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BRAC - Linking Food and Training with Microfinance

Guest post by: Grameen Foundation

Article Overview: BRAC, the world’s largest NGO with a large microfinance program serving more than five million Bangladeshi families, is another example demonstrating that microfinance can and should serve the world’s poorest.

BRAC - Linking Food and Training with Microfinance

BRAC, the world’s largest NGO with a large microfinance program serving more than
five million Bangladeshi families, is another example demonstrating that microfinance can and
should serve the world’s poorest. Through their Income Generation for Vulnerable Groups
Development (IGVGD) Program, it is able to reach the destitute poor and graduate them to fullfledged,
long-term microfinance clients. The IGVGD Program is a collaboration between
BRAC, the World Food Program and the Bangladesh government to serve destitute rural women
who have little or no income-earning opportunity by offering them free grain, skills training, and
microloans. Participants receive 18 months of free grain as basic nourishment from the
government. Then a BRAC unit specializing in training organizes the participants into groups,
collects savings, and provides them with skills training such as raising poultry and livestock.
Upon completion of training, participants receive tiny loans of about $50 to fund a small-scale
income generating activity. In addition, the program provides participants with BRAC’s essential
health care services that incorporate annual check-up, basic curative care and family planning
among other vital services.17
The results of BRAC’s IGVGD Program are very impressive. To date, the program has
served 1.6 million destitute women, and nearly two-thirds of these participants have “graduated”
from absolute poverty to become microfinance clients who have not slipped back into requiring
further relief assistance.18 Overall, longitudinal studies of the IGVGD Program shows that the
economic and social conditions of participants have improved based on measurements of income
and assets, land and homestead ownership, ownership of beds and blankets, and food security.

Microfinance: A Platform for Social Change
by Marge Magner
March 2007
Grameen Foundation

Related Articles
  Enhancing Microfinance Efficacy through Integrated Services
  Increasing Microfinance’s Reach with Integrated Services
  Conclusion - Microfinance: A Platform for Social Change
  Improving Microfinance as an Anti-Poverty Tool
  IV Module I Key Principles for an African Model of Microfinance

Article Tags: absolute poverty, bangladesh government, curative care, destitute women, essential health, grameen foundation, health care services, income generation, longitudinal studies, marge magner, microfinance clients, microfinance program, microloans, poultry and livestock, raising poultry, relief assistance, rural women, tiny loans, vulnerable groups, world food program



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