United States Agency for International Development Bureau of Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance Office of Food for Peace
ANNUAL RESULTS REPORT
Reporting Fiscal Year FY 2019 Awardee Name CARE Host/Implementation Country Bangladesh Award Number AID-FFP-A-15-00009 Activity Name SHOUHARDO III program Activity Start Date September 29, 2015 Activity End Date September 30, 2022 Submission Date November 4, 2019 List of ARR documents uploaded on FFP PRT See list of Annexes on Page ii. Awardee HQ person Kumkum Kashiparekh Name, Email, Phone, Office Address Coordinator- Global Food Program [email protected] 1-404-979-9155 Food & Water System Team CARE USA 151 Ellis Street NE Atlanta, Georgia, 30303-2440 USA Awardee host country contact person Walter Mwasaa Name, Email, Phone, Office Address Chief of Party - SHOUHARDO III [email protected] (+880-2)- 9889009 Ext-210 CARE Bangladesh Dhaka Office RAOWA Complex (Level 7-8), VIP Road, Mohakhali, Dhaka -1206, Bangladesh
CARE Bangladesh-SHOUHARDO III (Cooperative Agreement No: AID-FFP-A-15-00009); Page | FY 2019 Annual Results Report. Submitted: 4 November, 2019
1 CONTENTS
2 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND INTRODUCTION ...... 1 3 FISCAL YEAR 2019 PROGRAM RESULTS ...... 4 3.1 Purpose-Level Progress ...... 4 4 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT MONITORING AND EVALUATION ...... 29 4.1 Monitoring and evaluation ...... 29 4.2 ToC Review FY19 ...... 31 4.3 Knowledge Management and Learning (KML) ...... 32 5 CHALLENGES, SUCCESSES, AND LESSONS LEARNED ...... 34 4 CONCLUSIONS AND KEY REFLECTIONS ...... 36
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List of Tables Table 1: Summary of reformed groups in SHOUHARDO III participant communities ...... 3 Table 2: Number of Direct Participating Households Receiving Multiple Interventions by Purpose Area (PA) Part 1 ...... 4 Table 3: Details of the newly formed VSLAs this FY19 ...... 10 Table 4: Disaster mitigation infrastructure progress ...... 21 Table 5: Program M&E Data Sources ...... 30 Table 6: Details of KM&L activities and its contribution in the program ...... 32 Table 7 - Challenges, program's response, and status of resolution ...... 34
List of Figures Figure 1: A summary of key program results over the last four years ...... 2 Figure 2 Return on investment calculation ...... 9 Figure 3: Percentage of PLW with food intake/daytime rest, IFA supplements & Vitamin A during pregnancy ...... 12 Figure 4: Results of Breastfeeding and Complementary feeding results since July 2017 ...... 13 Figure 5: Nirapod latrine models Courtessy: iDE ...... 17 Figure 6 Map of villages based on the Village Grading ranking ...... 30
List of Annexes
Annex 1: Detailed Implementation Plan Annex 2: Indicator Performance Tracking Table Annex 3: The Participants-Based Sample Survey (PaBSS) FY19 Report Annex 4: Village Grading Report Annex 5: Return on Investment (ROI) Study Report Annex 6: Youth-Led Food Mapping Report Annex 7: DFSA Learning Visit Report Annex 8: VSLA Strategy FY19 Annex 9: SHOUHARDO III’s Approach to Transparency and Accountability (TransAcct) Annex 10: Concept note on the Community of Practice Annex 11: Expenditure Report
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Acronyms
ANC Antenatal Care CC Community Clinic CG Community Group CHCP Community Health Care Provider COG Core Occupational Groups CSG Community Support Group DCRM Disaster and Climate Risk Management DFSA Development Food Security Activity EKATA Empowerment Knowledge And Transformative Action FFBS Farmers’ Field and Business School FFP Food For Peace FY Fiscal Year GBV Gender-Based Violence GMP Growth Monitoring and Promotion GoB Government of Bangladesh HHN Health, Hygiene and Nutrition IFA Iron and Folic Acid KML Knowledge Management and Learning LEB Local Elected Body M&E Monitoring and Evaluation MDD Minimum Dietary Diversity ML Mother Leader MoH&FW Ministry of Health and Family Welfare MTE Midterm Evaluation MSS Management Score Sheet NBD Nation Building Department PaBSS Participants Based Sample Survey PACC Program Advisory and Coordination Committee PEP Poor and Extreme Poor PLW Pregnant and Lactating Women PNGO Partner Non-Government Organization SHOUHARDO Strengthening Household Ability to Respond to Development Opportunities STREAM System for Tracking Results and Evidence for Adaptive Management UDMC Union Disaster Management Committee UDMP Union Disaster Management Plan UDCC Union Disaster Coordination Committee UDV Union Disaster Volunteer UP Union Parishad USAID United States Agency for International Development VDC Village Development Committee VSLA Village Savings and Loan Association WASH Water, Sanitation and Hygiene
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2 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND INTRODUCTION
Strengthening Household Ability to Respond to Development Opportunities (SHOUHARDO) III is a Development Food Security Activity (DFSA) funded by the United States Government through the United States Agency for International Development/ Office of Food for Peace (USAID/FFP), with complementary funding from the Government of Bangladesh (GoB). SHOUHARDO III is a multi-sectoral program that addresses food and income insecurity, maternal and child health and nutrition, women’s and youth empowerment, and seeks to improve access to public services for the rural poor while building their resilience capacities. It is implemented through six Partner Non-Government Organizations (PNGOs) covering eight target districts in northern Bangladesh, who receive technical support from CARE. This Annual Results Report (ARR) for the Fiscal Year 2019 (FY19) covers interventions and results for the period of October 1, 2018 to September 30, 2019.
In FY19, the total number of planned activities in the Detailed Implementation Plan (DIP) was 217 out of which 84 percent (182 of 217)1 were completed. The program continued to record steady increases of the desired outcomes in the participants’ households. As the program enters its final years, some result areas are expected to continue growing in line with the impact of new practices, others will stabilize as the program achieves the highest possible results, and for some, attributing to external and internal factors, may record some declines over certain periods.
In the area of increased incomes and productivity, farmers recorded greater productivity per unit that averaged 1.2% to 10% increase over the FY18 levels and between 55% to 180% increase over the baseline levels for the gross margin product per hectare indicator. This positive progress is a culmination of the continued application of behaviors and technologies, engagement with public and private sectors for better prices, and greater sharing of roles in the households including economic engagement and childcare. Other reasons included greater access to early warning information leading to better choices in crop cultivation, including timing and varieties, as well as managing post-harvest losses during the monsoon by knowing which days were safe to dry the crops.
Some of the results presented in this report showed limited progress and in some areas an apparent reduction compared to the results obtained in FY18. An example being the percentage of households attaining Minimum Dietary Diversity (MDD) for children aged 6-23 months. The FY19 result showed 592 percent (516 of 874) household were providing the MDD compared to 66 percent (489 of 740) households surveyed in FY18, and was at 10 percent (40 of 412) households surveyed in FY16. 3. The program has been engaging with the communities
1 Some of the planned activities such as WASH, Livelihoods and community engagement activities were affected by the shift in programming approaches in response to the Midterm Evaluation and some delays in approval and actions on preparatory activities for new activities. 2 The program’s annual survey: Participant-Based Sample Survey (PaBSS) 2019
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to better understand the underlying factors of this slow progress. In many conversations with the participants, the 2019 floods seemed to have played a role in the reduction of results, including MDD as displacements influenced food supply and market access even for a short period of time.
Other results remained stable such as the prevalence of diarrhea for children aged 6-23 months. In FY19, the result was 6.44 percent (56 of 874) of survey households down from one in every five households surveyed in FY16 and 6.9 percent (51 of 740) in FY18. This is indicative of a peaking result with impact that is now possible among the late adopters. Nonetheless, the program intends to engage with communities to identify what additional actions can be taken to reduce prevalence of diarrhea further. Figure I below summarizes key results areas in the 18
Figure 1: A summary of key program results over the last four years
Based on the strong performance in its first three years backed up by the strong findings in the Midterm Evaluation (MTE), USAID/FFP approved a program cost extension. This extension will allow the program to continue implementation until September 2022 (i.e. two more years) and will be focused on building systems to ensure sustained impact for the participant communities beyond the program period.
