The Financial Services for the Poor (FSP) Team within the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) is working to expand their definition of poverty and better understand the lifestyles of those living in poverty within their focus countries.
The FSP Team approached the START Center to provide a detailed analysis of the current state of poverty within Bangladesh and Ethiopia. The START team started by providing an overview of the proportion of the population living in poverty, utilizing three different poverty measures at the national and subnational levels. The START team then prepared a detailed overview of the lifestyles of those living in poverty, focusing on education, livelihood, mobile phone coverage and ownership, women’s economic empowerment, and financial inclusion. The full results of the team’s analysis are summarized in an indicator table and PPT report for each country. The START team was also asked to create a research methodology that could be replicated for other focus countries in the future.
