To conclude, informal safety nets provided by relatives, friends, and community and religious organizations were important for coping everywhere. Even though the amount of support through informal safety nets was inadequate relative to the large and growing need, it was often the only source of support available.

# **4. CONCLUDING REMARKS AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS**

The research summarized in this paper has shown that qualitative analysis of how people lived through the crises can be a valuable addition to the quantitative studies on the subject. First, the research permitted a closer look at the impacts on the informal sector that employs the majority of population in developing countries, yet is rarely covered in sectoral assessments or industrial growth strategies prepared by government ministries. Second, the research helped draw attention to the plight of the people who are usually excluded from household surveys, such as the Roma in Serbia, beggars in Bangladesh, informal gold miners in Mongolia, or the illegal cross-border migrants in Thailand. Third, it was useful for an in-depth analysis of crisis impacts by age and gender, highlighting in particular the role of women’s unpaid work in household resilience. Fourth, qualitative monitoring helped assess a wider range of impacts beyond the material, pointing to the enormous psychological stress inflicted by the crisis and its effects on family and community relationships, demonstrating the importance of communal solidarity in cushioning against shocks. Qualitative monitoring also assessed the damaging impact of prolonged economic stress to traditional support mechanisms.

This study has shown that the analysis of macroeconomic indicators alone can conceal important aspects of the process of economic recovery. In particular, the resumption of GDP growth in late 2009 or 2010 in many developing countries gave optimism to governments and the donor community that the impacts of the crises were relatively short-lived and that the livelihoods of the poor were not strongly affected. The findings of this study do not support this argument. Despite the narrow employment base of export production in developing countries, formal sector workers fuel the rural economies through remittances and provide a customer base for a large number of informal sector workers. Therefore, even temporary labor shocks to the formal economy have long-lasting impacts on the urban and rural poor. The reason is that often the first wave of coping responses adopted by poor people (incurring debt, forgoing health care, diversification) led to the second wave of impacts (selling assets or increased competition in the informal sector). In many surveyed countries, poor people were living through this second round of negative impacts at the same time the national economies were showing strong signs of economic recovery.

Three years of compound crises depleted the resources of vulnerable people (Mongolian herders with less than 100 animals, households across East Asia that lost their land or houses to creditors, impoverished smallholders in rural Kenya). Many people may not be able to take advantage of new economic opportunities without targeted assistance. Furthermore, food and fuel prices remained high or increased further with economic recovery while incomes stagnated or rose insignificantly. Even formal sector workers in countries like Bangladesh, Cambodia, and Thailand whose wages rose with the 27