Beginning in April 2019, SHOUHARDO III facilitated the process of forming self-selected community groups, transitioning from the earlier approach of program-organized Core Occupational Groups (COG), regular courtyard sessions and women solidarity groups. This group reformation is to ensure that the communities are engaged in a way that does not rely on program facilitation as the program exits. The gains and lessons from the previous setup were reinforced as the new groups emerged. The principle of needs-based support that identifies gaps in capacities and practices will be applied to ensure tailor-made remedial actions
4 The Participant-Based Sample Survey 2019
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are implemented at the group level on a need basis. As of September 2019, program participants formed 5,066 groups with an average membership of 23 persons per group. The group memberships is summarized table 1 below.
Table 1: Summary of reformed groups in SHOUHARDO III participant communities
Group Membership Total Group Group Member Adolescent Boys 120 1,666 Adolescent Girls 163 2,052 Adolescent Mixed Boys and Girls 27 374 Young mothers and new married 65 596 women Adult male 1,207 27,201 Adult female 3,484 83,778 5,066 115,667
Based on field conversations with participants, there was a particular excitement that participants were grouping based on their interest, and especailly within close proximity of each other in the same para5 in their village. This makes it easier to meet regularly and easily discuss emerging issues among themselves; most of which will be done without program facilitation.
In FY19, the program received $10,016,352 of monetization proceeds in December 2018 and 8,200 metric tons (MTs) of wheat in June 2019, payment against this new tonnage is expected in November 2019. Besides the monetization fund, SHOUHARDO III received obligation of $2,651,539 in 202e and $500,000 in Internal Transportation, Storage, and Handling (ITSH) in FY19.
In FY19, the program reported an overall burn rate of 56.73%. Some of the major reasons for underspending were (1) programmatic adjustments made in line with the MTE took longer to get on the ground namely; adjustment of transfers and training not covered because of MTE recommendations (USD 2 million); delayed commencement of the Remote Char and Deep Haor Livelihoods ($1.8 million); impact of staffing changes led to a saving of 1.2 million USD; the commencement of the WASH activity (450,000 USD ); delay in start-up of the technical partnership with Regional Integrated Multi-Hazard Early Warning System (RIMES6) - 200,000 USD large infrastructures (mound protection and school cum flood shelter) completion being delayed due to flood estimated to be valued at 350,000 USD. Overheads related to travel and other operational cost savings related to the above activities including the Negotiated Indirect Cost Rate Agreement (NICRA) worth 1.5 million USD.
5 Para is a cluster of neighborhoods in a village in rural Bangladesh 6
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The program has re-planned the budget for the delayed work in FY20 Pipeline and Resource Estimate Proposal (PREP); and some of the other savings earmarked for a flood rehabilitation activity estimated at $2.2 million. The full expenditure report and variations explanations are included in Annex 1 (Expenditure Report).
In FY19, SHOUHARDO III has done transfer of input support money and opportunity cost to youth through bKash7 (mobile money). The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with bKash was made with CARE and payments through mobile money was made by CARE directly. Hence some of the expenses of youth activity planned in the implementing partners budget has been booked under the program supplies line.
3 FISCAL YEAR 2019 PROGRAM RESULTS This section presents the program results broken down by purpose and result areas. 3.1 Purpose-Level Progress In FY19, the program reached 92 percent (155,154 of 168,521) of the Life of Award (LOA) targeted households directly with multiple interventions. The impact of these interventions are best described at individual household level as the program matured and began to bear results over the years. During field visits and conversations, stories of impact included a male farmer working with his wife on the choice of livestock and crops for optimal incomes as well as production ensuring nutritional outcomes employing appropriate risk management approaches. The same household embraced shared roles, better intra-household food allocation, and engaged with public sevice providers to obtain necessary services mostly in the area of agriculture, health and disaster preparedness. These overlaps will be seen across the report as participants narrate their stories. In many villages, participants revisited their socio-economic status and reflected on where they were when the program started. They could easliy explain why and how they had moved up from extreme poverty to poor or poor to lower middle income – a clear testament to the changes in their households. Table 2 below summarizes household-level participation across purpose areas in FY19.
Table 2: Number of Direct Participating Households Receiving Multiple Interventions by Purpose Area (PA) Part 1 Unique Participants Purpose Area(s) across all purposes 1 2 4 5 1 & 2 1 & 4 1 & 5 2 & 4 HHS 155,154 5,193 8,939 1,261 9,801 3,871 1,464 7,029 1,799
Number of Direct Participating Households Receiving Multiple Interventions by Purpose Area (PA)-Part-2 Unique Participants PA across all purposes 2 & 5 4 & 5 1,2,4 1,2,5 1,3,4 1,3,5 1,4,5 2,4,5 HHS 155,154 8,263 1,254 1,710 7,801 2 6 3,130 2,416
Number of Direct Participating Households Receiving Multiple Interventions by Purpose Area (PA)-Part-3
7 bKash is a mobile financial service in Bangladesh operating under the authority of Bangladesh Bank as a subsidiary of BRAC Bank Limited. This mobile money system started as a joint venture between BRAC Bank Limited, Bangladesh and Money in Motion LLC, United States of America.
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Unique PA Participants across all 1,2,3,4 1,2,3,5 1,2,4,5 1,3,4,5 1,2,3,4,5 purposes HHS 155,154 129 158 6,563 12 84,353
This section outlines specific results by each purpose area. It is worth noting that there was a two-stage program implementation in the program in FY19. Between October 2018 and March 2019, the program followed the pre-MTE model where community volunteers offered comprehensive support to program participants in line with the life of the award targets. The second half of FY19 (April – September 2019) saw a more reduced direct engagement as the program embarked on its prioritized community engagement and reformation of groups to prepare them for the post-program period. The program estimates that the negative impact of this shift on programmatic results was marginal but necessary to identify areas of focus such as growth monitoring for children where it was identified that only 228 villages had acess to a community clinic that could offer the service when the program exits and therefore need alternative approaches to ensure the growth monitoring and counseling continues.
Purpose 1: Increased equitable access to income for women and men, and nutritious food for women, men, boys and girls
In FY19, the participants reported good results in their agricultural production, based on the skills and knowledge they learned from the program after years of training following the Farmers’ Field Business School (FFBS) model. The Poor and Extreme Poor (PEP) participants had notable year-round on-farm production, as reported in the FY19 Participant-Based Sample Survey (PaBSS) where 78.7 percent (495 of 629) surveyed households reported higher production. The program had introduced COGs based on value chain crops (chili, maize and sweet gourd) as well as livestock (goats) and poultry (ducks) to the participants, which most of them ventured into simultaneously, depending on their interest and viability of production.
The program trained PEP participants including mostly women on adopting improved practices in rearing livestock and poultry which contributed in increasing their production. They were also trained on market linkage and basic business skills which enabled them to negotiate for prices of seeds and other inputs. Furthermore, SHOUHARDO III participants engaged in collective selling of their produce and purchase of inputs which enabled them to achieve better prices and quality inputs.
Sub-Purpose 1.1: Increased agricultural production of PEP
This FY19, the PaBSS reported that participants recorded a sustained increase in their incremental sales: $1,621 for chili from $1,603 in FY18 and $755 for maize from $750 in FY18. During the first six months (October 2018 to March 2019) of the fiscal year, the Community Agriculture Volunteers (CAVs) worked with participants in implementing the FFBS training to optimize production by adopting agricultural technologies and improved rearing methods. The commendable production improvements were reinforced with environment impact mitigation activities that included use of pheromone trap and organic compost (including vermin compost technology – the use of earthworms to produce fertilizer).
