The development objective of the Bahia Poor Urban Areas Development Project is to reduce urban poverty in a sustainable manner, targeting the poorest and most vulnerable sections of Salvador, and of strategic cities of the state of Bahia, including access to basic services, improved housing, and social support services, aligned with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), in line with the growing number of governments worldwide, currently launching comprehensive slum upgrading programs, setting development targets, undertaking reforms to prevent the growth of new slums, and leveraging public, and private resources to improve the lives of slum dwellers. The project major component - Urban Infrastructure Delivery - will finance priority infrastructure investments, focused on poor communities. Financing under this component will: a) provide basic services to the poor, i.e., urban drainage, roads, street paving, water supply and sewage, solid waste management, housing replacement, and others, and, b) support macro-level infrastructure investments, necessary to integrate upgraded settlements into the urban fabric. The second component - Social Services Delivery - will finance social investments, such as strengthening local community based organizations (CBOs), and improved incomes through training, as well as needed facilities, such as day-care and basic health care units, to complement investments in community infrastructure. Finally, the Institutional Strengthening, Studies and Project Management component will finance a variety of capacity building activities to participating municipalities, providing tools to enable better management, and planning on the process of urban poverty reduction projects; a number of studies, necessary to underpin Project implementation, and project management, which should include monitoring and evaluation.