The European Union (EU) and Palli Karma-Sahayak Foundation (PKSF) Thursday signed a grant agreement to implement a new project for extreme poverty reduction.

PKSF Managing Director Nomita Halder and Maurizio Cian, head of cooperation of the EU Delegation to Bangladesh, inked the agreement worth €22.81 million for the "Pathways to Prosperity for Extremely Poor People (PPEPP)-European Union" Project.

The PPEPP-EU Project will support 215,000 most vulnerable, extremely poor households (about 0.86 million people) in 145 unions of 12 districts where poverty rates are higher than the national average.

The specific objective of the project is to help the target people to rise out of extreme poverty and make significant progress along a pathway towards prosperity.

The project will work in the flood-prone river basin area of the northwestern region (Rangpur, Kurigram, Dinajpur, Thakurgaon, Nilphamari and Gaibandha), cyclone and saline-prone southwestern region (Khulna, Satkhira, Bagerhat, Patuakhali and Bhola), and northeast haor region (Kishoreganj) and some ethnic minority clusters in the north.

PPEPP-EU will work around livelihoods and enterprise development, nutrition and primary healthcare, access to services through community mobilisation, disability inclusion, climate resilience building and women empowerment.

Target groups will include women-headed households, single mothers, elderlies, households with child labour, persons with disabilities, people of the third gender and intersectional groups such as ethnic minorities. 

Read more: PKSF launches $200mn project to transform rural microenterprise