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Kamola Rani from Adampur, Khaliajuri, Netrakona started a duck rearing business with 15 ducks and an initial capital of 4,100 BDT (49.38 USD). Before, she and her husband relied on a single source of income. Now, with 100 ducks and an average additional income of 15,000 BDT (180.67 USD) per month from selling eggs, she has invested her earnings in leasing a portion of land which her husband is cultivating. Kamola Rani is amazed not only for income but also for having a source of protein for her children from the eggs. She wishes to sustain this livelihood to send her children to school. Photo: CARE
According to the PaBSS, all SHOUHARDO III participants are using at least three improved technologies and management practices in their production. The top three included livestock management, irrigation, and soil-related fertility and conservation – where they also received support from GoB by sending representatives from the Department of Agricultural Extension to demonstrate the technologies. Another popular technology among participants is setting up of pheromone traps to control insects. This is environment-friendly and a cheaper (compared to chemical control) way to combat the risk of infestation of crops by using readily available local materials.
Fency Akter from Jamalpur district, effectively used pheromone trap technique to protect her sweet gourds from fruit flies that damaged her crops previously. Through her conversation with her husband, he set up the trap in their garden and immediately the insects went inside the bottle to die. She has since adopted this practice each cropping season earning her 3,500 BDT (42.15 USD) per month. “We are very happy to cultivate the vegetables without having to worry about insect attacks, thanks to this pheromone trap we learned from FFBS.”
A technical partner of SHOUHARDO III, WorldFish, supported the participants in their fish production through aquaculture demonstration. This fiscal year, a total of 9,278 participants (8,763 males and 515 female) ventured into fishing from learning supported with 55 demonstrations in Char and Haor areas, and applied techniques improving their productivity and income. The demonstration ponds included high-value freshwater fish species that belong in the carp family, as they are common Fish production using ponds is common in the villages. Lokman Mia from Kishoreganj district is showing is part of the local diet and has high market demand. harvest where he earned at least 100,000 BDT Towards the end of this year fiscal year, the fishing (1,204.52 USD) this year. Photo: CARE participants particularly benefitted from cage culture – a useful approach that helped the fish farmers survive the floods in July 2019. The floods affected the traditional fish production practices carried out in open ponds. The program trained 9,279 participants on improved practices of culture fisheries, including net fencing to
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protect their fish from high water. In addition to that, the program worked with 323 fish fry hawkers for accessing quality fingerlings, including basic technical knowhow essential for fish production. In addition, SHOUHARDO III and WorldFish continued building linkages with the Department of Fisheries and other entrepreneurs in the villages to advance fish production techniques, particularly in accessing quality inputs and negotiating for quality services.
Sub-Purpose 1.2: Increased access to agricultural markets for PEP 82 percent (591 of 659) surveyed households reported that they had access to markets for purchasing quality seeds (inputs) and selling of their produce (outputs). To help improve smallholders’ competitiveness, the program facilitated the availability of quality inputs at the village level through collaborating with seed companies and mobilizing micro-seed retailers to remote villages. These input suppliers assisted farmers with up-to-date market information and improved technology and informed them how producing better-quality goods will meet customers’ demands and received higher prices. Having market access closer to the community was especially beneficial to women who could access quality inputs and good prices for their outputs without the added time burden of travelling to distant markets.
Khorshed Alam, from Jamalpur district, lived a hard life since his father passed away when he was young, and he took on the responsibility for his mother and his sister. Through hard work over the years, he managed to secure a small piece of land for his family that included a space for cultivation. After marrying Hasina, his wife, at the age of 23, he bought a power tiller using a loan and his previous savings. Lacking knowledge on how to maximize its use for rice and wheat production, he ended up selling the machine after not earning enough to pay up for it. He was then engaged by SHOUHARDO III in 2016 and ventured into maize production for the first time. From monthly earning of 3,000 BDT (36.13 USD), his income jumped to 9,200 BDT (110.81 USD) from maize. He invested his income to lease 90 hectare of land to increase production, earning 36,000 BDT (433.63 USD) per month. Through consultation with his wife, they invested in an auto-rickshaw (motorized vehicle for transportation) for added source of income of 1,000 BDT (12.04 USD) per month. They discuss Together how to expand their livelihoods, use their savings and raise their two children.
In FY19, the program successfully engaged private companies. For example, SHOUHARDO worked with a large private company, Aftab Bahumukhi Farms Ltd. With the program’s assistance, Aftab established presence in Jamalpur district. This engagement helped farmers to receive better prices8 of about 500 BDT (6 USD) per metric ton, ensured accurate weighing of their produce and on the spot payment for produce. In FY19 Aftab expanded its maize collection to another program area, Gaibandha district, which previously had to be reached via river transportation from Jamalpur. In total, Aftab collected a total of 3,840 MT in FY19 from both Jamalpur and Gaibandha. With this expansion, the program expects up to 10,000 MT of maize will be procured from the two districts in FY20 assuring farmers of a stable market.
Sub-Purpose 1.3: Increased off-farm income for PEP
8 There was no industrial buyer in this particular area for farmers to sell their maize directly. The program lobbied with Aftab Bahumukhi Farms Ltd. to set up their collection center to enable direct selling for the farmers. This way, farmers were able to get better prices that 189$ as opposed to 183$ the rest of the market was offering them.
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One of the vital components for PEP to be food secure is to have diversified livelihoods sources to ensure income stability. SHOUHARDO III has been supporting households to diversity livelihoods by supporting their expansion into off-farm livelihood sources. The program engaged the participants through entrepreneurship/small business training with embedded life skills on business planning, financial literacy, and negotiation. This year, 6,546 participants (2,720 female and 3,826 male) out of a targeted 7,318 reported being engaged in full-time employment.
Prior to being part of SHOUHARDO III, Sharali Mia of Muradpur village from Baniachong upazila of Habiganj district earned only 100 BDT (1.2 USD) per day as a wage laborer with no other sources of income to feed a family of four. He was trapped in a cycle of debt having to borrow money with high interest, and his children missed school for some years as a result. After his engagement in the program with training and cash input, he started a business of selling snacks in the local market and began earning a stable amount of 400-500 BDT (5-6 USD) per day. With this income, he repaired his home and set up a grocery shop in his village where his 18-year old son is working full-time with a profit of 250 BDT (3 USD) per day.
Another group of participants that the program mobilized in its off-farm interventions is youth. As per the MTE, SHOUHARDO III has a comprehensive youth strategy. The program implemented youth employability skills development with the target of reaching 10,000 youths. Thus far, out of the cumulative total of 6,243 trained youth (3,006 male and 3237 female). 2,698 of them (1,302 females and 1,396 male) are now engaged with self or wage employment. The trainings were done using various approaches such as institutional training at the district level, local level (upazila9) training and apprenticeships where the youth get hands-on training from an entrepreneur who focuses on a particular trade. These approaches were implemented to address the different types of challenges such as the limited training facilities at the local level and the participants’ inability to stay on for days for a residential training. The program’s consistent GoB engagement (e.g., the Department of Youth Development, Marine Academy, and Technical Training Center) led to conducting trainings in remote areas of the program.
Industrial training cost of the program (including training fee, accommodation, food, and other logistics) per participant was negotiated down to 210.79 USD (the program’s training cost per participant) which is relatively cheaper than the usual cost of training for a course that costs as much as 1,100 US$ for non-program participants. Most importantly, after receiving the training, the youth participants10 were enlisted in the skilled labor database of the Ministry of Labor and Employment and the Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET). Mitful is one of the youth respondents who received training on welding from the Institute of Marine Technology (IMT), Sirajganj. After receiving training, he got a job offer from the Sandip Engineering Workshop in Narayanganj and his monthly salary in 78.29 USD.
9 Upazila is a local term for sub-district in Bangladesh
10 Participants who received industrial training on Electrical Installation & Maintenance, Machine Shop, Welding and Fabrication from technical training institutes, like BITAC and Institute of Marine Technology (IMT).
