Transforming the economic lives of the ultra-poor

Abstract

Despite considerable progress in recent decades, nearly 1 billion people worldwide live below the international extreme poverty line of $1.90 per day. A group that has been particularly hard to reach with anti-poverty programmes are the ‘ultra-poor’. With low assets and few skills, the ultra-poor work largely in insecure wage labour, do not participate in modern economic growth and have been difficult to target with credit and human capital policies.