What works for Africa’s poorest? Programmes and policies for the extreme poor

The poorest people rarely benefit from poverty reduction programmes, and this is especially true in some countries of sub-Saharan Africa. Microfinance programmes, for example, do not generally reach casual labourers in remote rural areas, ethnic and indigenous minorities, older people, widows and migrants. Therefore, NGOs and donors have started to mount programmes explicitly targeting the extreme poor. This book examines why the poorest often do not benefit from poverty reduction and growth policies, analyses innovative ultra-poor programmes from around the continent, and explores which lessons can be learnt. The book is divided into four parts: A Who are sub-Saharan Africa’s extreme poor and how to target them; B Africa’s children and youth; C Getting Africa to ‘work’; D Poverty reduction for Africa’s poorest – implementation and policy thoughts. Titels: 1. What works for Africa’s poorest? (David Hulme and David Lawson); 2. Defining, targeting, and reaching the very poor in Benin (Anika Altaf and Nicky Pouw); 3. Towards inclusive targeting: the Zimbabwe Harmonized Social Cash Transfer (HSCT) programme (Bernd Schubert); 4. Africa’s extreme poor: surviving early childhood (Lawrence Ado-Kofie and David Lawson); 5. Cash for care? Researching the linkages between social protection and children’s care in Rwanda (Keetie Roelen, Helen Karki Chettri and Emily Delap); 6. Promoting employment, protecting youth: BRAC’s Empowerment and Livelihoods for Adolescent Girls Programme in Uganda and Tanzania (Nicola Banks); 7. Female engagement in commercial agriculture, interventions, and welfare in Malawi (Ralitza Dimova and Ira N. Gang); 8. Effects of food assistance: evaluation of a food-for-training project in South Sudan (Munshi Sulaiman); 9. The role of public works in addressing poverty: lessons from recent developments in public works programming (Anna McCord); 10. Exploring potentials and limits of graduation: Tanzania’s Social Action Fund (Usha Mishra and Emmanuel J. Mtambie); 11. Do ‘graduation’ programmes work for Africa’s poorest? (Stephen Devereux); 12. Institutional and policy challenges in the implementation of social protection: the case of Nigeria (Rebecca Holmes); 13. The conditions for conditionality in cash transfers: does one size fit all? (Luca Pellerano and Valentina Barca); 14. Effective cash transfers for the poorest in Africa: a focus on supply capacity (Francisco Ayala); 15. Access to justice for the very poorest and marginalized in Uganda (Adam Dubin and David Lawson); 16. Conclusion (David Hulme, David Lawson and Lawrence Ado-Kofie). [ASC Leiden abstract]