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The program’s approach on its youth interventions thoughtfully factored in the vision that they do not become the next generation of extreme poor. To systematically support this, SHOUHARDO III conducted a study on the Return of Investment (ROI) for the youth. The study revealed that the program invested 19,287 BDT (232.31 USD) on average per youth to develop their employability skills. The study found that the net return of this investment was about 25,225 BDT (303.84 USD). As shown in Figure 2 on the left, the program is already getting 131% return from its investment in youth employability skills training (refer to Annex 2 - ROI report).
Besides individual benefits, the program noted positive Figure 2 Return on investment calculation changes and results for the youth at community levels, such as shifting from traditional livelihoods to non- traditional self or wage employment, and in particular expanding young women’s vision for employment. The employed youth contributed in improving the socio-economic status of their families. One key approach for youth and other business training was life skills. Analysis from all five rounds the program’s longitudinal study Fostering Learning and Adaptation in Resilience Building (FLAIRb) found that budget planning was one of the top strategies to increase farmers’ income.
Asadullah from Kishoreganj district was hired by an NGO based in Dhaka after computer operation training and started earning 10,000 BDT (120.45 USD). Another youth participant, Hasanuzzaman from Jamalpur district who received training on metal device operation under the government’s Skill for Employment Investment Program (SEIP) program, secured a job at the renowned WALTON electric company at Gazipur with starting salary of 8,500 BDT (102.38 USD).
The initial exposure to training and the successful experience of self-employment is also leading trained youth to seek further opportunities. During a recent field monitoring exercise conducted in Tahirpur, Sunamganj, youth trained on making fish traps shared that their business has been so successful that they are hiring a trainer at their own expense to learn different designs and thus expand their business opportunities.
The exposure to new skills at the community level also has a positive effect on non-participants. During a field visit to a skills training in Kurigram TTC, program staff had a discussion with some youth who are not part of SHOUHARDO III. They shared that they were interested in participating in the training too. They were inspired by how youth engaged in the program were creating changes in their lives as well as in their communities.
Sub-Purpose 1.4: Increased utilization of financial services by PEP The Microfinance Industry is one the thriving business sectors in Bangladesh with a loan portfolio of 7.8 Billion USD in 2017 and an annual growth rate of 17%. Although the clientele and loan portfolio of microfinance institutions (MFIs) is exponentially growing, there are
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prevailing issues on meaningfully access for the poor. Interest are high, as high 27%, 11 people take multiple loans many with no real capacity to repay on the other hand, only 25% of Bangladeshi adults has a full-service bank account. This creates a gap for the poor due to low income, low financial literacy, high interest rates and absence of collateral required for loans.
SHOUHARDO III has been promoting VSLAs to plug this gap for its participants. Following the MTE recommendation to conform more with DFSA best practices and USAID FFP’s minimum standards for VSLA, SHOUHARDO III invested from the beginning of FY19 to recalibrate its approach for inclusive and pro-poor financial services. This started with a study where CARE Access Africa team led the process with in-country support from Catholic Relief Services, one of the partners of the DFSA in Bangladesh, Hellen Keller’s SAPLING, which also implements a similar approach to VSLAs. The MTE had established that at the time, the program’s VSLA strategy did not garner much interest from the participants due to poor or no return, coupled with complex documentation. More so, it was not properly monitored and hence the program was unable to identify the status of all VSLAs if they adhered to the guidelines at all.
As recommended by the Mid-Term Evaluation the program embarked on reformation of VSLA groups setup in 2017 to meet minimum standards in April 2019 in line with a new strategy - Annex 3 – VSLA Strategy. . Under this strategy the program has an LOA target of 3,788 VSLA groups formed by FY20. A senior staff based in Dhaka was also recruited during this time to provide refined, technical support to the program. For a smooth transition from the ‘old VSLA’ to the new one following the revised strategy, the program selected three villages from all the targeted 115 unions and formed two VSLAs in each village (this was one of the findings of the study too, so that participants could interact better to others who live closer to them). New VSLAs received two months of intense support
This fiscal year, the program formed 690 VSLAs where all the members were female, including young mothers. Details of the achievement of 690 VSLAs were detailed in the table 3 below:
Table 3: Details of the newly formed VSLAs this FY19 Number of VSLAs formed 690 Number of mobilized members this year 14,119 (all female) Total savings 81,263.16 USD Social fund collected 5,163.76 USD Loan disbursement amount 50,175.86 USD
11 http://www.ruralfinanceandinvestment.org/sites/default/files/The-State-of-Digital-Microfinance-in-Bangladesh.pdf
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VSLAs played a crucial role for the women to improve their economic empowerment. In Bangladesh, it is mainly the women who play the role of safekeeping the family’s savings for emergency use. In FY19, the VSLAs started disbursing loans to its members. A total of 3,242 members received loans from VSLAs for different purposes with the top three as (1) poultry rearing (1,174 members), (2) capital for crops production (724 members), and (3) livestock purchase (490 members). The Lucky Akter took out 1,500 BDT (18 USD) and loan that they got presented an invested in duck rearing as additional source of income. opportunity for some of the members who From this, she earns 2,500 BDT (30 USD) monthly to were starting to venture to income- repay her loan and cover other household expenses. generating activities. The women who Photo: CARE borrowed from VSLAs repaid them with service charges and with no difficulty. They were also motivated to borrow and pay on
schedule as the service charge was lower than the rate of other lending companies such as micro-finance institutions and they would be the receiver of the accumulated service charge
too. Conversations with female members revealed that the VSLA model is widely preferred in the rural context to avoid the tedious process of documentation and obtaining loans from MFIs and other banks.
In addition to these, in FY19, SHOUHARDO III introduced mobile money transfers through bKash to eligible participants for follow-up input support and opportunity cost to the youth participants. This helped ensure that cash received was tracked electronically, withdrawal of the money was from The members of one of the newly formed VSLA groups in Chantari convenient locations, and village, Gaibandha district with their VSLA box. only getting the amount they Photo: CARE needed (bKash serving as an e-wallet/e-savings account).
Purpose 2: Improved nutritional status of children under five (CU5) years of age, pregnant and lactating women and adolescent girls.
As noted in Purpose 1, the households increased agricultural production and income enabled children, women and adolescent girls to have more regular access to nutritious food. The
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program provided livelihoods interventions (e.g. homestead gardening, poultry and livestock rearing, field crop production, fishery and off-farm IGAs) reaching to 98% of the target households (164,765 out of total 168,521) from the start to the end of FY19. One of the major outcome indicators is Minimum acceptable diet (MAD), which is considered a proxy indicator for improved nutritional status which rose from 8.5% in 2017 to 25.8% in 2019. The program also tracked two other indicators, Minimum Dietary Diversity (MDD) and Minimum Milk Frequency (MMF) measured under the FLAIRb study. Minimum Dietary Diversity (MDD) increased from 14.1% in July 2017 to 50.6% in July 2019 In addition, participants recorded improved nutritional status, especially children, through the program’s integrated efforts on awareness raising and counseling through Social Behavior Change Communication (SBCC) on consuming nutritious food and having diet diversity.
Sub-Purpose 2.1: Increased utilization of nutritious food by PLW, CU5 and adolescent girls
Participants are skilled to produce and access nutritious food both from own production and market sources respectively, as a result of agriculture and livelihood interventions. In addition, the participants were more aware of the importance of consuming nutritious food, especially by PLW. Results obtained from FLAIRb showed that the percentage of pregnant mothers taking more food increased from 29 percent (58 of 202) surveyed households in July 2017 to 92 percent (216 of 235) of households surveyed in July 2019.
