Rice and Fish Curry


In 2007, an innovative project which combined asset transfers, with livelihoods training and intensive mentoring, was piloted in West Bengal with 300 women who belonged to some of its poorest families. 

The project was intended to help them to move out of extreme poverty onto more sustainable livelihood trajectories. This film spoke to six of these women in 2007 when they were just joining the project. It returned in 2018, a decade later, to find out to what extent the project had fulfilled its promise.

The documentary was produced by Professor Naila Kabeer  and directed by Gautam Bose. 

The research project was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and 
UK’s Department for International Development (DFID). The documentary was funded by the LSE Key Knowledge and Exchange Impact Fund. 

Key words: women in extreme poverty; asset transfers; livelihoods training; intensive mentoring; long term impact

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For more information you can read the following articles: 

BRAC - targeting the ultra poor programme brief 2016 

Naila Kabeer (2019) ‘Randomized Control Trials and Qualitative Evaluations of a Multifaceted Programme for Women in Extreme Poverty: Empirical Findings and Methodological Reflections’  Journal of Human Development and Capabilities Vol. 20 (2). Open Access