The Samurdhi Development Programme, conceived by the People’s Alliance Government to replace the Janasaviya Programme implemented by the previous regimes. Samurdhi, just like Janasaviya, was founded on the direct participation by the poor in their own development. Samurdhi has established its own management structure, extending from a few key institutions at the level of the central government, to Samurdhi Offices and Units at the levels of the District and Division, and to its own grass-root level organizations in the field, the Samurdhi Balakayas. This Study is a preliminary evaluation of the Samurdhi Programme. It assesses the extent to which the Samurdhi strategy is achieving its objective of alleviating poverty. While the main focus of the paper is Samurdhi’s three-pronged approach, the analytical framework takes a broader perspective, and assesses the extent to which the programme addresses the causes and manifestations of poverty in certain given locations. The findings of the study are based primarily on a survey of 150 Samurdhi households carried out in ten DS Divisions in the three poorest districts outside the North and the East, namely Anuradhapura, Badulla and Moneragala.