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LightCastle Partners has partnered with the World Food Programme (WFP) Bangladesh to support the design phase of an integrated pilot programme addressing livelihood inclusion and digital financial literacy for vulnerable women in urban Bangladesh.
Addressing a Critical Urban Social Protection Gap
As Bangladesh undergoes rapid urbanization, the country’s social protection architecture faces an urgent challenge, while rural poverty reduction has advanced significantly, urban poverty reduction has lagged, declining by less than one percentage point annually over the past decade. Despite this, Bangladesh’s flagship Family Card Program, a digital initiative designed to reach 20 million vulnerable households through direct government-to-person payments, remains underutilized among urban women beneficiaries, many of whom face barriers to formal financial access, limited livelihood pathways, and low digital financial capability.
Current evidence suggests that cash transfers alone, while essential, are insufficient to facilitate sustained economic inclusion without complementary investments in skills development, market linkage, and financial autonomy. This assignment will seek to generate evidence-based insights to address this gap.
Building Evidence for Integrated Program Design
Through this assignment, LightCastle Partners will lead a comprehensive research and design initiative, combining social protection analysis, urban livelihoods assessment, and digital financial inclusion diagnostics. The engagement will involve extensive stakeholder engagement, primary data collection across multiple urban centers, and participatory analysis to understand the specific constraints, aspirations, and support needs of urban vulnerable women.
The resulting insights will inform the development of a pilot program of WFP, integrating cash support, livelihood pathways, blended financing mechanisms, and tailored digital financial literacy interventions, all designed to operate within Bangladesh’s existing urban social safety net architecture.
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