Implementation of graduation programs for alleviating rural poverty: an impact analysis in Paraguay

Rural poverty in Paraguay led to the implementation of the 'Sembrando Oportunidades Familia por Familia' program (SOF), an initiative based on the graduation approach and one of the few government-run implementations of this kind of program. We evaluate the intervention outcomes in poverty. There are positive changes in the participants' income, productive capacity, savings behavior, and perception of well-being, but discrete consumption effects. These might suggest the need to complement the intervention in rural communities with other targeted interventions. The paper informs the scaling of graduation programs, so they help overcome extreme poverty in this and other developing countries.