Building livelihoods to reduce risk among the most marginalized in urban areas: Strategic approaches from Dhaka

Abstract

Urban poverty is mired in complexity, with a vast range of choices of issues for NGOs to become involved in. Within the generic grouping of ‘urban poor’ are large disparities, concerning income, status, access and control of resources and respective levels of vulnerability and discrimination. At the ‘bottom’ are the most marginalized. These are the ‘hated poor’ and include sex workers, drug users, the elderly and disabled, among others. For these, access to almost anything is a daily challenge, and the basic need of dignity remains elusive. For such people, good shelter, effective services and land ownership may be a distant dream. This paper seeks to identify the most marginalized within Dhaka, and from that outlines the strategic approach developed by one NGO, CARE Bangladesh, to work with them. It ends with a brief discussion on NGO approaches to urban marginalization.

Keywords:

• developing countries
• disaster prediction
• risk

Acknowledgements

This paper follows from work undertaken by the author with the NGO CARE Bangladesh in August 2008. The author is extremely grateful to those within CARE who generously gave their time for the work on which this paper is based. The views in this paper do not necessarily reflect the views of CARE Bangladesh.

Notes

See, for example, Rakodi and Lloyd-Jones (2002) Urban livelihoods, a people-centred approach to reducing poverty, Earthscan.

CARE Bangladesh's largest programme is the USAID-funded SHOUHARDO, which works in urban as well as rural areas. SHOUHARDO I ran from 2004 to 2010 and worked in 18 districts with a goal of reaching 400,000 households. SHOUHARDO II is currently being implemented, from 2010 to 2015, is it and at US$130 million is one of the world's largest USAID-funded Food for Peace (FFP) Title II initiatives.