Abstract

How much money do you think you’d need to cover the essentials for one day? It is difficult to imagine how a family lives on less than $1.25 a day, but one-fifth of the world’s population does exactly that. How does your daily living cost compare? It’s likely to be a lot more than $1.25! We conducted a study in six different countries to find out if providing extremely poor people with livelihoods (sources of income), training and food support could enable them to escape extreme poverty. We tested if such an intervention had made sustainable (long-lasting) improvements in the lives of these people by collecting results after the support had ended and comparing their results to others who did not receive the intervention. We found that on average households had indeed improved. This shows that giving the poorest of the poor a way to make a living, as well as the support to keep that going, is an effective way to reduce extreme poverty.