This book illustrates both the obstacles and opportunities that poor urban communities encounter in their search for ways to improve their settlements. The report documents the implementation of the Urban Poverty Reduction through Community Empowerment Project (UPRP) – the innovative nature of the process and the empowering nature of the impacts. It examines the practices that contribute to, and are being incorporated in a poverty reduction strategy for the City of Colombo – to demonstrate their potential for replication. One of the significant aspects of the UPRP was that it used a “learning by doing” process in its efforts to make municipal services more responsive, particularly to the poor. Building competencies and changing attitudes were important elements of the UPRP.