% of PLW with food intake/daytime rest, IFA Figure 3 alongside shows that pregnant women took supplements & Vitamin A during pregnancy greater amounts of food during pregnancy throughout all rounds of this longitudinal survey. This was from 64% 100 in the 3rd round to 92% in the 5th round. The same 90.49 91.77 88.88 trend shows for taking day-time rest and also increased 90 82.7 77.8 from 78% in 3rd round to 89% in the 5th round. The 75.3576.9 80 72.6 two graphical lines, orange representing vitamin A
70 62.1 63.7 63.9 supplementation and red representing IFA supplementation, have also increased. In the case of IFA 60 53.4 48.7 48.5 supplementation, it shows it was decreased from 49% 50 43.7 42.97 in the 3rd round to 43% in the 4th round that was 38.3 further increased to 64% at the end of this FY (5th 40 31.7 28.9 25.6 round). The program has gone for analysis to try to 30 identify the reason and found that during 4th round, the 15.5 20 14.9 13.1 supply chain from government channels was interrupted 8 10 5.3 and also floods caused communication challenges for pregnant women to collect IFA from the community 0 Round 1 (July) Round 2 Round 3 (July) Round 4 Round 5 (July) clinics. On the other hand, the PNC Vit-A consumption (Dec) (Dec) was so smooth because MoH&FW staff provided these More amount of food More day-time rest supplements from the community pockets like IFA supplimentation PNC Vit-A supplimentation Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) centers and Income of PLW HHs satellite clinics.
Figure 3: Percentage of PLW with food intake/daytime rest, IFA supplements & Vitamin A during pregnancy
The SBCC interventions focused especially on making husbands aware of their roles that contributed greatly to the program’s Maternal and Child Health and Nutrition (MCHN)
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achievements. Moreover, through SBCC, the program sensitized fathers and in-laws to convey messages and help ensure that the PLW eat nutrient-rich food. The results showed an increased number of husbands accompanying their wives to Antenatal Care (ANC) checkups throughout the course of their pregnancies (70 percent -154 of 221) of participants compared to the previous year’s 42 percent (100 of 240) participants in the FLAIRb study. In the same line, improved results have been observed in cases of in-laws cooperating with PLW by looking after the family’s other children when parents need to be away. In addition, mothers were able to adequately rest during pregnancy (from 62.1 percent - 125 of 202) respondents in round 1 to 89 percent (209 of 235) in round 5). Iron and Folic Acid supplements were distributed to 20,043 adolescent girls to meet their additional vitamin requirements following lobbying efforts by the program, in addition to commodity rations comprised of wheat, peas and vegetable oil – to augment their caloric needs. The program reached 27,386 children (13,938 boys and 13,448 girls) children through nutrition-specific interventions and counseled 36,845 mothers through courtyard sessions to tackle key Health, Hygiene and Nutrition (HHN) issues including awareness sessions on improve Infant and Young Child Feeding (IYCF) practices.
Results from the longitudinal study as shown in Figure 4 indicate that the early initiation of breast milk increased from 82.1 percent (147 of 179) in round 1 (July 2017) to 94 percent (47 of 51) in Round 5 (July 2019) and the exclusive breastfeeding (from 0-5 months) rate increased from 68.7 percent (25 of 37) to 88 percent (12 of 14) among survey households12. However, as shown in the right graph of figure 4, the Minimum Dietary Diversity (MDD) and Minimum Meal Frequency (MMF) indicators were almost static, and then rose sharply in between July 2018 to December 2018 followed by a sharp decline in July 2019. The graphs were consistently low during Round 1, 3, and 513. From the field visit, it was observed that this pattern can be attributed to the seasonality in the program implementing areas: July is usually a lean season for
Figure 4: Results of Breastfeeding and Complementary feeding results since July 2017
12 The reducing numbers over the years are due to the fact that the sample was picked at a time when the selected households had a pregnant or lactating mother. Over the last three years that has changed leading to a much lower count in some of the applicable parameters. This could have an impact on precision and is therefore to be treated as indicative.
13 Rounds 1, 3, and 5 which are comparable due to seasonality and other factors were collected in July 2017, July 2018 and July 2019 respectively
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vegetables and other food with very limited income opportunities available for the PEP households. It also is likely that the reduction in household income negatively influences the purchasing capacity and food consumption. In the Kander village of Jamalpur district where Binora is from, the elders say that pregnant women should not eat so much food as it would make their babies larger than normal, and would complicate their pregnancy and delivery. She believed this too with her first two children, and even ended up not visiting a healthcare provider to check on her baby. It is no wonder that first two children were underweight. In her third pregnancy while participating in the SHOUHARDO III program, she learned about essential HHN actions discussed in courtyard sessions and started receiving monthly commodity rations. With the help and counseling of the Community Health Volunteer who supported her all throughout pregnancy, Binora’s husband and mother-in-law became more conscious about her needs in the third pregnancy and they provided appropriate home care, accompanied Binora to health facilities for ANC visits from nearby Upazila Health Complex in Islampur. She gave birth to Dilsan, her third baby who had a healthy weight of 3.5 kg. Binora has taken her son faithfully to GMP sessions regularly, and that coupled with good feeding actions has resulted in her child having a growth card that is consistently green indicating optimal growth. This last child was 13 months old when program staff visited her she said that she and her husband were exploring family planning options that would be suitable for them.
Sub-Purpose 2.2: Improved access to health and nutrition services According to the FLAIRb study, the number of live births receiving at least four antenatal care (ANC) visits during pregnancy increased from 20 percent (48 of 240) in July 2018 to 61 percent (134 of 221) of surveyed household. According to PaBSS, health seeking behaviors increased including the percentage of PLW taking iron supplements in last seven days has increased from 32.6 percent (250 of 766) 36.2 percent (326 of 900) of surveyed households).
Working on the supply side, the program mobilized Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoH&FW) frontline staff on improving community level health services through the Community Group 14and Community Support Group15 training that reached 1,732 community health care practitioners. In addition, SHOUHARDO III’s Program Advisory Coordination Committee (PACC) field visits and active facilitation of nutrition coordination committees at the local level promoted Community Groups and Community Support Groups to improve government services for PEP communities. It is worth mentioning here that the program advocated with the health department to strengthen their services for Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) children, referring 33 children to the Upazila Health and Family Welfare Complex.
SHOUHARDO III’s national level engagement with the MoH&FW is complemented by its work at the grassroots level by mobilizing Community Groups and Community Support Group members in helping Community Clinics to deliver efficient services for PEP. As a result, the majority of 228 Community Clinics (within program villages or adjacent villages) followed the standard government schedule of business hours (i.e. every day from 9am to 3pm except Fridays). The same applies for the Upazila Health and Family Welfare Clinics (UH&FWC) with
14 Community Group (CG) has been formed for all the functional Community Clinics (CCs). This is management body of CCs. The group is headed by elected Union Parishad member of that locality. 15 Community Support Group (CSG) is a new & an addition for better community engagement. In the catchment area of each CC, there will be three CSGs comprising of 13-17 members with at least one third women members.
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staff regularly present. Increased monitoring effort through frequent field visits made by government staff has strengthened the accountability of these facilities in catering to the health-
Parvin Sultana is a Family Welfare Visitor, based at Kastal Union Health & Family Well Fare Centre (UH&FWC), in Austagram Upazila, Kishoreganj district. She attended an orientation session held by SHOUHARDO III on the role of health-care providers where she got clarification on how to provide better services for the PEP. From this orientation, she learned her basic roles and responsibilities as a service provider and how to coordinate delivery of public health service to serve more people. Previously, she did not report regularly for her duty since patients were not coming to receive services. After this workshop, she had regular attendance and visited four satellite clinics at four different villages per month to provided essential services to communities. According to her, “now it is more engaging for me to provide services to the people given that they were also made aware of the services we could provide them.”
related needs of the PEP communities. Furthermore, it is worth noting that improved access to health and nutrition services was possible due to other interventions of the program that increased the income of PLW households that in turn helped PLW meet additional costs for travelling to the health facilities. Moreover, other interventions increased women’s mobility that in-turn helped PLW to leave their homes to receive health and nutrition services. The program also managed to facilitate providing support to form and make functional district and upazila level nutrition coordination committees by addressing all nutrition-related challenges and engaging the private sector as well.
Sub-Purpose 2.3: Reduced prevalence of water-borne diseases SHOUHARDO III worked on reducing prevalence of water-borne diseases by working with two main actors, namely: a) the Department of Public Health Engineering (DPHE)16 from the public sector on water quality testing; and b) International Development Enterprises (iDE17) who SHOUHARDO III sub-contracted for the development and installation of latrines in the very challenging contexts of deep Haor and remote Char.
