The Poverty Reduction Fund (PRF), under the supervision of the National Committee for Rural Development and Poverty Reduction, is mandated to help the GoL implement its policy to reduce rural poverty in line with the 8th NSEDP. It operates in 44 poor districts in 10 provinces, and implements bottom-up planning processes and provides communities block grants to implement priority infrastructure subprojects. The PRF has also started to support investments to improve the livelihood and nutritional status of villagers on a pilot basis. To carry out these programs, the PRF has trained many village level leaders, including Kum ban Facilitators (KBF) and Village Implementation Teams (VIT). There are two to three KBF in every kum ban where the PRF operates, and 44% of them are women. The VIT consists of village leaders selected by villagers to implement infrastructure subprojects. The PRF provides them repeated training in leadership, community facilitation and bottom-up processes. The village level institutions and kum ban human resources that the PRF has developed are considered to provide a useful platform through which multiple agencies, in cooperation with the PRF, can deliver last mile services at a lower cost. Under such cooperation, the relevant partner agency, such as Nam Saat, would assume the institutional mandate for sector specific issues, such as sanitation for the case of Nam Saat, and is overall accountable for achieving the ultimate objective of the partnership, such as ODF in the case of the partnership with Nam Saat. At the same time, such cooperation is aligned with and supports the PRF’s objectives of poverty reduction.
