Bangladesh - Belgium

II: Overall Assessment of Intervention using DAC Criteria
Relevance
In line with the PRS which highlights both women’s advancement and local governance as a key
priorities of the Government of Bangladesh.
SDC has local governance as a priority thematic focus and guiding principles of gender equity,
human rights and social justice. Furthermore, this is the only directly supported grassroots NGO in
SDC’s governance portfolio and is seen as important to ‘enable SDC to gain direct field experience
on gender equity, women participation and empowerment and offer the opportunity to consolidate
the experimentation of a women’s leadership development model for wider dissemination and
replication’ (SDC, 2007).
Rupantar’s vision is to ‘establish a gender equitable democratic society with cultural values, free
from injustice and superstitions’.
Recent national and local elections have seen an increase in women exercising their franchise and
since 1997 there have been provisions for three reserved seats on the Union Parishad for women
(each representing three wards). Women’s political empowerment is still constrained by their limited
political awareness, limited access to public platforms and their inexperience in engaging in political
processes. Given external support it has been shown that not only can women become more active
members of UP but will be invited to participate in other forums and have successfully contested
general UP seats (competing against men).
Efficiency
Funding started for this programme in 1998 so in total there will have been 12 years of funding ( by
2010) amounting to approximately Euro 1.27 million (CHF 2 million). The work is concentrated in 20
unions in four Upazila.
The mid-term Evaluation of Rupantar noted its cost effectiveness. The Rupantar model uses staff
from local communities with low salaries and does not provide traditional services. The 2006 Mid
Term Evaluation and SDC’s credit proposal (2007) noted the following achievements:
• 11,566 women organised into women’s groups and ‘aware of their rights’
• competent women leaders, participating in different development work and included in
different local committees (300)
• 15 women elected to reserved seats and 2 to general seats in the 2003 local elections and
100 active in UP standing committees ( while remaining partisan politics-neutral)
Rupantar has a team of 59 project staff, including 20 union organisers and 20 cultural organisers
(1:200 direct beneficiaries) In the third phase, Rupantar intends to cover all the unions (32) in the
four Upazilas (two parliamentary constituencies).
Effectiveness
Over the past 10 years, Rupantar has measurably gone a significant way to developing a norm of
women’s participation and to establish credible women’s organisations in the localities where it
works. Women have competed against men in the UP elections and won seats. Women are invited
to participate in Standing Committee decisions, local shalish (dispute resolution/arbitration
processes) and other village level committees. There is anecdotal evidence that duty bearers are
performing more satisfactorily -- e.g. sub assistant agricultural officers meeting farmers more
regularly, teachers attending schools on time, health staff more regularly present at their duty
stations -- and this is attributed by local stakeholders [see the Most Significant Change (MSC)
analysis in Tables 1-3 below] to the work and engagement by the women’s groups. This is
discussed in more detail under “Impact” below.
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