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Bangladesh
>> Regional Overview >> Bangladesh Overview Activity Data Sheet
PROGRAM: Bangladesh
TITLE AND NUMBER: Improved Representation of Interests of Women and the Rural Poor, 388-003
STATUS: Continuing
PLANNED FY 2001 OBLIGATION AND FUNDING SOURCE: None.
PROPOSED FY 2002 OBLIGATION AND FUNDING SOURCE: None.
INITIAL OBLIGATION: FY 1996 ESTIMATED COMPLETION DATE: FY 2001Summary: Although activities were phasing down during 2000, the Democracy Partnership (DP) achieved impressive results, including dramatic increases in adoption of "best practices" by local government councils. The Democracy Partnership was the first donor-funded democracy program in Bangladesh involving numerous non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in democracy issues such as elections, improved local elected bodies, and alternative dispute resolution. Additional USAID efforts to coalesce civil society around important democracy issues paid benefits in the areas of antitrafficking of women and children, child labor, anticorruption, parliamentary committees, and assistance to garment workers' unions.
Through this program, numerous NGOs were introduced to democracy issues. These NGOs now consider democracy promotion to be an integral part of their core development activities. Simultaneously, the program has inspired several democracy coalitions/networks and has advanced techniques used locally in several areas of governance and human rights.
Key Results: Three areas where key results were measured are highlighted below.
Local Elected Bodies: In program areas, local government councils have increasingly adopted important practices that make them more democratic and effective as compared with the other local government councils. Improvements in performance of assisted union councils led to a substantial increase in public confidence in elected bodies in those local governments and in local governments with advocacy programs, when compared with the control sample.
Customer Confidence in Local Justice Processes: The Democracy Partnership programs focuses on enhancing the mediation capacity of local government councils, improving existing local mediation bodies by sensitizing them to gender issues, increasing the involvement of women as mediators, and organizing NGO-sponsored mediation bodies in areas where they are inoperative. In areas with alternative dispute resolution programs, confidence in local justice processes was 58.9% in 1999 and 64.1% in 2000 compared to a baseline control sample in 1998 of 45%.
Percent of marriages registered: This variable is meant to serve as a higher order measure of women's protection under the law. Eighty-eight percent of all marriages surveyed in the legal awareness program area were registered in 1999, versus the control sample of 59%.
Performance and Prospects: No funds will be provided for this objective in FY 2001 and FY 2002, as it is being phased out.
Activities under this objective have focused on the local government councils and their constituents. Partnership activities have improved the general skills and knowledge base of council members, increased transparency, accountability, and interaction with constituents; supported NGO efforts to increase the number of women and rural poor members elected to councils; and promoted a range of "best practices." Constituent activities focus on local groups/associations of women and the rural poor, both helping to deepen their understanding of resources, policies, and programs that affect them, and developing their ability to advocate for their own interests to local government and hold elected and administrative officials accountable. Selected indicators of performance for this intermediate result are described below.
The usage rates of 14 best practices were recorded in 72 local governments where the local elected body program was still active at the end of 2000. The percentage of local government councils using five or more best practices rose to 96% in 2000, up from 70% in 1999 and 34% in 1998. The average number of best practices increased to 9.88 in 2000, up from 8.57 in 1999 and 2.98 in 1998.
USAID has promoted and tracked activities undertaken by local groups or associations with NGO support. These initiatives bring community members together to identify local priorities. Some collective actions are implemented at the community level, while others require collective advocacy to improve delivery of specific government services and resources. Collective actions are important because they involve the entire community in setting a common local agenda and working together to achieve results. Although the number of unions with local advocacy programs decreased, the total number of collective initiatives increased from 992 in 1999 to 1,112 initiatives in 2000. Collective actions included household level services, rural infrastructure works, social services, and leases of government property.