During this fiscal year, the program conducted regular household latrine demonstration sessions in different communities. In FY19, a total of 956 households received basic latrine materials including ring, slab and vent pipes from the program. A Focus Group Discussion (FGD) was conducted with the participants initially targeted with latrine installations. In the FGD, SHOUHARDO III participants commented the following regarding their satisfaction with latrines:
“This new model seems better than the previous ones we saw in our lifetime. It is odorless, easy to maintain and pretty stable. Even our neighbors who are not part of the program were interested in setting up this type of latrine. We are keeping it clean and ensuring there is soap and water inside. We are hoping to save more and invest in this so that we could hopefully find a sustainable solution to our chronic issue on toilet use.”
16Department of Public Health Engineering is a government agency responsible for providing and maintaining water and sewerage lines in Bangladesh. 17 https://www.ideglobal.org/country/bangladesh
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These latrines combined with other activities of the program under HHN contributed to the reduction of diarrhea for children between 6-23 months of age (6.9 percent (51 of 740) and in FY18 to 6.4 (56 of 874) in FY19). The PaBSS 2019 data showed a strong correlation18 between the prevalence of diarrhea and mention of the importance of handwashing before breastfeeding or feeding a child. The proportion of mothers reporting a child with diarrhea was 3.8% for those who stated that it is important to wash hands before breastfeeding, and more than twice as high (8.3%) among those who did not state the importance of washing hands before breastfeeding. Handwashing at 5 critical times increased from 12.1 in FY18 to 15.7 in FY19, though the program set a target of 25% in FY19. Hand washing at critical times is a composite indicator including (1) before eating, (2) after defecation, (3) after cleaning the child following defecation, (4) before cooking, and (5) before breastfeeding or feeding child. The program has gradually recorded improved hand washing at different critical times, specifically 92.7% before eating, 90.7% after defecation, and 72.2% after cleaning the child. However, critical times at before cooking (55.1%) and before breastfeeding or feeding child (36.9%) are low. The program intends to further explore/flesh out what is causing a slower increase for the latter two critical times. Identified reasons will help the program to develop strategies to roll out actions in the field to achieve desired behavioral changes at all times.
Under the program intervention around ensuring water quality 15,159 TW were selected for arsenic field tests in the Char and Haor and also 6,106 TW were selected for coliform tests at DPHE lab. The arsenic test result showed that only 2.11% (288 TW) were arsenic contaminated, meaning they exceeded the Bangladesh standard of 50 ppb. On the contrary, 82.89% (2,525 TW) were contaminated with faecal coliform. The program disseminated these results to the community and provided awareness messages on the harm and need to test. The program has been piloting a model to develop water quality testers at the local level and at the same time lobbying DPHE to ensure regular testing and support for affected communities with deeper tube wells beneath the contamination strata.
18 Pearson correlation coefficient r (766) =0.78, p<0.034
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The PaBSS results showed that 68.2 percent (1,163 of 1,559) of the households were using improved sanitation facilities, which significantly decreased from 74.9 percent (991 of 1428) in FY18. The reason is that the floods that occurred in July 2019 had a devastating effect and washed away latrine structures, which compelled households Najina from Nama para village, to start constructing new ones. SHOUHARDO III exceeded Kaligonj union, Nageswari upazila, their target for access to basic sanitation by introducing direct Kurigram district feels safe and comfortable to use the new latrine financial support from the program and also through awareness installed by SHOUHARDO III sessions at community. This was an attempt to meet the LOA through iDE. "For the first time, I was targets and embark on the market-led activities without having able to use latrine during the floods. It is a potential conflict in the subsidy and the market model. sturdy enough and even my neighbors were surprised that the latrine was not washed away immediately. Not only In terms of context specific intervention design, that, it does not have foul smell too and SHOUHARDO III operates in the remotest locations of the we don't worry about flies anymore." Haor and Char areas of northern Bangladesh, both of which Photo: CARE need contextualized approaches to sanitation. The MTE identified the sanitation technologies improvement as critical to ensure enhanced hygiene and the consequent nutritional outcome in target participants’ households. ubsidy and market model.
SHOUHARDO III partnered with PRO-WASH to explore innovations for improved the sanitation technologies for these remote locations. A “WASH innovation challenge” entitled Sanitation in Complex Operational Environment (SCORE) was conducted over a four-month engagement. iDE conducted a research following the human-centered design approach19 through conducting rapid prototyping and participatory in-depth interviews with relevant stakeholders in the program areas that included the participants (in Kurigram and Sunamganj districts), potential service providers, and PNGO staff. The result, Nirapod20 latrine that has four models: basic, basic+, offset and offset+ (illustrated on in Figure 5). The program will scale up the model in FY20.
Purpose 3: Strengthened gender equitable ability of people, households, communities and systems to mitigate, adapt to and recover from man- made and natural shocks.
Figure 5: Nirapod latrine models Courtesy: iDE
19 https://www.ideglobal.org/story/human-centered-design
20 “Nirapod”, combines the Bangla word for safe which is Nirapod and the English word “Pod” which means a streamlined enclosure, housing, or detachable container
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To mitigate and respond to shocks, SHOUHARDO III worked on increasing the preparedness level of PEP households and communities and at the same time strengthened the local government institutions’ capacity through the implementation of Disaster and Climate Risk Management (DCRM) in FY19. Program studies and surveys indicated that people’s capacities in mitigating, adapting and using positive coping mechanisms for recovering from shocks increased significantly. In July 2019, a widespread flood in the north western and eastern part of Bangladesh led to losses of crops, livestock, shelter and employment opportunities which significantly affected overall livelihoods and income, especially for the PEP. The Rapid Need Assessment (RNA) report shows that around 2.4 million people in the SHOUHARDO III areas were largely affected by this widespread flooding. This flood also tested the resilience of participants, where they coped appropriately, as backed up by the Flood Recurrent Monitoring System discussed below.
SHOUHARDO III completed all infrastructures such as culverts and school cum flood shelter factoring in the environmental compliance in order to reduce communities’ vulnerabilities caused by natural disasters.
Sub-Purpose 3.1: Increased preparedness of PEP households and communities to mitigate and respond to shocks
In the PaBSS survey, 58.6 percent (514 of 977) surveyed household took several household- level preparedness measures such as storing household-level food, clothes and medicine, raised their homesteads and saved money for emergency use. Field visits confirmed that during the floods in July, the participants took initiatives such as identified evacuation centers, stored portable stoves, dried food and drinking water, and kept some cash from their savings.
To mitigate risks and for early preparedness, different collective actions like maintaining emergency funds, road maintenance and repairing, bamboo bridge construction, latrine installation, homestead plinth raising, vaccination camps and use of innovative methods like vegetable cultivation/seedling by bag method were completed in Char and Haor before the monsoon season (i.e. before June).
All 947 villages reviewed their individual community’s risk reduction and contingency plan which included identified potential risks and developed risk reduction strategy. Following these, the participants raised their issues, required support and actions to the Union Disaster Management Committee (UDMC) for further consideration of reducing underlying risk factors and preparedness for effective response in the Union Disaster Management Plan (UDMP).
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As per the PaBSS FY19 report, Mr. Saidur Sheikh from Char Baitkamari village of Islampur households that reported receiving risk upazila is a user of the 1090 hotline. During the floods in and early warning information July, he was informed that the water level is rapidly increased to 84.2 percent (1,292 of increasing. He himself went to the riverside to observe the 1,559) in 2019, compared to 27.7 situation and found that the water level was increasing in percent (248 of 895) in the baseline in high speed that would affect one of his neighbors, Razia, FY16. UDMCs coordinated with the with her house located in the low land area of the riverside. Union Information Service Centre He called on the other community members and helped (UISC) entrepreneurs who helped to Razia to evacuate her household assets and saved her provide early warning messages using family. the government portal21. Moreover, by using the toll-free hotline number 1090 run by Bangladesh Metrological Department (BMD), the participants received early warning information using their mobile phones.
