The Pathways to Prosperity for Extremely Poor People (PPEPP) Project is a 6-year, £109.6 million project funded by UK Aid and the EU to support 2 million extremely poor people in Bangladesh. It will provide livelihood support, nutrition interventions, and community mobilization to 250,000 households in climate vulnerable regions. The project aims to help the extremely poor exit poverty and increase resilience to climate shocks through developing sustainable livelihoods and linking households to markets and services. It will be implemented across northern, southwestern, and northeastern regions of Bangladesh by NGO partners of the Palli Karma-Sahayak Foundation using targeting criteria including low income, housing type, land ownership, and

1. PATHWAYS TO
PROSPERITY FOR
EXTREMELY
POOR PEOPLE
(PPEPP) PROJECT

2. Palli Karma-Sahayak Foundation (PKSF),
established by the Government of Bangladesh
(GoB), started its journey in 1990. Since then, it
has been successfully implementing various
pro-poor projects/programmes with the
assistance of the government and other
national/international development partners.
In continuation of this, a new project titled
‘Pathways to Prosperity for Extremely Poor
People (PPEPP)’ has been initiated with the joint
funding from the UK’s Department for International
Development (DFID) and the European Union (EU).
PKSF, the core implementing entity of PPEPP will
realize this project through its Partner
Organizations (POs).
BACKGROUND
The project builds on the experiences of earlier
successful extreme poverty reduction projects in
Bangladesh [including Programmed Initiatives for
Monga Eradication (PRIME), Chars Livelihood
Programme (CLP), Economic Empowerment of
the Poorest (EEP)/Stimulating Household
Improvements Resulting in Economic
Empowerment (SHIREE) and Targeting the Ultra
Poor (TUP), Microfinance support intervention for
FSVGD and UP beneficiaries project, and
UPP-Ujjibito project]. The PPEPP project will help
extremely poor people connect with mainstream
economic growth and development.
This GBP 109.6 million project jointly financed by
the DFID and the EU will be implemented from
2019 to 2025, with a one-year inception phase.
GEOGRAPHICAL TARGETING
The project will be implemented in north-western
region (Kurigram, Rangpur, Nilphamari and
Gaibandha), south-western coastal belt (Khulna,
Satkhira, Patuakhali, Bhola and Bagerhat), and
Haor area in the north-eastern region (Kishoreganj
and Sunamganj). It will also cover some of the
severe poverty pockets with high concentration of
ethnic minorities across the country.
PROJECT OBJECTIVES
• To enable two million people to exit from
extreme poverty for good;
• To support the development of stronger
national institutions and systems to deliver
the public and private services required by
extremely poor people to become resilient
and prosper.
PROJECT DURATION
In the first phase (2019-2025), the PPEPP will
work for the sustainable development of up to
250,000 climate-vulnerable households covering
1 million extremely poor people. Depending on the
progress and performance of the first phase
(subject to the UK government’s approval) of the
PPEPP project, a provision has been kept to
undertake the second phase from 2025-2030 to
support additional 1 million extremely poor people.
INDICATIVE HIGH-LEVEL OUTPUT
• Developed livelihoods options resilient to
shocks and stresses.
• Improved nutrition practices and sustained
through GoB and market systems.
• Increased awareness amongst extreme and
vulnerable poor and empowered to attain
their rights.
EXPECTED KEY RESULTS
(1ST PHASE)
• Up to one million extremely poor people (i.e.
250, 000 households) exit extreme poverty
and make significant progress along a
pathway towards prosperity;
• 357,000 women and children have better

3. nutrition, and women of childbearing age and
adolescent girls reached with a package of
nutrition-related interventions;
• 125,000 women experience a significant
change in their social status and level of
empowerment within the household and the
community;
• Increased resilience to climate change and
other shocks for one million extremely poor
people.
PARTICIPANT TARGETING
In the first phase, PPEPP will support 250,000
extremely poor households to connect to
mainstream economic development. The project
will also address the specific needs of often
excluded people, such as, people with disabilities,
ethnic minorities, elderly persons, etc. PPEPP will
be inclusive in targeting based on the PKSF’s 16
sub-categories of the vulnerable extreme poor.
PROJECT COMPONENTS
The project has six components and three
cross-cutting issues.
COMPONENTS MANAGED BY PKSF
 Resilient livelihoods: Extreme poor
households will engage in different income
generating activities (IGAs) with a
PPEPP-sponsored flexible menu of
products, including grants and soft loans
with relevant skills training over a longer time
frame, enabling the target households to
develop a livelihood strategy that supports
larger and more sustained income and
consumption gains and reduces
vulnerability to shocks.
 Nutrition: The nutrition component will
focus on the delivery of a package of direct
nutrition intervention (DNI) and
nutrition-sensitive interventions of individual
households; community-level work to
address some of the social practices that
prevent good nutrition outcomes; and
promoting income generating activities that
support nutrition outcomes where possible.
This services will make use of the available
nutrition services of the GoB.
 Community mobilization: This particular
component will work with extremely poor
people and the wider community to build
social support and change the social norms
that exclude women, girls, people living with
disabilities and others, limiting their access
to basic services and work opportunities.
CROSS-CUTTING ISSUES
PKSF will also address three cross-cutting issues:
climate resilience, disability, and women
empowerment leading to gender equality.
COMPONENTS MANAGED BY THE
PROJECT MANAGEMENT UNIT (PMU)
[TO BE ESTABLISHED BY DFID]
 Market development: This component will
build extremely poor peoples’ confidence,
productive capabilities and capacity to take
risks, by linking them to new markets,
adding value to their produce, and by
creating new self-employment opportunities
and jobs. A strong focus will be given on
development of markets to increase
self-employed or wage-employed activities
providing better economic returns after the
initial step up provided by asset transfer and
skills training.
 Policy advocacy: An Extreme Poverty
Policy and Governance Facility will work at
national and local government levels to
promote GoB actions on extreme poverty.

4. This will include work to incentivize and
support local government to improve basic
service delivery to extremely poor people.
 Life-cycle grant pilot: This component will
pilot a long-term solution for extremely poor
labour-restricted households.
This will pilot a time-bound top-up of one or
more GoB social security grants in selected
areas to accelerate and catalyse
implementation of the national social
security reform process, in order to increase
protection for the most vulnerable.
CORE INDICATORS
1. Occupation – wage-based (manual labour)
earning
2. Land holdings – maximum 10 decimals
3. Income – per capita monthly income of
BDT 2,045 maximum
4. Housing type – maximum thatched/tin
roofed and mud floor
5. Earning member – maximum one
Fulfilling any three of aforementioned indicators
will be considered as potential PPEPP member
COMPLEMENTARY INDICATORS
1. Female headed HHs
2. HHs dependent on child labour
3. Consumption rationing
4. HHs with disable member
5. HHs of ethnic minority, dalit, transgender
POSSIBLE PROXY INDICATORS FOR SELECTING EXTREME POOR HOUSEHOLDS (HHs)
UNDER PPEPP PROJECT
PKSF Bhaban, Plot E-4/B Agargaon, Sher-E-Bangla Nagar, Dhaka-1207
Telephone-9126240-3 Ext: 1073
E-mail: pksf@pksf-bd.org | Web: www.pksf-bd.org
facebook.com/pksf.org
Project Implementation Unit (PIU), PPEPP
PALLI KARMA-SAHAYAK FOUNDATION (PKSF)
Project Implementation Unit (PIU), PPEPP