The Balbandhu Project was launched in 2005 in Lalitpur district with UNICEF support.  The project aims to   promote community action, decentralised planning and integrated service delivery for improved quality of life of women and children in 682 villages covering 1.45 Lac families. It is mainly focussed on community empowerment through participatory planning and monitoring centred on children’s issues, sectoral integration of programmes in the government, behaviour and social change through a cross-sectoral approach to key issues affecting the health and well-being of children and link community mobilization processes with decentralized district planning processes.