<strong>Samriddhi</strong> Project Document Overview of the actors at local level Intercooperation Bangladesh Page v
<strong>Samriddhi</strong> Project Document Executive Summary In Bangladesh, approximately 82 % of the population live in rural areas, virtually all of them making their living exclusively or substantially from agriculture. The poverty rate is very high in this highly populated country with around 80 % living with less than $2 per day. Women in particular are highly affected by poverty. Gender equality still remains a major challenge in all sectors of development. Because of their low resilience, extreme poor people are especially hit by natural disasters. Geographical location and land characteristics make Bangladesh one of the most disaster-prone countries in the world. The Livelihoods, Empowerment and Agroforestry (LEAF) Project and the Sustainable Access to Agroforestry Knowledge, Technology and Information (SAAKTI) Project both started in 2004. They work in the Rajshahi Division, and in Sunamganj District, two of the poorest areas in Bangladesh. LEAF supported community based organisations (CBOs) in planning and implementing their socio-economic development. In its interventions, the project combined three approaches: human and institutional development, market development and the livelihoods approach. SAAKTI was mainly conceived to collaborate with national institutions (research institutes, extension agencies) to promote local private service providers, with the view of replacing the support role of local NGOs to communities, which was not sustainable. LEAF and SAAKTI have been very successful in establishing approaches which contribute to the economic empowerment of rural households, with special attention to poor and extreme poor, and have strengthened the efforts of CBOs to identify their development priorities and participate in local decision-making processes. As a result, more than 40,000 extreme poor households could access safety-net opportunities. About 150,000 households have been involved in economic activities, increasing their income on average by more than 60 Taka (1 CHF) per day. 100,000 producer households have profited from the project interventions in 7 value chains. The producers have been supported by around 5,300 local service providers, for many of which the provision of services became their most important source of income, making a profit of up to 3,000 Taka (50 CHF) per month. The support of LEAF and SAAKTI directly benefited 300,000 households. In the course of time, both projects have been more and more involved in the promotion of economic activities, which were considerably interconnected, resulting in interventions more and more similar. Having had a common management from the second phase and working in the same areas of intervention and targeting the same beneficiaries, it became obvious that they were two components of a single programme. Therefore, the evolution of the projects naturally led to a decision of merging them in a new project, <strong>Samriddhi</strong>, meaning “prosperity” in Bangla. The goal of <strong>Samriddhi</strong> is “to contribute to sustainable well-being and resilience of poor and extreme poor households of Rajshahi Division and Sunamganj District through social and economic empowerment” <strong>Samriddhi</strong> shows a strong coherence with the SDC Cooperation Strategy as well as the national poverty reduction strategy, mainly in terms of income and employment creation, MSE development, local private service provision, and local governance. Intercooperation Bangladesh Page vi
Change language