira
District. Recently married, working as domestic maid.
There are well proven
interventions that can
transform the lives of
these extreme poor
households.
(Prior experience of EEP/shiree,
BRAC, CLP and others)
Given nets and secured
fishing rights to
waterbody.
Provided with skills
training and garments
sector job.
Transferred 3 piglets for
rearing.
Receives equipment and
training for crab-fattening.

Political indifference and inaction:
Increased support for national and local
level advocacy initiatives and knowledge
dissemination (i.e. The Manifesto for the
Extreme Poor).
The objective is to
nurture thousands
External shocks: Availability of contingency
fund to enable robust response to floods,
fires, evictions etc.
Failure rate: Availability of top-up funds
and household targeting mechanism
based on near real time data. Continued
research into the dynamics of extreme
poverty leading to the enhancement of
design interventions.
more household
level economic
empowerment
interventions and to
increase the rate of
graduation amongst
240,000 prior
beneficiaries
Targeted as extremely poor
Graduated from Extreme Poverty
Skills developed in multiple IGAs, empowered, food
secure, access to services, savings accumulated.
Community groups formed to facilitate market
linkages, group savings, support networks and build
confidence and empowerment. Continued training
on IGAs.
Receives asset and training on asset
Transformation Process out of Extreme Poverty
Graduation Checklist:
Food security
Net cash income
No. of Income
Sources
Cash Savings
Value of Productive
Assets
Non-productive
assets
Food diversity
Nutrition
Health
Drinking water
Sanitation
Gender
empowerment
Access to land
(rural)