Access to justice has improved. DP-supported NGOs focus on improving local justice processes that most affect women and the poor in rural communities. Such processes include traditional mediation bodies, mediation by local government councils, and mediation by NGOs themselves. DP supported NGOs have worked with mediators to improve their knowledge of the law, sensitize them to gender issues, increase the number of women mediators and organize new NGO mediation boards in villages where traditional mediation bodies are inoperative. They also addressed the knowledge of women's legal and family rights that are often violated in practice. The target number of 10,000 clients served in dispute resolution cases was exceeded although the number declined from 12,502 to 10,332 due to lower funding levels and contraction of the NGO programs. (Mediation conducted by local government councils was not monitored.) The percentage of customers who are aware of their legal rights has increased substantially to 51.7% from 37.1% in 1999 in the areas where the DP program was active.
The American Center for International Labor Solidarity continued to support the development of the Bangladesh Independent Garment Workers Union Federation (BIGUF). Activities included 69 training programs for union executive committee members, factory level, local union officers, and activists and 112 meetings for new recruits and prospective members involving over 700 factories. In addition, the federation's legal services program counseled 2,016 workers. BIGUF made significant steps towards sustainability, taking full responsibility for administration, record keeping, and collection of monthly contributions from its members.
Possible Adjustments to Plans: All NGO activities under the Democracy Partnership with The Asia Foundation will end in early 2001. During the closeout period the focus will be on documenting and analyzing lessons learned. In some cases, the results will be incorporated into USAID's new democracy objective. Several other activities outside the Democracy Partnership will be transferred to the new objective.
Other Donor Programs: Other donors that address democracy, governance, and human rights include Canada, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, European Union (EU), the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), United Nations Children's Fund, International Labor Organization, Asian Development Bank, and the World Bank.
Coordination with these donors occurs through a broad donor consultative group on governance and smaller donor groups addressing specific topics, such as anticorruption, antitrafficking, and elections. The EU is funding a program through The Asia Foundation that emphasizes legal awareness and alternative dispute resolution. UNDP projects in the areas of local government training, elections, and parliamentary development complement USAID's civil society program by working more directly with the central government.
Principal Contractors, Grantees, or Agencies: Over the life of the Democracy Partnership program, The Asia Foundation, the primary implementing agency, has partnered with 29 grantees that in turn have worked with an additional 76 NGOs for a total of 105 NGOs that have been involved in carrying out activities under this initiative. Projects have been implemented in roughly 1,200 of the country's 4,500 unions. At the close of the project, 20 primary NGO implementers will have partnered with 78 sub-grantees for a total of 98 NGOs working at the sub-district level in 700 local governments covering all six divisions of the country. Other parties include: Transparency International Bangladesh (anticorruption); American Center for International Labor Solidarity (garment workers); Red Barnet and the Bangladesh National Women's Lawyers Association (antitrafficking); Khan Foundation (local government training); CARE (local governance); and National Democratic Institute (political parties in parliament and elections).
