Around 40 percent of Bangladesh’s population are poor people for whom a variable and unpredictable climate can critically restrict livelihood options. This is true in rural and urban areas alike, but this study focuses on the latter. Urban poverty continues to be neglected in research, policy...

Abstract Poor urban people in Bangladesh are already experiencing numerous climate-related problems because of their multiple forms of vulnerability and multiple sources of deprivation. Their problems differ greatly, both within and across settlements and cities, and so do the practices by which...

Abstract Since the late 1970s, NGOs have played an increasingly prominent role in the development sector, widely praised for their strengths as innovative and grassroots-driven organisations with the desire and capacity to pursue participatory and people-centred forms of development and to fill...

In Bangladesh, urban poverty is neglected in research, policy and action on poverty reduction. This paper explores the underlying foundations for this relative neglect, including national identity and image, the political economy of urban poverty, and the structuring of knowledge creation. It...

Abstract On the record of poverty and inequality in India over the last thirty or so years, the general scholarly view seems to be that there have been substantial declines in money-metric poverty, that there has been no significant over-time increase in inequality, and that the growth in per...

Abstract Bustees are places where physical, social, economic and political vulnerabilities collide, creating a multi-layered blanket of vulnerability for their residents. Although income is central to day-to-day survival in an urban environment in which cash income is needed to meet a...

Abstract Frameworks for understanding urban poverty have taken an asset-based approach that assesses livelihoods strategies on the basis of a household’s portfolio of assets. Research in Dhaka, Bangladesh reveals the limitations of such approaches. Their narrow focus on households and...

Abstract This paper explores the growth of BRAC’s microcredit programme in Tanzania and some of the variety in and patterns of that growth. BRAC’s microfinance programme has grown dramatically and significantly within Tanzania and serves tens of thousands of women across large parts of the...