Whilst notable advances have been made in strengthening urban governance and management over the last decade – much remains to be done. To ensure Bangladesh’s smooth transition from ‘low-income’ to ‘middle-income’ status, the large number of urban poor cannot be overlooked. Against this backdrop, the Local Government Division (LGD), Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development & Cooperatives (MoLGRD&C)- with financial and technical support of United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Government of Bangladesh and the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (formerly Department for International Development or DFID) - launched a national project to reduce urban poverty called ‘Livelihoods Improvement of Urban Poor Communities Project’ (LIUPCP).

The LIUPC project under UNDP’s National Urban Poverty Reduction Programme (NUPRP) follows the successful Urban Partnerships for Poverty Reduction (UPPR) project that demonstrated solutions to the urban governance challenges in Bangladesh. LIUPCP directly builds upon the experience of the DFID-funded and UNDP-implemented UPPR programme that developed a community-led approach to slum improvement in 23 City Corporations and Class A Paurashva in between 2008-2015, addressing issues of community empowerment, skills, livelihoods and small-scale infrastructure. LIUPCP will evolve this approach to tackle the structural drivers of urban poverty at the national, municipal and community levels. The project was officially approved by the Government of Bangladesh in August 2018.