BASIS AMA CRSP Final Annual Report now online.

BASIS announces the creation of I4, the Index Insurance Innovation Initiative.

The BASIS AMA CRSP office at the University of Wisconsin is now closed. Please contact Michael Carter at University of California - Davis with program inquiries.

"Rural Prosperity through Innovative Research"

Pathways from rural poverty are not the same for all people, in all places. For some, it requires relaxation of the financial market constraints that prevent them from accessing the assets and complementary resources needed to realize returns to labor and skills. For others, it requires a labor-intensive pattern of agricultural growth that raises wages for unskilled workers. But whatever the pathway, elimination of chronic poverty requires mechanisms to manage the risk, vulnerability and other constraints that undercut the nutritional, health and educational investments needed to bolster the human capital of the next generation and break the inequitable intergenerational transmission of poverty.

BASIS is dedicated to the kind of creative research that can change the terms of the debate and significantly impact development policy and programming. BASIS focuses on:

• The dynamics of rural and agricultural economies, and the constraints that make it difficult for some households to participate effectively in growth and get ahead economically over time;
• Emerging ideas about interventions and programs that can be expected to relax those constraints;
• Tools for designing, testing and implementing interventions such that their impact can be credibly evaluated and their full development impact realized; and,
• Effective outreach and communication of research results to the development policy and programming community.