Simply put, ultra-poverty is the inability to meet the barest of basic needs. A household in ultra-poverty lives much below the “extreme poverty” line ($1.90 per day PPP, according to the World Bank). Of the 200 million households in the world in Ultra Poverty, 80 percent live in countries in Africa and Asia with an estimated 23 Million in India.

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An ultra-poor household (also called the “poorest of the poor”) is food insecure - they suffer from persistent hunger with no reliable access to food.

“A person who is ultra-poor has too little food to live, but too much to die”.

Such households are typically headed by women and are victims of social exclusion, lacking in self-confidence, skills, and resilience to plan their own futures. These households face a unique degree of economic and social isolation that excludes them from most existing government and market-based extreme poverty-eradication efforts and keeps them bound in an intergenerational poverty trap.

However, we have a real shot at eliminating Ultra Poverty. There are evidence-based approaches proven to support households on their journey out of ultra-poverty - most prominent among them the Graduation Model pioneered by BRAC. This approach has now graduated more than 1.7 million people in more than 50 countries around the world, with more than 90 percent able to maintain and expand their livelihoods, even after years of leaving the program. The approach is one of the very few evidence-based programs that have been proven to reach – and empower – those living in ultra-poverty over a sustained period.

The/Nudge Institute’s End Ultra Poverty program started in Jharkhand around 3 years ago.. The goal is to help 1 million women and their household across India emerge sustainably out of poverty in the next 6 years by working closely with local and state governments across the country to adopt and scale this program.