The purpose of this workshop is to present the findings and discuss the policy implications of a longitudinal study which IFPRI, CPRC and DATA conducted during the past thirty months. The study resurveyed 1,800 households first interviewed in 1994, 1996 and 2000 as part of three IFPRI evaluations on the impact of microfinance, agricultural technologies and food/cash for education on the poor in Bangladesh. Combining quantitative and qualitative methods, the study includes interviews with 93 percent of original study households, 300 life history interviews, and 116 focus group discussions. An analysis of the results and their policy implications will be discussed at this workshop.

The workshop will include a series of short presentations about the key results of the three phases of the study, followed by discussants’ comments and an opportunity to explore the policy implications of the study. Additional parallel sessions will present the quantitative data collected during the study and introduce the qualitative methods used in the study.