Livelihoods Improvement of Urban Poor Communities Project

Action Implemented

The project aims to contribute to balanced, sustainable growth by reducing urban poverty in Bangladesh and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 that call for ‘leaving no one behind’. The major objectives of the project are: - Facilitate climate resilient housing and basic services for the low-income households - Build community organisation - Skills and enterprise development for women and girls - Enhancing climate adaptive capacity of the low-income community through resilient infrastructure - Strengthening municipal capacity for improved urban management, policy and planning. Through its five major intervention areas, the project aims to contribute to SDG Goals, particularly SDG-1, (No Poverty), SDG-6, (Water and Sanitation), SDG 10 (Reduced inequalities), SDG-11 (Sustainable Cities & Communities) and SDG-13 (Climate Action).

Outcomes and Expected Impact

The LIUPC project is designed to reach first the unserved and underserved urban population in Bangladesh. It aims to promote livelihoods and living conditions of up to 4 million poor people living in urban areas in up to 36 City Corporations and Pourashavas (12 City Corporations and 24 Class A Paurashava). Additional expected results include: • 1.4 million households to be involved in locally-managed savings and credit schemes, with over BDT 90 crore (£83 million) of savings generated by the end of project; • 88,000 poor people to be provided with skills for employment or entrepreneurship.

Sustainability and Scalability

Since LIUPCP aims to improve municipal governance and public administration, and institutionalise more inclusive planning and decision-making, there is a significant emphasis on working on urban poverty issues at the city-level. For this a higher level of community organisation will take place, mobilising and organising CDCs into town federations that are able to understand the issues that drive urban poverty, and advocate for more inclusive planning, across entire cities. Additional points: • Up to 36 cities and paurashava to be more effective, inclusive and climate smart with improved tax and revenue generation systems; • 100,000 households in slums to have more secure land tenure; • 20,000 low cost homes to be built or reconstructed for the poor; • 230,000 women including pregnant women & lactating mothers to receive conditional cash and nutrition awareness; • 45,500 Primary Groups (PG) united themselves under 4136 Community Development Committee (CDC) to enhance their organisational capability and effective voice for the urban poor communities.

Innovative and Cultural Aspects

The organisation and mobilisation of women and women’s organisation will be particularly important, as they are LIUPCP’s priority partners at the community-level. The voices and needs of the community will be shared through advocating for these CAPs, and also in dialogues and meetings at the ward-level (as part of the Ward-Level Coordination Committees (WLCC)). Citywide assessments will also serve to provide a bigger picture of the vulnerabilities that urban poor communities, and the capacities and potential of municipal governments – to support the design of capacity building activities, improve revenue generation, and undertake strategic resilience and economic development planning efforts. A whole range of citywide data and maps will provide evidence to spur debate and inform discussion about urban policies and plans that can be discussed through the Town-Level Coordination Committees (TLCCs) and implemented by Mayors.

Lessons Learned

As many rural landless poor continue to move to cities to escape harsh climates, looking for jobs, trying to access to education and healthcare, the price they pay is hefty because of population increase and unplanned development. Poor women and children are often the worst victims for expensive but poor-quality housing, little to no security, and limited and unreliable water and power supplies. Notable advances have been made in strengthening urban governance and management but much remains to be done. Bangladesh’s smooth transition from ‘low-income’ to ‘middle-income’ country status is not possible if the large numbers of urban poor are overlooked.

Social Inclusion

LIUPCP seeks to address urban poverty issues not through the direct implementation of infrastructure improvements, or charitable giving to selected urban poor beneficiaries; rather to influence the environment in which poverty reduction policies and thinking take place, and thereby having a potentially much more widespread and lasting effect by inclusion of poor in decision making processes. LIUPCP will help communities to organise themselves into PGs and CDCs, better understand the local context, and the relationships between urban poor settlements and the rest of the city, and to develop their own local development and resilience plans (CAPs). At the community-level LIUPCP will work towards the reduction of violence against women and girls, the reduction of drop-out rates for girls, improving nutrition for children, and the distribution of educational and skills building grants, as well as infrastructure and housing grants to support women, and extremely poor households.