How market linkage helps graduate from hopelessness

When Rozina Akhter from a remote village of Ukhiya, Cox's Bazar, got married around 12 years ago at the age of 18, she was not very hopeful about her future. She was simply a housewife while her husband was a day-labourer who could find work two or three days a week, earning Tk400 to Tk600 per day. 

The influx of Rohingya people from Myanmar in late 2017 contributed further to their sufferings. The Rohingya men were ready to take up daily jobs at much lower wages than the local Bangladeshis. On many occasions, Rozina's husband too had to compromise with a low wage.   

As the only earning member of the household, he would earn around Tk5,000 every month in 2019. This amount was hardly enough for the family as Rozina gave birth to three children in quick succession and her mother-in-law also lived with them.

Overall, she was in a very vulnerable condition. However, her fate was changed when she was approached by the non-government organisation Brac's Ultra-Poor Graduation Programme. Under the programme, she was not only provided with assets, but also given proper education and linked with market actors to become empowered in its truest sense.

"We were living in perhaps the most miserable condition. I don't even want to remember those dark days," Rozina recalled her life before Brac's intervention, adding that domestic violence and starvation were common in her life. 

But how poor were Rozina and her family exactly? To put things into perspective, the extreme poverty line by the World Bank currently stands at $2.15 per person per day, but in 2019, the line stood at $1.90 per person per day. 

This means, if every member of a household on average lived on less than $1.90 a day at that time, they would be considered to live in extreme poverty.

Rozina's family consisting of six members was far below the line. With the monthly earnings of Rozina's husband, each member of the household could spend only $0.32 every day. They were not just extremely poor, they were ultra poor. 

However, currently the family is financially stable and leading a much better life. "We are not living from hand to mouth anymore, or starving. We now even have some savings and there are no more quarrels within the household. We are at peace," shared Rozina.

This miracle took place after she was brought under Brac's two-year Ultra-Poor Graduation Programme between January 2020 and December 2021. 

"As part of this programme, I received a heifer worth Tk24,000 to rear. I was provided with a cow-shed and also high-quality food for its nutrition, and vaccination and healthcare services twice," revealed Rozina, adding that she was further linked with the local market for buying reliable products needed to rear cattle. 

The representatives of Brac educated her about not only the techniques of heifer rearing but other important things ranging from the need for hygienic sanitation and standing up against domestic violence to why girls shouldn't be married off under 18 and both boys and girls should be treated equally. 

After eight months, Rozina took the first initiative to sell off the heifer. She was again assisted by Brac representatives who linked her with a trader who would give her a good price, and eventually she earned Tk80,000.  

"Never before had I seen so much money in my life," she said, adding, "and more importantly, this was my own money. I earned this with my hard work, so I was extremely happy. For the first time I came to realise that in spite of being a woman, I wasn't powerless." 

To mitigate the risk of wasting the money, Brac representatives taught her how to invest the money in the right places, keep aside some as savings and also linked her with raw material sellers and product buyers. 

Soon she bought another heifer for Tk35,000, took a one-year lease of a one kani (0.39 acre) land for Tk10,000 to grow vegetables, and bought a sewing machine for Tk7,000. She spent a part of the remaining money for her family, and kept a fraction for savings. 

By the time the two-year programme came to an end, the combined monthly income of Rozina's family had risen to Tk35,000 and the number of members stood at five after the demise of her mother-in-law. 

"Till June 2023, I saved Tk30,000 with Brac's DPS (Deposit Pension Scheme). If any crisis arises in future, I could utilise that money," said Rozina. 

The family which was once struggling with basic necessities has not only surpassed the extreme poverty line threshold but also has at least three sources of income. 

They are now having healthy food, drinking safe water, enjoying a hygienic sanitation system, and the children are going to school regularly. Besides, they also have standard housing, access to cooking fuel and electricity, and own several assets.

They bade goodbye to multidimensional poverty, and graduated from ultra-poor status effectively. 

More importantly, Rozina is no longer hopeless. She is now confident, boasting of a new-found self-esteem, and dreaming of a much better future for her children. 

"I hope all my children will get the opportunity for higher education. Being an illiterate person myself, I now understand how important it is to be educated, especially for girls and women. So, I will keep working to attain this goal," she said.  

This story goes exactly in line with what Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, the founder of Brac, had once said about poverty: "Poverty is not just poverty of money or income, we also see poverty of self-esteem, hope, opportunity and freedom. Hope is an element in which people take action and energise themselves out of poverty." 

Obviously, Rozina is not alone to be reinforced with this power of hope. In her village Haru Fokir Para and the surrounding areas, there are around 100 families who have benefitted from Brac's Ultra-Poor Graduation Programme. 

"The programme in Cox's Bazar's Ukhiya and Teknaf Upazilas intervened in the lives of 2,000 families between January 2020 and December 2021, with an achievement rate of 96% in terms of socio-economic progress," said Upoma Mahbub, senior manager, advocacy at the Ultra-Poor Graduation Programme. 

The participants in the programme had several enterprise options. While the highest 1,155 families opted for heifer rearing, there were a considerable number of participants in beef fattening and small businesses. A few others chose goat rearing and agriculture. 

To be noted, the programme in Cox's Bazar is not the first of its kind. Since 2002, Brac has been running this programme and reached 2.2 million households in the country. 

But the standout feature this time around was the first-ever one-year market linkage pilot, in association with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

The pilot project had a two-fold objective: to increase the bargaining opportunities for the ultra-poor with market actors and to widen the scope for marketing the commodities they have produced.

"Market linkage is very important in a sense that the ultra-poor people do not generally have the prior experience of market interaction. So, they might face multifaceted challenges in navigating their finances properly, and lose all their hard-earned money in the process," said Palash K Das, director of the Ultra-Poor Graduation programme.  

"But the market linkage acts as their first step towards mainstream inclusion," he added. 

Subrata Kumar Chakrabarty, livelihood and economic inclusion officer at UNHCR, also recommended that future poverty eradication programmes should include such market linkage aspects in their activities.