The participants protected their livelihoods by building and repairing the livestock and poultry sheds for better protection of livestock during extreme weather. This year, the established engagement with the government through the program’s governance efforts through the years paid off. In relation to achieving resilience in production, the Bangladesh Institute of Nuclear Agriculture (BINA) provided flood-tolerant rice varieties (BINA-XI) to farmers in the Haor that have special features of being able to maintain water logging for 20-25 days, and matures early, hence takes lesser time to cultivate. This is a crucial initiative as Haor is normally underwater for six months each year and having an alternative rice variety that could keep up with this challenge is a huge relief for farmers. In Char, the participants received BINA-9 variety which is lodging resistant and was made to grow better in this region, particularly in Jamalpur and Kurigram districts. Participants ultimately seized the opportunity to cultivate these additional high yield crops to increase their income.
In relation to responding to shocks, the participants’ Coping Strategy Index (CSI) score increased slightly in FY19 from 58 to 67 a reflection of the impact of the July flooding that led to participants’ households turning to some of their coping mechanisms. According to conversations with participants in the field, they shared that they primarily made use of their savings in times of disaster. Previously, reducing their meal intakes was their first response to lessen expenses as disasters also affect their livelihoods. During the floods, the participants moved their items with the help of others. Photo: CARE FLAIRb data collected before the flood, showed that none of the households applied this response during the fifth round whereas this was high in the first round with 18% of findings.
21 http://www.bmd.gov.bd/
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Following the floods in July, SHOUHARDO III sampled 36 women participants to monitor their situation after the disaster through a recurrent monitoring system approach (RMS) over a seven week period during the flood.
This was done through on-site visits, followed by over-the-phone follow up query. The overall information provided by them suggested that many of them were most vulnerable during the first four weeks starting from August 2019 as they lost field crops, vegetables, cattle, and poultry. During the floods, most households reported lacking income opportunities affecting their food consumption. One of the key coping strategies, for most of them, was to cut their household food expenditure by consuming less quantity and cheaper food. Some reported borrowing food supplies from their neighbors. Other coping strategies adopted by most of the respondents were selling off their cattle and taking a loan. As part of their recovery plan, they have started growing vegetables in their homestead (that were water clogged during the flood), planting short-cycled field crop (rice), and rearing goats and poultry.
The RMS found that 32 of the respondent households were able to get bounce back to their livelihoods and food provisioning within the seven-week period; three were still working their way to recovery and one ended up in a worse condition unable to adopt any appropriate coping or meaningful recovery strategies. The following cases summarize the experience of one household that recovered (Case 1) and the experience of the only household that apparently could not bounce back (Case 2).
Case 1: Moriom’s family, from Hapania village in Chowhali Upazila in Sirajganj district, was affected by floods that damaged her house, her vegetable garden, and even lost some of her ducks and feed. Due to scarcity of fodder, she was obliged to sell the cow that she owns. Otherwise, the cow’s food alone would be too much to bear. Her elder son migrated temporarily to earn by rickshaw-pulling. When the flood waters receded within 2 weeks of initial high levels, she immediately started growing vegetables again as well as short-variety rice crop. To augment the urgent needs of her family, she borrowed money from a relative. About a month after, she started selling vegetables again and slowly earned income. These actions indicate she was on her way to bouncing back this unexpected flooding in terms of intensity.
Case 2: Rusona lives in Bangalpara village in Bakshiganj Upazila in Jamalpur district. During the floods, she lost the seed bed that she set up with premature seedlings, and fishes in the pond worth 5,000 BDT (60.22 USD). With the unprecedented flooding, she experienced loss of income, and as a coping strategy, she had to reduce the number of meals her family ate even for three small children. She struggled to recover as she had not finished paying the loan she had taken to grow the vegetables and fish, and could not be granted approval for loan that she could have made use of to recover.
Sub-Purpose 3.2: Local Government Institutions’ (Union Parishad) Capacity and implementation of DCRM activities increased
All the Union Parishads (UP) from 115 target unions adopted the UDMP. This achievement is attributed to SHOUHARDO III efforts on strengthening governance efforts to manage disaster risks. This was done so where the program provided capacity-building training to the UDMCs of all 115 working unions on their role and responsibilities, reviewing the UDMP and how to
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engage the members of the UP committees. After receiving the training, all UDMCs developed their UDMPs and were updated on a regular basis throughout the reporting year. Influenced by UDMC and Union Disaster Volunteers (UDVs), 71 out of 115 unions allocated special budgets for disaster and risk mitigation activities such as road maintenance, latrine construction and plinth raising. For example, Saghata Union Parishad of Saghata Upazila under Gaibandha district allocated 485,700 BDT (5,850.39 USD) for DCRM purpose.
Specific to the floods in July, UDMC played crucial role in supporting local governments to distribute government relief to flood-affected households and collaborated with other programs led by other NGOs. UP Chairman of Kapasia Union in Gaibandha district provided a fully constructed house (estimate value is USD 1,204.52) to 10 vulnerable families who were displaced in river erosion. In Sunamganj, UDMC and UDVs jointly provided about 400 different kinds of sapling in schools and assisted in plantation.
Although the early warning practice is a proven approach for risk reduction, in Bangladesh it is not location specific, neither user-friendly in terms of utilization of information. The lead time of this information is often not enough to undertake preventive measures. Moreover, available information is not translated into a usable, actionable format (e.g. for agriculture, livestock sector) through the existing resources and communities’ capacity. Thus, in July 2019, CARE formalized a technical partnership with RIMES for generating location-specific early warning and weather forecasts and provides advisory service to the agriculture and livestock farmers as well. Lastly, SHOUHARDO III constructed infrastructures applying environmental compliance in order to reduce communities’ vulnerabilities caused by the natural disasters and contextual barriers. During the 2019 floods, even non-program participants took shelter in the SHOUHARDO III constructed school cum flood shelters. They stayed there for an average of two weeks as their shelters were inundated, and their livestock needed space to recover too. The summary of infrastructure activities is given in table 4 below:
Table 4: Disaster mitigation infrastructure progress Type of scheme No. of Scheme No. of Scheme Status Planned in Completed in FY19 FY19 U-Drain Culvert 36 36 Completed School cum Flood 7 10 9 FY18 schemes from previous year Shelter are completed in this FY. 4 FY19 Mound Protection 4 3 schemes are completed in FY19. Wall Remaining FY19 schemes are on- going.
Purpose 4: Increased Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equity
SHOUHARDO III emphasizes gender equality and women’s empowerment across all purpose areas. It promoted women’s leadership at both the household and community level and facilitated women’s economic empowerment including access to financial services. Building on its learning from working with the most socio-economically marginalized communities, the program intensified the engagement of men, boys, and other household members who influence
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gender relations. Towards the end of the first quarter of this year, the program started transitioning to a more sustainable journey founded on the principle of community-driven development. Part of this process led to the reformation of the previous community groups, for example, Empowerment, Knowledge and Transformative Action (EKATA), to self-selected and cohesive community groups that will ensure that the best of EKATA, particularly women solidarity and collective action for social addressing social challenges, is fused with economic gains for its members. Therefore, the integration of gender awareness and agency building became priority for all community groups rather than being a silo.
In FY19, program participants, especially women, reported increased access to resources and services (e.g. increased production, ANC services), better decision-making capacity and participation in community platforms, greater awareness of women and girls’ rights, increased control over income, and better cooperation from men and boys both within and outside their households. An overview of the accomplishments and outcomes related to women and girls’ empowerment and gender during this reporting year is given below:
Sub-Purpose 4.1: Strengthened agency of women
SHOUHARDO III has built women and girls’ capacity in ways in which they can break gender stereotypes and manage a sustainable livelihood. Empowering women through agriculture and access to other socio-economic opportunities is a driving force behind this. According to the PaBSS (2019), 75.9 percent (255 of 336) of women surveyed reported increased agricultural production while 75.8 percent (290 of 350) of women reported that they had market access.
