Summary
Client | UK Department for International Development (DFID) |
---|---|
Value | £65 million |
Lifecycle | 2007 to 2015 |
Country | Bangladesh |
The objective of the project is to support the government of Bangladesh to achieve the Millennium Development Goal targets on income, poverty and hunger and so support over a million people to lift themselves out of extreme poverty and achieve sustainable livelihoods by 2015.
The Challenge Fund
The UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) allocated £65 million over eight years (2007-2015) to establish and operate a Challenge Fund for the Economic Empowerment of the Poorest (EEP). As part of the project team led by Harewell/Ecorys, we provide technical assistance and fund management capacity throughout the lifetime of the project.
The Challenge Fund aims to sustainably improve the lives and livelihoods of extremely poor people by:
- developing an understanding of the root causes of extreme poverty (climate change and environmental disasters)
- reducing the vulnerability and social exclusion of the extreme poor
- promoting livelihood opportunities.
What the project team is doing to deliver Economic Empowerment of the Poorest
The project team’s work includes:
- providing large and smaller-scale grants to NGOs in Bangladesh to implement proven and innovative approaches for reducing extreme poverty within disadvantaged groups of society
- disbursing grants to enhance a range of initiatives, including ‘employability’ prospects through skills training, access to markets and micro-finance
- carrying out advocacy work around the nature, causes and solutions of extreme poverty, with a view to engaging other agents and influencing policy
- supporting capacity building of human and minority rights institutions to equip them to implement and monitor anti-discrimination policy.