from the TennesseanBy KATHLEEN SMITHFor The TennesseanTwenty-five Vanderbilt University graduate students will spend spring break helping those at the "bottom of the pyramid," the people of Bangladesh.Students in the Project Pyramid Global Poverty Alleviation program, a class offered by the Owen Graduate School of Management, will travel Wednesday to Bangladesh for a firsthand look at some solutions to poverty.A highlight of the trip includes meeting with Muhammad Yunus, the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner and a Vanderbilt University graduate, whose Grameen Bank is changing the lives of the poor in Bangladesh through micro-lending."He is a man filled with not only deep experience but a ton of new ideas and inspiration for addressing poverty," said Bart Victor, director of the Cal Turner...
from the Observer OnlineShawn Ahmed postpones studies, liquidates accounts to chronicle service trip to East AsiaJoseph McMahonThe mission of the University of Notre Dame calls its students to rise to extraordinary levels in service to others. Still, it is rare to see a student liquidate his accounts, postpone his studies, and travel halfway around the world to hand out mosquito nets and clean water in a disaster area.Shawn Ahmed, a 26-year-old graduate student in sociology, did exactly that, all the while chronicling his exploits on YouTube and Flickr under the pseudonym, "The Uncultured Project." Ahmed has been in Bangladesh since late June."I call it 'The Uncultured Project' because there really is nothing sophisticated about it," Amed said. "I have no formal training or concrete plan....
‘Reform-Minded’ Government Not Addressing Arbitrary Detention and Torture
The arbitrary arrest and torture of journalist Tasneem Khalil by Bangladesh’s notorious military intelligence agency highlights abuses under the country’s state of emergency and the interim government’s failure to restrain the security forces, Human Rights Watch said in a new report today. Human Rights Watch called upon the Bangladeshi government, as well as the country’s donors, to urgently tackle the endemic problem of torture....
from Reuters DHAKA, Feb 12 (Reuters) - International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Citigroup closed a $22 million term-financing deal to expand micro-lending activities by the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC), a joint statement said.The term financing is available in local currency Bangladeshi taka (BDT) with a tenor of five years and an amortising structure, the statement said."To finance the growth of our microfinance operations, we need local currency financing," said Fazle Hasan Abed, chairperson of BRAC.The statement said this financing would be beneficial to the micro-credit and small and medium enterprise segments served by it.The loan is part of a wider Citigroup-led financing for BRAC that was mandated last year.The $22 million IFC-Citigroup tranche includes a $18...
Recent Arrest Shows Government’s Misuse of Emergency Powers
Bangladesh’s interim government should immediately end the recent harassment of labor rights activists who are conducting legitimate activities to protect the rights of workers in the country, Human Rights Watch said today....
from One World South AsiaThe facility, located in an unelectrified town named Kapashia (Gazipur district), is part of a rural electrification project that aims to reach about 700,000 citizens through renewables.The green power plant, the first ever its kind in Bangladesh, is a 250 kW biomass gasification facility that generates renewable electricity from abundant agricultural residues such as rice husks.IDCOL provided concessionary loans and grants, sourced from IDA and the Global Environmental Facility (GEF), for a total project costy of 25 million taka (€250,000) of which the World Bank provided 60%.DreamsPower is the initiative of Asaduzzaman Manik, a poultry farmer who experienced great difficulties in keeping his business running without electricity. Fed up with the status quo, he...
from The Daily StarHopes Prof YunusNews World, New YorkNobel Laureate Prof Muhammad Yunus envisaged that Bangladesh by the year 2030 would be a modern country free from poverty.He said Bangladesh has achieved tremendous success in reaching the targets of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to eliminate poverty, reports News World from New York. If this success continues, there will be no curse of poverty, he said.Yunus made the comments while giving an interview to Charley Rouge of popular US television channel PBS. The interview was aired Thursday 11:15pm US standard time.The interview was recorded on the eve of the unveiling of his new book " Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism". The book hits US bookstores this month.Yunus said if the...
from The NationAs the mid-point for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015 is reached with progress in serious doubt, this report argues that the time has come for all policy actors to recognise and support the potentially crucial contribution of the mass media to efforts to reduce poverty in lowincome countries. Policy change has often stemmed from shifts in public and political opinion, and the very reach of the mass media make them a vital force in raising public awareness and debate, even if they may not be direct policy actors or even consider themselves as having an obligation to influence policy and change society.High-quality public service and public interest journalism in particular, the report argues, should be supported as public goods1 in their own right,...
from The New NationPulack GhatackA prolonged distortion in market mechanism has been dragging tens of thousands of low-income people of the country below the poverty line.The Government's safety net programmes, micro-credit of NGOs, income-generating initiatives by the individuals and groups, all come to a naught as people approach the market, it is observed.The market has been eating up their everyday incomes, thanks to the treasonable skyrocketing prices of daily necessities. Middle-income groups have been leading their daily lives under severe economic hardships just like the poor, while the low-income groups have been passing their days in extreme poverty and are being pauperised.It is found that savings of the major portion of the population has reached a zero level while many are...
