Economic-Strengthening Pathways for the Bottom Billion: Connecting the Dots

This report discusses the main learnings from an e-consultation on innovations in reaching the very poor and helping them move toward increased economic self-reliance and growth. Participants explored dimensions of extreme poverty, identified different segments within very poor populations and attempted to lay a foundation for a common conceptual framework for economic strengthening.

The discussion focused primarily on how to reach the very poor through microenterprise development (MED) as well as microfinance programs and services. Participants discussed the implementation and strategic challenges of such programs. Suggestions on a future learning agenda regarding the economic strengthening of very poor people include:

• Developing common conceptual framework and definitions;
• Developing common indicators to facilitate impact measurement of programs;
• Encouraging opportunities for learning and collaboration between practitioners;
• Developing, adapting and collating a training handbook on the economic strengthening of very poor people;
• Developing the means to communicate consistently and compellingly with donors and policymakers about the needs of very poor people;
• Educating MED practitioners and donors about the diversity of effective economic strengthening strategies that target different strata of very poor populations.