German journos impressed by urban livelihood improvement in Bangladesh

The team from different renowned media groups based in Berlin observed how the life and livelihoods of the slum dwellers in Bangladesh are improving through innovative interventions.A good number of approaches and innovative interventions were taken as 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 Department for International Development (DFID) – has been implementing a national project to reduce urban poverty called ‘Livelihoods Improvement of Urban Poor Communities Project’ (LIUPCP).

The team met with community people, poor community leaders and LIUPC Project staffs. Community leaders from Community Development Committee (CDC) and Town Federation briefed the team members about how this slum have grown and changed in terms of population and household size, how their sources of income have changed and what problems they are facing.

Federation leaders also briefed them as to how they are supporting community people through government supports as well as NGO/Project intervention.

The journalists showed keen interest to know about community managed savings and credit system.

Later, they moved around the slums, visited small infrastructure supported by Urban Partnerships for Poverty Reduction (UPPR) project and talked with beneficiaries supported by both UPPR and LIUPC Projects.

The team members were impressed to see the improvement of women empowerment, gender parity, economic vibration, communal harmony, peoples’ movement.

Their probing questions to community people included the issues of malnutrition, living conditions surrounding the slums and IT skills amongst the young people.

They expressed gratitude with the hospitality offered by the community people during the visit.