The Poverty Alleviation Fund (PAF) has launched skill development programmes targeting the urban poor in a bid to enable them to pursue income generating activities.

The programme is being piloted in Kathmandu and Butwal and will provide training to 1,000 households in the first phase.

Two months ago, the PAF mobilized 40 community organisations to serve the peri-urban poor in the two cities, said PAF Vice-Chairman Yuvraj Pandey.

According to the third Nepal Living Standard Survey (NLSS) conducted by the Central Bureau of Statistics, the proportion of urban residents living below the poverty line increased to 15.46 percent in 2009-10 from 9.55 percent in fiscal 2003-04.

The PAF has formed groups of 25 households each in the selected areas. “Each group is provided Rs1.59 million as its revolving fund,” said Pandey. “This fund will be used to provide skill development training to urban poor people so that they can generate income on their own.”

Pandey said they had selected the households according to ‘cluster sampling’ based on statistics provided by municipalities and local government bodies. The PAF said it had failed to include the homeless urban poor in the first phase of the programme. “Due to a number of constraints, we have not been unable to accommodate the poor people who don’t own homes.”

As per the NLSS, people who are unable to manage 2,200 calories per capita per day are kept under the absolute poverty line. People need to spend Rs19,600 annually based on 2010 prices to fulfill the calorie requirement. The threshold for urban people is Rs40,000 per person per year.

Pandey said they had started the programme in Kathmandu while they had reached an agreement to launch the scheme in Butwal in coordination with community organisations there.

“Based on the success of the two-year pilot project, we have planned to implement the programme in other cities in the future,” he said.

The PAF is currently carrying out poverty alleviation programmes in 55 districts. It has mobilized Rs10 billion through 29,000 community organisations.