The Boma Project

Prosperity with Dignity

The Proven Solution to Ending Extreme Poverty

Do poverty graduation programs increase resilience for ultra-poor populations better than other types of interventions? Findings from a 3-year randomized control trial confirm that long-term positive effects of graduation outpace those of cash or asset transfer only. Innovations for Poverty Action released the study this January: “A multi-faceted program comprising a grant of productive assets,Read More

BOMA Study: Evidence of Impact on Women’s Empowerment in Northern Kenya

As part of a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Putting Women and Girls at the Center of Development Global Grand Challenges grant, we recently completed a study to determine BOMA’s impact on participants in our gender-focused program for ultra-poor women. Specifically, we wanted to explore whether increased economic power had led to corresponding increases inRead More

Hotter, Drier, Hungrier: How Global Warming Punishes the World’s Poorest

Writing in the New York Times this week, Somini Sengupta highlights the escalating crisis in some of the world’s driest regions. Climate change is resulting in a “new normal” for people living in the remote arid regions of eastern Africa. Droughts have always been a part of life in these areas, but they were relievedRead More

The Greatest Need. The Greatest Return. Why We Put Women at the Center of Our Program.

    This International Women’s Day, we wanted to share our thoughts about what empowering women means to us, and to the world. Since we started our resiliency-building poverty graduation program in the drought-stricken regions of eastern Africa, The BOMA Project has focused on women. Why? Two reasons. The first is that women—and children—disproportionately bearRead More

Read Our Fourth Quarter 2017 Impact Report

Putting Proof Into Practice: The Road Ahead When BOMA started to think about scaling up our efforts to end extreme poverty in the drylands of Africa, we wanted to do more than demonstrate measurable impacts on a problem. We wanted to solve that problem. BOMA’s target areas, the drylands of Africa, sit at the epicenter of extreme poverty, food insecurity,Read More

Down to business: Drought-hit Kenyan women trade their way out of poverty

Nabore Elyo, Magatho Mifo and Bore Lafte are pictured at the shop they co-own in Kargi village, Marsabit, Kenya on November 30, 2017. Thomson Reuters Foundation/Benson Rioba   The BOMA Project was the subject of an article on Zilient.org by Benson Rioba of the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Read “Down to business: Drought-hit Kenyan women trade theirRead More

Keeping Success in Our Sights–New Huffington Post Blog

Nick Kristof, in his January 6 column in the New York Times, shared his optimistic view that 2017 was the best year ever. We agree. Even in the face of climate change, global conflict and stories of famine and natural disasters, we see profound positive change in the lives of thousands of people in placesRead More

Top 10 Reasons to Believe in BOMA in 2018

2017 was a year of many challenges, but also tremendous progress at The BOMA Project. Despite a severe drought, an evolving global fundraising landscape, and a tumultuous election in Kenya, we enrolled 4,555 new participants and mentored an additional 9,100 women in our poverty graduation program. At the same time, we opened new offices and increasedRead More