The core principles and framework for setting your programme strategy are based on the following steps;
Defining the poverty reduction objective
To define your programme’s poverty reduction objective you need to consider the potential for reaching large numbers of poor women and men, specify your target group and identify how your programme might impact on their poverty.
The ‘poor’ are not homogeneous. They are disadvantaged in different ways, according to their gender, ethnicity, age, physical capacity, geographic location or degree of poverty. For instance, women may face discrimination based on their gender. Some programmes therefore target women or girls specifically. Nevertheless, you should identify gender-specific factors that might prevent poor women from benefiting from your programme wherever feasible.
For your targeting to be useful you need to go beyond generic terms like ‘the poor’. You must specify groups that are sufficiently identifiable for expected impacts to be measured, but also large
Identifying opportunities to benefit the target group
Once your poverty reduction objective is defined, identify opportunities to reduce the poverty of your target group.
Opportunities will be specific to the context of each programme and its poverty reduction objective, but they can usually be categorised as improving the poor’s performance in markets so they can benefit from growth (ie economic), or improving their access to the basic services they need (ie social).
Assessing the feasibility of stimulating system-level change
Once you have found potential for substantial pro-poor benefit, you should assess if it is feasible to achieve lasting change within the life of a typical programme, ie three to five years.
Your assessment should take into account the likelihood of achieving change within the social and political context as well as the capability of the funding and intervening agencies. It is not a detailed analysis of a specific market system.
Establish the programme’s main parameters, seek funding approval, and guide a detailed design process
Steps 1-3 define the programme’s poverty reduction objective, identify opportunities to improve the poor’s performance in growing markets or their access to basic services, and assess (broadly) the feasibility of stimulating system-level change.
For funders, these steps will be sufficient to establish the main parameters of the programme so that funding approval can be sought and a more detailed design process started. However, these steps are not sufficient to inform the programme’s vision for change in selected market systems, or to determine the nature of its interventions or provide a basis for detailed measurement.
