The share of people living in extreme poverty fell from 36
percent in 1990 to 10 percent in 2015 but has continued to increase in many fragile and conflict-affected areas
where half of the extreme poor are expected to reside by
2030. These areas are also where the least evidence exists
on how to tackle poverty. This paper investigates whether
the Targeting the Ultra Poor program can lift households
out of poverty in a fragile context: Afghanistan. In 80 villages in Balkh province, 1,219 of the poorest households
were randomly assigned to a treatment or control group.
Women in treatment households received a one-off “bigpush” package, including a transfer of livestock assets,
cash consumption stipend, skills training, and coaching.
One year after the program ended—two years after assets
were transferred—significant and large impacts are found
across all the primary pre-specified outcomes: consumption,
assets, psychological well-being, total time spent working,
financial inclusion, and women’s empowerment. Per capita
consumption increases by 30 percent (USD 24 purchasing
power parity, USD 7 nominal per month) with respect
to the control group, and the share of households below
the national poverty line decreases from 82 percent in
the control group to 62 percent in the treatment group.
Using modest assumptions about consumption impacts,
the intervention has an estimated internal rate of return
of 26 percent, excluding non-monetized improvements
in psychological well-being, women’s empowerment, and
children’s health and education. These findings suggest that
“big-push” interventions can dramatically reduce poverty in
fragile and conflict-affected regions.