from The New NationHuge success has been achieved through successful implementation of programmes by different organisations for creating income- generating opportunities to alleviate poverty in greater Rangpur in recent years, experts said.They said cultivation of early variety high valued crops like maize, vegetables, fruits and spices, fish farming, setting up poultry farms, rearing cows and goats, and setting up of cottage and small industries, micro-credit activities, VGD and other programmes side by side with participatory social afforestation have brought the success.Various government departments, dozens of NGOs, donor agencies like World Food Programme (WFP), Grameen Bank, USAID, RDRS, CARE, Bangladesh and other organisations implemented the programmes. The situation is expected...
from The New NationHigher growth of the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) can help cut poverty to a satisfactory level by eliminating various prejudices against labour intensive and creating jobs for the skilled manpower in the SME sector.This was revealed in the just released Bangladesh Bank annual report for fiscal 2006-07.The report said, the key reasons behind the SMEs are not entering into manufacturing are financial constrains, dismal state of utilities, technology and policy discriminations. On the others hand, Bank and others financial institutions generally prefer large enterprise clients because of lower transition costs, and greater availability of collateral.The SMEs also fall outside the reach of micro finance schemes, and thus compelled to depend on formal sources of funds...
In the last few days of my mission to Bangladesh, I chaired a meeting of the Information Management Working Group in Dhaka, at which something curious and exciting happened. The Group is comprised of representatives from each of the clusters, the CDMP (a government body) and usually a couple of others (today, CARE - it’s really just a place to reach agreement on basic issues like geocodes.
But in the meeting we actually agreed that all the clusters would pursue a policy of open data - that all data collected during assessments would be shared in its raw form as soon as the collecting organisation had published its own report, through the offices of the Disaster Management Information Centre (DMIC). This will make it possible for other agencies to incorporate that data into their...
The single most important co-ordination tool that you will find in any humanitarian response is the Who’s doing What Where, better known as the W3 or 3W. This is the basic tracking that shows which organisations (who) are doing which activities (what) in which locations (where). It comes in a limited range of flavours, and it’s usually a spreadsheet with a simple matrix by location.
For some reason, here they’ve decided to add an extra W - When. I have no idea why they decided to do this, since we’ve never been able to successfully get the first 3Ws; the decision was taken before I arrived, and I would have fought tooth and claw to stop it. To be fair, I’ve been asked for a chronological component in other places, because it’s really useful to know...
There’s inevitably a data drought when you’re working in an emergency in a developing country - either the coverage isn’t good, the historical record is patchy or the accuracy is questionable. In many cases, the data simply isn’t there - nobody has collected it in the past or is collecting it at present. Where they are collecting it, the collection process often isn’t systematic and the results are in formats that aren’t easily shared - where people are willing to share their data, which they often aren’t.
In my last blog post, you might have noticed that we were trying to identify water scarce unions. There’s no actual data on water scarcity, though - it’s not the sort of thing that anybody has ever measured in itself. So how do...
Last weekend in Barisal, I managed to get some vaguely interesting data that might help water and sanitation provision in the cyclone-affected areas of Bangladesh, and decided that it would work best on a map. Problem: no maps.
Sometimes you simply don’t have the resources to implement GIS in the field. The UNICEF office here is quite large, but there’s nobody who uses GIS the only people with GIS skills are too busy to work on this. I don’t have the time to set anything up (and I’m barely competent to do so); and even if I did set something up, there’s nobody to take it over when I leave (imminently).
I’d prefer to have some proper GIS going, but I’m not a purist when it comes to mapping. In the end, a map is just a tool, and if it does the...
from The New NationStaff ReporterChief Adviser Dr Fakhruddin Ahmed yesterday emphasised the need for eliminating poverty to ensure human dignity and justice for all."Poverty has both cause and effect linkages to continued violation of human rights, it also stands as the biggest obstacle to promoting human dignity and justice. Elimination of poverty thus remains an indispensable precondition for ensuring human dignity and justice for all," he said while addressing a function at Osmani Memorial Hall in the city.The Chief Adviser regretted that many economically and socially disadvantaged people still do not have access to justice to vindicate their rights, over three decades after the country's independence."They are often deprived of basic legal and other institutional services, which put...
from The New NationCyclone Sidr victims who lost almost everything to the disaster that befell them are now facing pressure from Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) for repayment of micro-credit repayment installments. The pressure is so intense that some of the credit recipients are selling out the relief materials they have received from different sources to meet the demands, or are hiding themselves from NGO supervisors to escape harassment.Such a pressure for loan recovery by the NGOs including the large ones like BRAC, ASA and even the semi-government Grameen Bank has shocked the conscious section of the people. How those families which have lost almost everything to the cyclone and are just maintaining their existence in extreme hardships can be expected to repay their loan...
