Reaching the Poorest: Lessons from the Graduation Model

Successful efforts to reach extremely poor people often have combined access to financial services with a variety of nonfinancial services, such as livelihoods training. In CGAP's search for models to fight extreme poverty, they were particularly inspired by the innovative and holistic approach developed by the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) over the past three decades. 

In 2006, CGAP and the Ford Foundation launched an initiative to test and adapt BRAC’s approach in a diversity of countries and contexts. They were intrigued with the idea that, with the right mix of interventions, the poorest could “graduate” out of extreme poverty in a time-bound period. The result of this initiative is the CGAP–Ford Foundation Graduation Program, a series of 10 pilot projects in eight countries involving a broad range of partners and an extensive research effort, to test the universality of BRAC’s approach.

This paper highlights the lessons learned from the Graduation Program first by describing how the model works and how various partner organizations implement it in the field. A subsequent section distills the early findings and is followed by a section on costs. The final section takes stock of the learning to date, including key constraints and outstanding questions.