Scaling up Poverty Reduction

Global Learning Process and Shanghai Conference

The Yemen Social Fund for Development

 Yemen Context
•Population of 18 millions scattered over 100,000 settlements, 73%
rural.
•42 percent of the population living in poverty
•illiteracy (47%), basic education enrollment rate (64%)
•infant mortality(75 per 1000), high MMR (351 per 100000)
•access to health services(49%), access to drinking water 36%, and
sanitation 35%
•Poverty risk factors: (i) lack of education, (b) large household size
and (iii) geographical location
 Yemen Context

•Macroeconomic crisis in the early 1990s.

•Government embarked an economic reform program.

•Establishment of Social Safety Net with SFD as main component.

•The SFD has broad objectives to support long-term development

opportunities for the poor, and establish new innovative and
participative approaches in delivering social services
 ain Programs

Community development : participatory small-scale labor-

intensive works (basic services).

Small and Micro-enterprise development: access to credit,

saving and technical assistance.

Capacity building: assist stakeholders to take share in the

local development.
 Scaling up
•Poverty Targeting: improving the methodology over time and
diversifying approaches to reach the poor.

•Community Participation: evolved from project-focused to

supporting social capital

•Capacity building: evolved from a mean to ensure sub projects

sustainability into comprehensive programs.

•Partnership: SFD widened partnership with development

stakeholders.

•Demonstration Effect:
• SFD performance and unit cost used as bench mark.
•SFD proven systems and modality are offered to other
institutions.
 Scaling up

Capacity evolution
Outputs per Phase Phase I (1997- Phase II (2001- Phase III (2004-
2000) 2003) 2008)
Funding US$80 US$175 US$400

Number of donors 6 8 12
Number of projects 1086 2350 4000
Number of staff 99 128 170
Number branch 5 7 9
Contributing Factors to Scaling Up
•Leadership and Political Commitment granted SFD’s
autonomy

•Continuous development: innovating and learning from

tradition and international “best practices”

•Flexibility: adjust organization setup and operational policies

and practices in line with lesson learned from the field

•Donors support, both funding and technical assistance

 Impact Evaluation
 enrollment rate for girls where SFD investments were made, increased from
42% in 1999 to 58% in 2003. The overall rate increased from 59% to 70%.

 sick individuals who receive health care rose from 55% to 68% in SFD
intervention areas.

 SFD interventions increased access to household taps by 35% and reduced the
average distance by 19% and time needed to fetch water by 14%

 Rural roads interventions reduced the journey cost and time by 40% , daily
trips increased by 180%, journeys to markets increased 10 times
 Impact Evaluation
Findings of SFD 2003 Impact Evaluation Study:

 SFD favors the poor over the less poor with 40% of the resources went
to the poorest three deciles and only 4% went to the top docile group

 High correspondence of project choice with community priorities

Subprojects’ quality perceived as excellent by around 50% of household
respondents and 70% of key informants

“The SFD was the only authority that was honest with us and did
something for us” (Al Zahra School project, Saadah)
 Lessons Learned
Some lessons learned for scaling up:

•Autonomy: allowed to establish credibility, assured

management flexibility and supported innovation.
•Targeting: diversifying targeting approaches improve
reaching the poor.
•Policy Support: Supporting sectoral policy development in
order to improve the impact of projects.
•Credit Operations: need for enabling environment,
vocational training and non-financial services
•Capacity building: capacity of intermediary structures is
limited requiring medium to longer term commitments
•Support of Government Agencies: success depends
primarily on their responsiveness