Samriddhi

Samriddhi Project Document
Gender mainstreaming
Gender equality will continue to be addressed by Samriddhi through its gender mainstreaming
strategy with the following objectives:
1. To ensure equal access to resources and services, and inclusion in economic activities.
2. To engage women and encourage their participation in the local development process.
3. To ensure active participation and benefits for both women and men at programme and
organisational levels.
The Participatory Gender Analysis tool developed by LEAF will be updated so that it can be
implemented by the community platforms, touching gender issues in the whole community.
Instead of field facilitators of the PNGO, the community facilitators and female mentors of the
community will lead the planning. Action plans will be developed and implemented in all working
communities with active involvement of the civil society, UP and local enterprises. In addition,
fostering active participation of women in local governance (UP, standing committees), local
traditional structures, and other relevant committees and networks will be promoted in
collaboration with Sharique. Community platforms will be encouraged to select an equal number
of women and men as members and include women in their decision making processes.
In both, the capacity building for SPAs and MSEs, gender sensitivity will be one of the
cornerstones. The inclusion of women as partners, employees or local service providers will be
fostered and both SPAs and MSEs will be sensitised to include women in their decision making
processes. Women will be trained to effectively take leadership in enterprises, associations and
other relevant committees.
DRR mainstreaming
During the recent phases, impressive results could be achieved in terms of increased assets of
the beneficiaries through the improved IGAs, stronger MSEs and better performing value
chains. Those assets are however threatened by the imminent natural disasters that threaten
many communities in Bangladesh. The capacities of the individual households as well as the
communities to take necessary measures for their protection are considerably low. The
mainstreaming of DRR activities is therefore seen as imperative to protect the improved assets
of the beneficiaries from natural disasters. A systematic mainstreaming and strengthening of
DRR in the most vulnerable communities, focused on the assets gained through project
interventions, will contribute to the sustainability of the interventions and help to avoid a relapse
of people into poverty and extreme poverty.
In order to mainstream DRR in the planning and sharing process of the communities, the project
will build the capacities of community facilitators in analysing natural hazards and risks and lead
the process of the community to plan prevention and protection activities. The project will
support the community platforms in building the awareness of the whole community about their
possibilities of protecting themselves and their assets from disasters and get connected to
government bodies and other relevant actors for local resource mobilisation. The use of DDR as
an approach should be ensured by the community platforms at the end of Samriddhi.
Targeted hardware interventions could enhance the effect of the software components
implemented by the project. One way of supporting such interventions would be through a
Intercooperation Bangladesh Page 24