Evidence Generation
Asia
Evidence Generation
Asia
The Ultra-Poor Graduation Approach
Despite global progress, over 800 million people continue to experience extreme poverty characterized by inadequate access to essential resources such as food, shelter, and healthcare. Escalating challenges from climate change and economic volatility exacerbate vulnerabilities, risking deeper and more widespread impoverishment.
Developed by BRAC in 2002, the Ultra-Poor Graduation (UPG) Approach represents an evidence-based, integrated intervention model designed to facilitate the transition of ultra-poor households toward sustainable livelihoods. By delivering a comprehensive package—including consumption support, provision of productive assets, savings mechanisms, skills training, and personalized coaching—this approach aims to simultaneously address multiple structural and immediate constraints, fostering durable improvements in economic self-sufficiency.
So far, the UPG Approach has impacted 14 million people in over 50 countries. To expand its impact to many millions more, IPA is working with partners worldwide to integrate this evidence-based approach into existing government programs and social protection systems. To support this effort, IPA is leading a new research agenda focused on testing how Graduation can be delivered more efficiently, equitably, and sustainably, and providing direct technical assistance to government partners to adapt, scale and embed the UPG Approach into their own programs, institutional frameworks and data systems. IPA has also developed a Social Return on Investment model and cost-effectiveness analysis to inform funding and investment decisions of UPG programs at scale.
Graduation has emerged as one of the most extensively and rigorously evaluated anti-poverty programs globally, with over 37 impact evaluations conducted across diverse geographic and socio-economic contexts. Many of these studies have been led or supported by Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) and affiliated research organizations.
The evidence suggests that the Graduation approach is a highly effective way to help the poorest households break free from extreme poverty. Many studies, including long-term evaluations from India, Bangladesh, and Ethiopia, show that participants in Graduation programs experience significant and lasting improvements in outcomes such as income, assets, food security, and overall well-being. These benefits often grow over time, and the approach has been adapted and scaled in different countries and contexts, demonstrating its flexibility and strong impact. Overall, the evidence confirms that well-implemented Graduation programs can create sustainable pathways out of poverty for the most vulnerable populations.
Evidence shows that stand-alone interventions—such as cash or asset transfers on their own—rarely lead to sustained reductions in poverty. The Graduation Approach is unique because it combines multiple forms of support: productive assets, training, coaching, savings, and in some cases, psychosocial components. Together, these help families build resilience, sustain progress, and break free from poverty traps.
But as Graduation scales globally, key questions remain. How much of each component is truly necessary to achieve impact? Could lighter-touch models—like digital delivery or group coaching—achieve similar results at lower cost? What add-ons, such as psychosocial support or stronger links to markets and value chains, could amplify and extend gains? And how can the model be adapted for new populations, including urban households, refugees, and people in fragile contexts? These are the questions driving IPA’s Research Agenda for the Next Wave of Graduation Programs.
Building on its pioneering role in generating the initial evidence that proved the model’s effectiveness, IPA is now leading efforts to test how Graduation can be delivered more efficiently, equitably, and sustainably. This new wave of research is helping policymakers and implementers around the world design programs that deliver the greatest impact per dollar spent—ensuring that Graduation not only works, but works better, at scale.
As part of these efforts, IPA has partnered with the Gates Foundation to advance meaningful and rigorous evidence by funding studies which are poised to investigate critical adaptations of the Graduation model, measure scalability with government partners, and shed light on outcomes with limited evidence, such as child development or nutrition. The New Wave Graduation Fund aims to develop actionable evidence with a focus on priority areas such as increasing women’s agency and economic empowerment, improving health outcomes for women and children, and exploring innovations in cost-effectiveness and scaling.
In May 2025, IPA and the Gates Foundation jointly hosted a webinar on "Advancing Ultra-Poor Graduation: Using Evidence and Innovation to Deliver UPG Programs at Scale" to spur discussion and drive investment in remaining evidence gaps and promising innovations for UPG on the path to scale.
What began as small pilots has grown into a global strategy reaching 14 million people across more than 50 countries. Governments in Rwanda, Nigeria, and the Philippines are integrating the Graduation approach into their national social protection systems—with IPA providing research and technical support to ensure programs are evidence-based, context-appropriate, and sustainable at scale.
Working closely with core partners such as BRAC and Village Enterprise, IPA helps governments adapt the Ultra-Poor Graduation (UPG) approach to local contexts, design and implement scale-up strategies, and strengthen institutional capacity to deliver high-quality programming. This partnership-driven model embeds Graduation principles within government systems, policies, and legal frameworks—laying the groundwork for long-term sustainability and impact.
To strengthen implementation and promote a culture of continuous learning, IPA works with government social protection agencies to establish Embedded Evidence Labs—high-capacity teams that support data collection, analysis, and use. These Labs integrate evidence generation, monitoring, and adaptive learning directly into government systems, enabling programs to improve targeting, make real-time data-driven adjustments, and increase government ownership of the Graduation Approach.
IPA has developed a model to calculate the Social Return on Investment (SROI) of Graduation programs at scale. SROI captures the broader social value of a program by aggregating diverse impacts into a unified investment case.
IPA’s SROI framework builds on the analytical approach pioneered by Michael Kremer (co-recipient of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics and co-founder of USAID Development Innovation Ventures) and others, who demonstrated how SROI can guide large-scale development investment by quantifying the total social value generated per dollar invested. The methodology also draws on guidance from IPA founder Dean Karlan to provide donors and partners with a clear view of a program’s potential return when implemented at varying scales.
The framework rigorously models both costs and impacts at scale. On the cost side, it accounts for economies of scale and variations across implementation contexts—recognizing that some costs decrease per recipient as programs expand, while others may rise due to coordination or quality assurance needs. On the impact side, the model incorporates factors such as implementation quality, adaptation, and sustainability. It helps identify when programs that perform well in controlled pilots might face challenges in effectiveness when scaled through different implementers or across diverse settings.
Cost-effectiveness analyses (CEAs) help decision-makers allocate limited budgets efficiently. By comparing the ratio of costs to impacts, CEAs provide insight into which programs deliver the greatest value for money when pursuing similar goals or outcomes.
IPA has developed an automated CEA tool that enables partners to track intervention costs in real time. The tool applies an adapted version of the “ingredients method of costing” described by Levin and McEwan (2001) and Dhaliwal et al. (2013), collecting detailed information on the cost and quantity of each component required to implement a program. This allows IPA to identify cost drivers and understand how they may change when a program is replicated or scaled.
Users can input monthly line-item costs, dates, descriptions, and categories into the tool, which automatically calculates cost-effectiveness ratios based on inputted data and impact measures, following the Dhaliwal et al. (2013) methodology. All IPA-funded evaluations are required to use this standardized approach to ensure comparability across studies and contexts.
