Poor Settlement in Narayanganj

Urban Partnerships for Poverty Reduction (UPPR) was established with the purpose to improve the livelihoods and living conditions of three million urban poor and extreme poor people, especially women and girls. The first step in achieving this is accurately locating them. UPPR therefore has designed and is implementing a process of poor settlement and vacant land mapping (SLM) in 29 of the 30 cities and towns in which the programme is operating. Using a participatory process that engages residents of poor settlements, SLM locates, characterizes and derives the poverty status of all poor settlements in the city. This report presents the findings of SLM in Narayanganj, the first town in which the SLM has been completed. The report can be used by national-, town-, ward- and community levels take holders and development partners. National-level policy-makers can improve their understanding of the scale and nature of urban poverty to design informed policies to benefit the urban. Town-level decision-makers as well as development partners can use the findings of this report to accurately direct resources for infrastructure and services to the most critical wards and settlements as well as better quantify the impact of developments that would require relocation of households. Ward councillors and community leaders can use this report as a tool to advocate for improved infrastructure and services for their constituencies. Academics can improve their understanding of the spatial distribution of characteristics urban poverty and use the maps and database to construct sample frames for their research. As this report is the first in a series that will cover the SLM results in each UPPR town, we would like to encourage readers to share constructive comments that can improve the quality of our future reports.