5 Surprising Ways Poverty Eradication Is Happening Today

As the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty approaches, we look at some of the less conventional ways TechnoServe and other organizations are ensuring that everyone can prosper.

Poverty eradication is critical to the Sustainable Development Goals; in fact, SDG 1 commits the world to ending poverty “in all its forms everywhere.” 

TechnoServe’s approach to fighting poverty prioritizes working with communities to support regenerative solutions for people, nature, and the climate; nurturing agri-food systems that are fair, sustainable, and healthy; and generating decent work for the next generation. It is an approach grounded in more than five decades of experience and backed up by rigorous measurement.

But that doesn’t mean that TechnoServe and other organizations always address these issues in the most predictable manner. Below are five surprising ways that poverty is being eradicated around the world.

Regenerative Farming to Break the Cycle of Poverty

The evidence linking the adoption of regenerative agriculture and improved livelihoods for smallholder farmers continues to grow stronger. However, it may surprise you to learn that TechnoServe is helping some coffee farmers to improve their incomes by (temporarily) foregoing part of their harvest. 

Providing farmers with incentives to cut back their coffee trees

For many smallholders in Ethiopia, one of the greatest obstacles to escaping poverty is low and declining yields from their aging coffee trees. To rejuvenate their trees, farmers can cut them down to the stump—a practice called stumping—which dramatically improves yields after several years. Understandably, however, many farmers are reluctant to adopt the practice, as the trees produce no coffee for a year while they grow back.

To address that, TechnoServe piloted the use of incentives to encourage farmers to stump their coffee. Farmers were offered farm tools like shears and a wheelbarrow in exchange for stumping some of their coffee trees. The result? A nine-fold increase in the coffee trees stumped compared to a control group, promising farmers larger harvests in the future. 

Supporting Women Entrepreneurs and Workers to Lead Economic Transformation

If women had the same chance to participate in—and benefit from—economic opportunities that men currently do, global GDP could grow by 20%, according to a World Bank analysis. Supporting women’s economic empowerment is therefore a powerful tool for poverty eradication. 

TechnoServe’s programs promote women’s economic empowerment by helping women gain skills, resources, and confidence to grow as entrepreneurs, workers, farmers, and leaders while also shifting social attitudes to support equality. Programs also work with market actors to create inclusive business environments that reduce discrimination and enable lasting economic progress.

But a study from Peru highlights a surprising tool for supporting women’s economic empowerment: better transportation infrastructure.

Improving public transportation for women in the workforce

A technical note from the Inter-American Development Bank analyzes what happened to the labor force in Lima, Peru, when the government built modern bus rapid transit and subway routes to replace crowded and dilapidated buses and vans. The study found that after the construction of this infrastructure, women living near a station increased their participation in the labor force by up to 16% and improved their wages by up to 23%, while men did not experience any change.

The authors argue that unsafe conditions on public transportation impede the ability of women in particular to join the workforce or look for better opportunities further away from their homes. The construction of modern transportation infrastructure removed that obstacle and enabled women to participate more equally with men.

Digital Finance to Unlock Savings and Credit

Venmo, Zelle, and other digital finance tools certainly make it easier to split the check after a night out with friends. But similar products are also helping entrepreneurs and farmers to start and grow businesses. In Tanzania, for example, TechnoServe helped women entrepreneurs increase their savings, access to loans, and investments by using mobile money.

Mobile is also playing a surprising and important role in shifting resources from cities to the countryside.

Enabling families to send mobile money to relatives in rural areas

An analysis from the International Growth Centre shows that mobile money has become a vital safety net in Zambia by allowing urban households to send remittances quickly and at low cost to rural relatives during times of crisis. This mechanism has helped households in rural areas—which are statistically more likely to face poverty—better withstand shocks such as drought, providing them with resources to maintain consumption and avoid falling deeper into poverty. In this way, mobile money not only improves financial inclusion but also strengthens household resilience to economic and climate-related challenges.

Youth Innovation to Drive New Opportunities

It is little surprise that TechnoServe and many other organizations prioritize helping youth become successful entrepreneurs and farmers. With young people comprising more than two-thirds of the population in Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, youth engagement is critical for tackling poverty.

A TechnoServe project in Kenya is taking an unconventional approach to doing so, however.

Providing psychological support to young entrepreneurs

The BlueBiz program works with youth in Kenya’s coastal communities, including in Lamu County. Many of the youth there have been exposed to violent extremism. BlueBiz integrates mental health awareness, trauma-informed group therapy, individual check-ins, and “safe spaces” where women and men can express themselves freely into its entrepreneurship training, enabling participants to heal from past trauma, build confidence, and manage emotions like anger. These capabilities will help young people run businesses and engage with the entrepreneurial ecosystem more effectively.

Partnering with Business to Scale Impact

Business solutions to poverty have always been at the core of TechnoServe’s work, and today there is growing appreciation for the critical role of different parts of the private sector in combating poverty. 

But can the reality TV industry really be one of them?

Using television and radio to support women’s entrepreneurship

Through its Women IN Business (WIN) program in Mozambique, TechnoServe has partnered with the media industry to reach women at scale. WIN helped produce a reality TV competition, where female entrepreneurs shared their journeys of overcoming business challenges. Research found the show helped more than 10,000 women entrepreneurs adopt improved business practices. 

WIN also produced a radionovela in local languages that followed the fictional character Janete as she navigated barriers familiar to many women business owners. These formats entertained while also delivering practical lessons on finance, marketing, and leadership, shifting social norms around women in business and inspiring thousands of viewers and listeners to pursue their own entrepreneurial ambitions.

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