UNDP works to improve the effectiveness of national poverty reduction and livelihood promotion programmes in partnership with Central and State Governments with a focus on disadvantaged groups and regions. It promotes the design and use of poverty reduction strategies that involve the poor, women and men from the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes groups, migrants, minorities and the displaced. UNDP fosters partnerships including the private sector to enable disadvantaged households to improve their skills, diversify to non-farm activities and increase access to credit, financial services and markets. It assists organizations of the poor to develop livelihood plans in areas such as agriculture, forestry, fisheries, land resource development, rural tourism and handicrafts. Furthermore UNDP also advocates for increased participation of the poor in design and implementation of poverty reduction programmes and policies. 

UNDP has supported more than 100,000 poor women to organise themselves into self-help groups, federations, cooperatives or producer companies to setup and manage a range of micro-enterprises.  It has provided technical support to municipal governments in 13 cities to design and implement poverty reduction strategies focussing especially on vulnerable groups. Similar support at the state level, for example to the Rajasthan Mission on Livelihoods, has successfully demonstrated the impact of improved design and delivery of livelihood promotion services on the lives of poor under the ongoing government programmes and schemes.  UNDP’s support to the formulation of a comprehensive national strategy for urban poverty reduction and capacity building of national research and training institutions has helped to bring urban poverty into the national and local development agenda and underscore the rural-urban linkages.