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Bangladesh is characterized by poverty; on the Human Development Index, 35 million Bangladeshis live below the extreme poverty line. This extreme, often chronic, poverty is synonymous with hunger and malnutrition: nearly 50% of Bangladeshi children are underweight and nearly a third of the entire population is malnourished.  Nonetheless, between 2000 and 2005, the number of people below $1.25 a day in Bangladesh declined from 58% to 50%. Bangladesh has reduced hunger by a significant margin, but the severity of hunger still remains serious, according to a report published by Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2019. With a score of 25.8, Bangladesh ranked 88th in the index, among 117 qualifying countries. Its previous score was 30.3 in 2010 (Source: Global Hunger Index-2019).Based on National Poverty Level of Bangladesh of $1.90 per person per day, poverty declined from 44.2 percent in 1991 to 13.8 percent in 2016/17 (Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics-(BBS).

 This significant poverty reduction was coupled with high levels of economic growth and increases in per-capita consumption expenditure. Although there has been a substantial decline in households living in poverty over the last decade in Bangladesh, a significant part of the population still live below the poverty line. They are suffering from acute rural-urban economic disparity coupled with illiteracy, lack of health and sanitation facilities.  In Bangladesh, development process is mainly to ensure socio-economic promotion of poor people. It has been evident that lack of access to resources is one of the major reasons of re-development. The access of the poor people to formal financial institutions/Bank is denied for the lack of collateral and other security. The formal banking system deprives them of borrowing, saving and investing in income generating activities, which is why poor people remain poor.

Livelihood, Microfinance and Targeting Ultra Poor (TUP) Projects help them get different trade based tools and goods by which they get involved in income generating activities and thus to be self-reliant. In reality, these projects are providing a very successful intervention of NGOs in poverty reduction strategy. It gives marginalized people a space, not available at all in formal process, to create resources.

To build sustainable livelihoods and food security of the poor, extreme poor and the disadvantaged communities living in the poverty stricken areas in Bangladesh, SAWAB has been implementing Livelihood, Microfinance and Targeting Ultra Poor (TUP) Project. It is projected to eliminate extreme poverty as poverty disproportionately affects women particularly widow, divorced or separated female-headed households who face a considerably higher incidence in relation to poverty.