| In the academic literature on designing effective institutions of poverty alleviation programs and policies in sub-Saharan Africa, it is rare to find direct assessments of the success of particular social policies and programs. In country after country, one is much more likely to see research on the failure of poverty reduction programs. Very often, contributors to the literature gravitate toward the presentation of raw numbers and figures indicating that these policies and programs have failed and thus call for the discontinuation of such policies. Curiously, the most straightforward questions that many people outside of the development circle seem to want answered---such as, on what criteria are these conclusions reached, or what particular policies and programs have made any dent in the poverty situation of the poor---are less popular in the discipline. This study focuses on the preconditions for the success of poverty reduction programs. It proposes a framework which incorporates a mixture of social and political, as well as economic relationships, which the institutions of poverty reduction programs embody.; Using evidence from original surveys of two micro-finance programs in Southern Nigeria, this policy evaluation dissertation attempts, from the standpoint of institutional and social capital theories to accomplish two goals: first to fill the gaps in the literature by developing an evaluation framework emphasizing institutional design features and a strong network of relationships which lower costs for beneficiaries and providers; and second, to provide critical input for the policy task of designing effective institutions of poverty reduction programs.; The general proposition of this framework is that success in poverty reduction programs may, on the one hand, be mostly attributed to factors that reflect regularities in the design of the organizations which best enhance benefits and mitigate costs faced by the poor for obtaining services, and on the other hand, a mobilization of cohesive social relationships based on existing networks of semiautonomous units, that substitute for weak enforcement of contracts to reduce the service delivery costs to the poor.; The findings show that, there are benefits to poor borrowers who access credit institutions based on a mix of credible institutions and social networks, because they considerably reduce transaction and information costs for the poor and program agents. Consequently, when compared to potential borrowers or control group, existing poor borrowers reported substantial benefits and increases in personal income, access to better health care, food, nutrition and shelter which in turn has positively impacted the condition of the poor and by reducing their poverty level. |
