Qualitative evaluation of the Poverty- Alleviation Program Produciendo por mi Futuro in Colombia

Produciendo por Mi Futuro (PxMF) is a poverty-reduction intervention, implemented in Colombia
by Prosperidad Social, which is based on the graduation programs initially developed by the BRAC
Development  Institute  of  Bangladesh  and  later by  the  Ford  Foundation  in  eight  countries  
around  the  world.  Like  other  graduation  programs,  PxMF  seeks  the  integral  support  of  the  
population living in extreme poverty and victims of forced displacement; PxMF offers a package that  includes  training  activities,  coaching  and  a  cash  transfer  of  about  500  US  dollars  to  each participant  for  developing  a  household  business.  Using  the  biographical  method  called  Life Stories; this study carries out a qualitative evaluation of PxMF, examining the poverty dynamics of  households,  their  socioeconomic  condition  at  the  beginning  of  the  intervention,  the exogenous  factors  and  shocks  that  affect  them,  and  the  role  of  the  intervention  in  their  lives  (changes  in  attitudes  and  behavior).  We  find  that  there  exists  a  high  heterogeneity  in  the  dynamics  of  poverty  of  the  participants  as  well  as  in  the  particular  characteristics  of  the  households  at  the  time  of  the  intervention; these  differences  affect  the  performance  of  households in terms of the results expected by the program. Shocks are also identified, mainly climatic  ones  such  as  extreme  droughts,  which affect  the  results  in  rural  households  whose  productive activities are agricultural. Finally, we identify the channels and mechanisms through
which  it  is  possible,  in  some  cases,  to  attribute  to  PXMF  the  positive  changes  found  in  
socioeconomic variables of interest.