The Chronic Poverty Advisory Network (CPAN) is a network of researchers, policy makers and practitioners across 17 low- and middle-income countries focused on tackling chronic poverty and getting to zero extreme poverty and deprivation. It is hosted at the Institute of Development Studies.

CPAN aims to undertake high-quality evidence-based research, provide policy advice and programme evaluation, carry out policy monitoring, and drive policy-focused dissemination and engagement at the national and international levels.

A dynamic, evidence-based approach to poverty eradication

CPAN works to draw attention to the needs and interests of people in chronic poverty, and what can be done by and for them. Equally we believe impoverishment needs to be prevented, and escapes from poverty need to be sustained. Policy has a role to play on all of these trajectories.

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Our approach combines analysis of panel data with qualitative life histories. Panel data, or household surveys, help investigating the extent of different poverty trajectories. Life histories are in-depth interviews which explore the key events and moments during an individual’s life that contribute to improve their situation, get worse or stagnate. While panel data provides important information on the proportions of people on different poverty trajectories, qualitative data is needed to explore further why some households are successfully improving their situation while others are not. Read more about our approach in its application to analysing youth labour markets in Niger.

Global partnerships

CPAN combined partners from parts of sub-Saharan Africa, South and Southeast Asia, who have a common focus on addressing poverty eradication. Its current geographical reach and some of its partners are outlined below:

East Africa: Ethiopia (EDRI; U of Addis Ababa); Kenya (Tegemeo; U of Nairobi; Impact Trust); Rwanda (IPAR; Fate Consulting; HLC-L4D); Tanzania (ESRF; Repoa; U of Sokoine); Uganda (DRT, Ministry of Finance, CBR)

West and Central Africa: Niger (U of Niamey); Nigeria (CSEA Abuja; dRPC, Kano; Nigeria Youth SDG Network)

Southern Africa: Malawi (CDR, U of Malawi); Zambia (INESOR; IAPRI; Zambart); Zimbabwe (ECSDI)

South Asia: Afghanistan (AREU); Bangladesh (BIGD/BRAC); India (NCAER); Nepal (NISER); Pakistan (PIDE)

Southeast Asia: Cambodia (CDRI); Philippines (PIDS; AIM)

Current focus

Poverty Dynamics

There are many shocks that force people below the poverty lines, or prevent others from escaping poverty. CPAN research investigates the dynamics and drivers of poverty dynamics to understand how pathways for sustained poverty escape differ and what countries need to do to enhance the escape from and reduce the incidence of transitory escapes. It also examines changes in wellbeing during COVID-19, which has set back progress towards poverty eradication by several years.

Read more:

• Covid-19 Poverty Monitoring Initiative, tracking the lived experience of people in and near poverty, with bulletins on Malawi, Zambia, Ethiopia, Philippines, Nepal, Kenya, India, Tanzania, Afghanistan, and Zimbabwe, supported by the IDS-led Covid Collective
• Poverty dynamics country studies in Rwanda, Zambia, Cambodia, and elsewhere
• Thematic synthesis (e.g. on sustained poverty escapes, health, and education) and flagship Chronic Poverty Reports

Pro-poorest economic growth

Since 2000, economic growth has been taking place in low- and middle-income countries, in some at high rates. However, economic growth can bring a great risk: not to be able to reach the poorest or to reach them so variably that it does not ensure their economic growth. As a result, it risks widening inequalities, rather than reducing them. CPAN researches policies and interventions that can promote growth of those at the bottom of the income or consumption distribution, faster than the average—implying a decline in inequality as well. It argues that countries need to balance growth from above (medium-large scale, formal investments) with growth from below (small, household level, and largely informal investments) to reduce poverty rapidly and sustain escapes from poverty.

Read more:

• Chronic Poverty Report on Growth and associated brief, exploring what needs to be done to redress the balance between growth from above and below.
• Immiserizing growth and poverty dynamics in India

Governance and social inclusion

Gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation and gender identity, or disability status are all elements that in some contexts can negatively affect the ability of certain groups to lead a better life. High discrimination and conflict situations can make it doubly challenging for such groups to escape extreme poverty. If the Sustainable Development Goals are to be fulfilled by 2030, it means not leaving these people behind, tackling discrimination and ending conflicts. CPAN works to make sure that those who are most likely to be left behind are included in their nation’s political, economic, and social life.

Read more:

• Evaluating anti-discrimination measures
• Practical measures to enable the economic empowerment of chronically poor women
• The economic trigger: Enabling gendered social inclusion processes and outcomes amidst poverty escapes in Niger and Malawi

Layered crises

Climate change and exposure to disasters threaten to derail international efforts to eradicate poverty by 2030. As temperatures warm, many of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable citizens will face the growing risks linked to more intense or lengthy droughts, extreme rainfall and flooding and severe heat waves – risks that threaten lives and livelihoods, as well as the hard-won gains made on poverty in recent decades. How will these patterns overlap in 2030, and how serious a threat do disasters, climate change, conflict, and pandemics pose to our prospects of eliminating extreme poverty in the next two decades?

Read more:

• Handbook: Good practices and strategies to reduce poverty in conflict-affected contexts in sub-Saharan Africa
• Climate shocks and poverty persistence: investigating consequences and coping strategies in Niger, Tanzania, and Uganda
• The geography of poverty, disasters and climate extremes in 2030

Upcoming courses:

Poverty-focused mixed methods research and evaluation online course
If your work or research is to address poverty and equality, our online course will help you understand, design and implement mixed methods research and evaluations.

Find out more

CPAN website

Our research

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