Bangladesh - Belgium

Citizens’ Voice and Accountability Evaluation – Bangladesh Country Case Study
Intervention Brief description
name
7. Rupantar Rupantar, a local NGO, implements ‘An Alternative Programmatic Intervention to
Develop Grassroots Women Leadership in Union Parishads" 20 Unions of 4 Upazila
under Khulna and Bagerhat districts. This promotes the socio-political empowerment of
women by developing leadership skills, encouraging contesting of elections and
participation in local committees and Union Parishad standing committees
www.sdc.org.bd/en/Home/Human_Institutional_Development/RUPANTAR
(note www.Rupantar.org site expired Nov 20, 2007)
Age: SDC has been supporting since 1998
Social
movements
8. Transparency
International
Bangladesh (TIB)
TIB is a the local chapter of Transparency International based in Germany and has
since the beginning been working as a catalyst of social movement against corruption. It
has elaborate research and advocacy programmes for policy change and institutional
reform for creating conditions for reducing corruption and promoting good governance in
Bangladesh.
www.ti-bangladesh.org
Age: supported since 1998
9. Samata Samata is a social movement supporting members to access their entitlements to khas
(government owned land and water body) resources and services. It works primarily on
the demand-side but also support local government institutions to respond.
Age: new phase of accelerated support from 2002
Donor direct
programme
10. GTZ-brokered
dialogue
Trade Union
11. Bangladesh
Sanjukta Sramic
Federation
(BSSF)
GTZ directly facilitates interaction between labour organisations, workers advocacy
groups, entrepreneurs and government around labour law compliance
Age: these dialogues mostly took place around 2004-6
Established in 1968, BSSF is a registered national trade union federation without
political party affiliation working in both the formal and informal sector. The objectives of
the project under BSSF are to i. unite the workers with a view to establishing their
social, economic and political rights; ii. organize workers educational seminars and
training programs/ workshops so that the level of knowledge and awareness of the
workers are raised; and iii. represent the workers at various levels such as National,
Regional and International levels. Capacity building of BSSF is supported by the
Belgian Trade Union Movement. www.bssfbd.org
Age: BSSF has been funded in several phases by the World Solidarity Movement. It
was previously known under another name
These 11 interventions are, broadly speaking, representative of the large and diverse landscape of
donor interventions on CVA (see also section 3.2 and Annex C.2 for more information on the donor
landscape). There are, however, some types of interventions which are over- and some which are
under-represented in the chosen sample:
- Interventions supporting trade unions and social movements are over-represented in the
sample. The main reason is that the country case study Bangladesh has been seen as an
opportunity to analyse the results and the potential of this kind of the interventions which are
often neglected by the donors.
- Interventions supporting minorities, in particular ethnic minorities, and guardian institutions
(e.g. the Election Commission) are under-represented in the sample. The guardianship
organisations were either not yet functional or were overstretched under the current Caretaker
Government situation (Election Commission, Anti Corruption Commission). Choices had to be
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