from Yahoo News IndiaBy Serajul Islam QuadirDHAKA (Reuters) - The World Bank has asked Bangladesh to develop more special industrial zones in order to achieve the millennium development goal to halve the poverty level by the end of 2015, a senior official said on Sunday.The government should focus further on developing more special economic zones to create jobs, the official quoted World Bank President Robert Zoellick, who arrived Dhaka on Saturday for a two-day visit, as saying.After having met Mirza Azizul Islam, finance adviser to Bangladesh's army-backed interim government, on Saturday, Zoellick visited the Dhaka export processing zone (EPZ) at Savar, near the capital, on Sunday.Zoellick was accompanied by Praful C. Patel, the World Bank Vice President for South Asia, and Xian Zhu,...
from The Daily StarSeminar toldStar Business ReportHomegrown employment-friendly industrial policy is needed in the country to reduce poverty rate, speakers told a seminar in Dhaka yesterday."Employment-based industrial policy can remove poverty," said Prof Rashed Al Mahmud Titumir of Development Studies at Dhaka University.He said there is no direction about employment generation in the country's Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP).Shushashoner Jonno Procharavijan or SUPRO (Campaign for Good Governance) organised the seminar on 'Development, Evaluation and Review of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)' at the National Press Club.Abdul Awal, chairperson of SUPRO, chaired the discussion, which was also attended by rights activist Dr Hamida Hossain and Convener of People's Forum on...
Authorities Should Lift Emergency Rules Undermining Basic Rights
The Bangladeshi caretaker government’s decision to partially lift the ban on political activities is not nearly enough to address widespread restrictions on basic freedoms and rampant human rights abuses in the country, Human Rights Watch said today....
from The Daily StarExperts tell int'l workshopStaff CorrespondentNoted economists and development experts at an international workshop yesterday suggested expansion of social safety-net programmes and creation of short-term employment opportunities to help ultra-poor people cross poverty line.They also expressed concern over the second round of flooding in various parts of the country, saying that it might have adverse impacts on the food production and therefore both the government and the donors should come up with more food assistance followed by cash incentives and employment opportunities for the affected.The workshop on 'Dynamics of Food and Cash Transfers: Policy Discussion on the Results of Food and Cash Efficacy Study' was organised by Economic Relations Division (ERD) and World...
Students Angry After Eight Months of Emergency Rule
The Bangladesh government must respect international human rights standards as it enforces a curfew and seeks to police demonstrations, Human Rights Watch said today....
from The Financial Express Bangladesh stands to miss out an opportunity to bring in fresh external assistance unless the government convenes a meeting shortly to review the implementation of the poverty reduction strategy (PRS), officials said.The officials said the Local Consultative Group (LCG), a platform of the country's bilateral and multilateral donors, has made it clear that unless the government takes stock of the implementation of the PRS, the donor community will not make any aid commitment for the future programmes and projects.The donor groups have advised the government to hold the PRS Implementation Forum without any farther delay as, they say, the meeting could speed up foreign aid flow, the officials said."We've also agreed to hold the PRS meeting in November-December," an...
from The Financial Express The donors' community has come forward at last to open their aid basket during the present interim government's tenure with signing of a loan agreement Thursday.After a respite of a couple of months, the World Bank (WB) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB), offering hopes for more new deals from now on, signed a $170 million loan agreement Thursday with the Economic Relations Division (ERD), the government's negotiating agency on foreign aid.Of the total loan, the WB would provide $40 million and the ADB $130 million to help develop Bangladesh's ailing railway sector.ERD officials said, due to political turmoil in the recent past the donors' community almost stopped any further aid deal with the interim government and closely watched the political developments...
Arbitrary Arrests Mock Rule of Law
The Bangladeshi government should take immediate steps to stop extrajudicial killings and arbitrary arrests by the security forces, Human Rights Watch said today....
Ex-Ruling Party May Use Rapid Action Battalion for Elections
Bangladesh’s elite anti-crime and anti-terrorism security force is responsible for widespread torture and killing more than 350 suspects in custody, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Human Rights Watch warned that the former ruling party could use the abusive force for political purposes prior to elections slated for January 23, 2007....
Troops Must Respect Law and Avoid Deaths in Custody
The Bangladeshi military, deployed on December 9 to “ensure security” in the run-up to national elections, must avoid partisan sympathies and respect human rights, Human Rights Watch said today....
from One World South AsiaBangladesh urgently needs to invest in better education, healthcare, and job training for its young people in order to produce stronger economic growth and reduce poverty.At a seminar to publicize the World Bank’s World Development Report, speakers noted that a move to invest heavily in Bangladeshi’s between the ages of 12 and 24 would be one of the most significant ways the country could banish poverty and galvanize its economy.The World Development Report 2007, titled Development and the Next Generation, is an annual flagship publication of the World Bank. The dissemination event, jointly organized by the World Bank and BRAC at the BRAC Center, was presided over by Dr. Salahuddin Ahmed, the Pro-Vice Chancellor of BRAC University. Professor Abdullah Abu...
A regional workshop will be held on 18-20 October 2006 in Bangkok followed by two national workshops in Nepal and Bangladesh on 22-24 November 2006 and 27-29 November 2006, respectively, to conceptualize, develop and deliberate on policy issues relating to Internet use for Business Development....
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