“I don’t have any chickens, no goats, no sheep, no cattle. I don’t own the land I live on. I’m working as a maid, and in a week I earn 50 to 60 Taka [₤0.50], and get some food in kind too. This is my hardship. I eat fish once a month at best, and meat once a year.”

Maleka, a 65 year old widow, will join the CLP in November this year. She lives in a village called Zar Singair Shah in Nilphamari, adjacent to the northern border with India. Her village is remote. There is a boat journey and a seven hour drive between her and the nearest major city.

The CLP works on a rolling basis, with a new group of households entering the programme each year. The programme has already supported 89,548 extreme poor households in the chars.  This month another 17,000 participants, including Maleka, will join the programme.

The CLP closely targets the extreme poor. Rather than supporting every household in its working areas, it focuses on providing a broad package of support to the poorest. This means that resources are targeted at the most vulnerable. However, it also presents a challenge; the CLP requires a comprehensive process through which it can select the correct people for inclusion.

The programme identifies participants through its local partner NGOs, who use their knowledge of the local area and participatory techniques to identify the extreme poor. The NGOs convene community meetings in char villages, and ask the opinion of the participants on the wellbeing of each and every household in the village. Would be core participants are identified on a ‘social map’.

The households so identified by the community are then assessed to see whether they meet seven criteria, including the ownership of assets and land, their income, receipt of support from other NGOs and their willingness to participate in the programme. Once partner NGOs have determined the eligible households in their working areas, the CLP sends senior staff to a sample of the selected households to verify that the participants are eligible for CLP support. This ensures that few households which do not meet the CLP’s criteria are included in the programme.

Maleka’s situation is typical of the extreme poor on the chars; landless, with limited and unpredictable sources of income and with very little in the way of property to fall back on when income sources fail. She will soon begin to receive the CLP’s package of assets, training and infrastructural support, which is outlined here. This intensive focusing of support is aimed at allowing participants to ‘graduate’ from extreme poverty.

For more information regarding the CLP’s targeting and selection processes, a short Brief is available here.