FY 2002 Performance Table
Bangladesh: 388-003
Performance Measures:
Indicator FY97 (Actual) FY98 (Actual) FY99 (Actual) FY00 (Actual) FY00 (Plan) FY01 (Plan) FY02 (Plan) Indicator 1: Customer confidence in local elected bodies - unions with LEB program NA 57.1 57.8 51.4 NA NA NA Indicator 2: Customer confidence in local elected bodies - unions with advocacy program NA 42.9 42.5 46.3 NA NA NA Indicator 3: Percent of dispute resolutions involving women that resulted in decisions satisfactory to women NA 65 60 61 NA NA NA Indicator 4: Percent of local elected bodies using "Best Practices" NA 34 70 96 NA NA NA Indicator 5: Number of clients served in dispute resolution cases 3,010 9,747 12502 10332 10,000 NA NA Indicator Information:
Indicator Level (S) or (IR) Unit of Measure Source Indicator Description Indicator 1: IR % of respondents who responded "excellent" or "good" to the question: Do you consider last year's performance of your union council as excellent, good, moderately good, or not at all good? Unions with LEB program A national 3-stage probability sample contracted by TAF with a private marketing research firm. Program sample was drawn to represent unions where DP supports LEB and local advocacy programming; national control sample drawn from unions not covered by DP grantees. % of respondents expressing confidence in local elected bodies. Compares a randomly selected sample from randomly selected unions with LEB programs to unions with advocacy programs and to respondents from a control group from randomly selected unions with no DP NGO programs from any IR. Indicator 2: IR % of respondents who responded "excellent" or "good" to the question: Do you consider last year's performance of your union council as excellent, good, moderately good, or not at all good? Unions with advocacy program A national 3-stage probability sample contracted by TAF with a private marketing research firm. Program sample was drawn to represent unions where DP supports LEB and local advocacy programming; national control sample drawn from unions not covered by DP grantees. % of respondents expressing confidence in local elected bodies. Compares a randomly selected sample from randomly selected unions with LEB programs to unions with advocacy programs and to respondents from a control group from randomly selected unions with no DP NGO programs from any IR. Indicator 3: IR Percent of Resolved Disputes A simple random sample of all the cases involving women that were resolved in 1999. A total sample of 1,215 female clients was generated from a data base of 5,016 clients provided by the NGOs. This represented 25% of all cases. Random sample drawn by computer from a complete listing of disputes mediated by NGOs with ADR grants. Each person sampled was located by NGO fieldworkers to answer closed and open-ended questions on a format provided by TAF and developed in consultation with NGOs. Percentage of women whose disputes had been resolved and who reported that the decision was "satisfactory" on a three point scale, where satisfactory was the highest score and unacceptable the lowest. Indicator 4: IR Percent of union councils (base of 84 in 1998 and 116 in 1999) which DP NGOs grantees directly assist. Compiled by TAF from data reported systematically on each union council by five subgrantee NGOs with LEB development programs. Percent of union councils which use at least five of twelve "best practices" promoted by NGO LEB programs. NGO were trained on the definitions before data collection began. Indicator 5: IR Individuals, usually women Data summarized in each of 319 unions from individual client records by local staff of the six NGOs receiving ADR grants. Summarized by NGO on format provided by TAF, after receiving specialized training on the results monitoring system and on use of the questionnaire by monitoring consultant. Number of persons whose cases were mediated through shalishes of NGO organized and trained mediation committees. (Output level). This data is for CY 1999. U.S. Financing
(In thousands of dollars)
Obligations Expenditures Unliquidated Through September 30, 1999 11,249 DA 8,948 DA 2,301 DA 0 CSD 0 CSD 0 CSD 648 ESF 139 ESF 509 ESF 0 SEED 0 SEED 0 SEED 0 FSA 0 FSA 0 FSA 0 DFA 0 DFA 0 DFA Fiscal Year 2000 1,224 DA 2,147 DA 0 CSD 0 CSD 0 ESF 311 ESF 0 SEED 0 SEED 0 FSA 0 FSA 0 DFA 0 DFA Through September 30, 2000 12,473 DA 11,095 DA 1,378 DA 0 CSD 0 CSD 0 CSD 648 ESF 450 ESF 198 ESF 0 SEED 0 SEED 0 SEED 0 FSA 0 FSA 0 FSA 0 DFA 0 DFA 0 DFA Prior Year Unobligated Funds 0 DA 0 CSD 0 ESF 0 SEED 0 FSA 0 DFA Planned Fiscal Year 2001 NOA 0 DA 0 CSD 0 ESF 0 SEED 0 FSA 0 DFA Total Planned Fiscal Year 2001 0 DA 0 CSD 0 ESF 0 SEED 0 FSA 0 DFA Future Obligations Est. Total Cost Proposed Fiscal Year 2002 NOA 0 DA 0 DA 12,473 DA 0 CSD 0 CSD 0 CSD 0 ESF 0 ESF 648 ESF 0 SEED 0 SEED 0 SEED 0 FSA 0 FSA 0 FSA 0 DFA 0 DFA 0 DFA
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Last Updated on: May 29, 2002 |
