Through its activities and processes, the UNDP’s Human Development Initiative (HDI) focuses on the following four UNDP Practice Areas (UNDP focuses globally on 6 Practice Areas, the other two being Crisis Prevention and Recovery, and Women’s Empowerment).

• Poverty reduction
• Governance at the local level
• Environment
• HIV/AIDS

In addition to the HDI’s grassroots community-based activities, UNDP has undertaken an agricultural sector review and an integrated assessment of household living conditions with the approval of its Executive Board in September 2002. Both of these initiatives are based upon a recognition of the need to obtain more comprehensive information on the various factors influencing the livelihoods and well being of people and communities, particularly the rural poor, in order to identify casual factors and options for measures to address them.