Meneka Rani, from Sundarganj in Gaibandha, is one of the examples of how better access to markets changes the life of the poor in a positive way. Altogether, she received a cash input of BDT 6,000 (USD72.27) from the program which she invested in her small business of selling saree (a six-yard long cloth worn by women in Bangladesh). She purchases cloths from the local wholesale market (Mirganj Bazar) in Sundargonj, Gaibandha. While purchasing, she compares the price among four to five different wholesalers and always goes for quality products with the lowest price. She goes door to door to sell saree and her monthly gross sales are worth BDT 24,000 (USD289.08). She determines the price by including a minimum of 30% profit while selling saree. In addition to these sales, she also earns BDT 700 (USD8.43) by selling vegetables from her homestead vegetable garden and puffed rice. She is the primary decision maker when it comes to purchasing assets for her households with the money that she earns.
Prior to the MTE, SHOUHARDO III applied the EKATA approach to create group solidarity and raise the voice of women and adolescent girls to challenge harmful social norms, like violence against women and early marriage. Building on the learning and knowledge from EKATA, the program participants particularly women and girls, increased their knowledge and skills, and continued to promote, challenge, and demand their rights, both individually and collectively. During a focus group discussion in Noahati village under Shibpasha union of Azmiriganj upazila, Habiganj, the EKATA members (seven women) stated that they continued to raise awareness to stop child marriage and violence against women, and they promoted joint decision making between husband and wife. They shared that the result of EKATA could be noticed in their community as harmful practices like child marriage and violence against women was gradually reducing. This group suggested that women’s decision-making has also improved,
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and they could visit service providers (e.g. Union Parishad, community clinics, and satellite clinics), schools, and markets more often.
The program worked to improve women’s social and economic status and increase their productivity. Women’s access to and control over productive resources and decision making are crucial in this aspect. SHOUHARDO III’s Theory of Change (ToC) in the area of women’s empowerment entailed that women’s control over household income along with equitable household relationship will strengthen their agency. According to the PaBSS 2019, 59.2 percent (106 out of 184) women and girls aged 15 to 25 made decision about their self-earned cash.
As mentioned in the Purpose 1 narrative, the program went through a robust change in its work related to financial inclusion, more specifically VSLAs. The program participants formed 5,756 groups of which 690 were VSLAs in FY19, and all the VSLA groups had only female members. SHOUHARDO III’s work with these groups started driving positive changes in ensuring financial access and business opportunities for women and girls.
Ambia Dayol, a VSLA group member in Bara Bhita union, is an example of how women are stepping into small-scale business. She spent USD72.27 that came from her savings (USD60.22) and a VSLA loan of USD12.04 to buy two goats in August 2019. The market of these goats are now USD144.54. Program participants like Ambia are an inspiration for the program because it started working with PEP people who now four years down the road, are able to access to financial services and utilize their potential.
Empowering women to participate in and lead public and private institutions makes these institutions more representative and effective. Bangladesh has made significant progress in ensuring public participation in recent years, which has stimulated change and reformation in social norms and practices at the individual and institutional level.22 In FY19, several EKATA members in Kurigram actively participated in different UP committees to ensure their rights and entitlements. EKATA members in the same district successfully stopped 14 child-forced marriages with the assistance of Village Development Committee (VDC) and UP. Fikir Ali from Islampur, Jamalpur is one of those male program participants who played a vital role in challenging harmful social practices. He was trained to be a Male Champion (active agents of changing social norms in favor of women empowerment and gender equality). He said, “I conduct discussions with my peers at Masud Mia’s tea stall. Our discussion is often on girls' marriage at a young age and violence against women in the household. In February 2019, I got to know from local people that Aijol Ali (one of the villagers) was planning to marry off his 15- year-old daughter. I immediately talked to him about the negative effects of early marriage. It felt good when I saw that he postponed the marriage.”
Sub-Purpose 4.2 Improved environment for women’s empowerment
22 https://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/institutional-document/31338/cga-women-bangladesh.pdf
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In Bangladesh, increased participation in the workforce has not translated into equal employment opportunities for men and women23. Women and men tend to work in very different parts of the economy and often face different challenges. In Bangladesh, a high prevalence of Gender-based Violence (GBV) is a constraint to individual and societal development and has high human and economic costs. To create an enabling environment for women and girls, the program intervened to engage men as proponents of and participants in gender equality. The major initiatives were training Male Champions, facilitating couple dialogue, household counseling, dialogue with religious leader, lobby with Nari Nirjaton Protirodh Committee (NNPC24), and mobilization of women through EKATA. These interventions brought positive changes in the targeted communities. Findings obtained from the ROI study suggested that most of the female respondents were more confident to work and produce quality products after receiving training. One of the female respondents who was trained on handicrafts said, “People in my village know that I am trained in handicrafts making; it helps me to get orders easily.” The study indicated social changes in communities as around 91 percent (284 of 312) respondents (female 172; male 112) that they do not support dowry. The study also found almost all the respondents (98.4 percent - 307 of 312) did not support the practice of child marriage and were aware of the negative impacts of early marriage.
Another MTE recommendation was to ensure men and boys’ engagement to foster women’s empowerment and achieve gender equality. As part of this process, the program emphasized strengthening intra-household relationships between husband and wife. The program has been facilitating all newly formed community groups and mainstreaming gender equality and women empowerment into these groups. Each and every group will have a gender progress marker to help facilitate the community's visioning in enhancing women's empowerment in a sustainable manner. Field visit observations suggested that couples’ dialogues aided husbands to better consult with their wives in decision making and proactively participating in household responsibilities to reduce women’s workload.
Participating in couples’ dialogues improved the household situation of Bely Khatun and Hafizar Rahaman in Fulchhari, Gaibandha. Hafizar used to beat his wife, Bela, whenever he was angry. Bela sought solace from the VDC and EKATA members. Soon, the VDC and EKATA members organized a couples’ dialogue in their village. In that particular session, other couples discussed the negative effects of violence against women. Hafizur realized that domestic violence in the household had hampered their conjugal life. He said, “I will not do the same in future and will share my experience with others.”
Another approach in ending GBV is organizing Men’s Forums at the village level to create awareness, motivate, and initiate action to address and respond to GBV. According to the PaBSS 2019, 65.4 percent (864 of 1336) surveyed women received assistance from their husband with household chores. Typically, Bangladeshi men do not share the burden of
23 https://asiafoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/EDIG-Female-employment-stagnation-in- Bangladesh_report.pdf
24 Union-level committee addressing Gender-based Violence in rural Bangladesh
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household chores, hence, it required a lot of support to confront and challenge the stereotyped norms and practice to initiate changes like this. One of the male participants, Md. Nuruzzaman in Sundargonj, Gaibandha, shared, “I never thought of helping my wife at home. If I ever saw a man working in his home, I would think that he was not a real man. However, after attending the Men’s Forum, I realized that there is no shame in helping my wife and it will actually benefit my family if I help her. Now, I help her with household tasks and encourage other men to do the same”. Now that Nuruzzaman’s wife spends more time with their small business, helping him sell betel leaf. This couple jointly make decisions about their household issues.
Gender equality and female empowerment are core development objectives, fundamental for the realization of human rights and key to effective and sustainable development outcomes. The program developed Male Champions in the community so that they can promote positive norms and practices in the long run. They already started to raise awareness on mutual decision making, household responsibilities sharing, and reducing GBV. The following narrative includes the profile of a Male Champion, named Hamid.
Hamid lives in Nikli, Kishoreganj, one of program implementing areas in Haor. Three years ago (FY16), Hamid was selected by the villagers through a participatory process as a Male Champion. He attended a training provided by SHOUHARDO III along with other men where he learned about the roles and responsibilities of a Male Champion.
Hamid has always been an advocate for girls’ education in his community. The training improved his understanding and knowledge and he became more determined. He is actively involved in resolving domestic violence through consultation. He tries to explain to the family how domestic violence can be harmful. He shared an incident that a woman in his village was experiencing physical violence by her husband. He initially spoke to her husband and tried to make him understand that it was wrong. Her husband did not pay heed to what Hamid said. Therefore, he Hamid, a Male Champion and an advocate talked to her mother-in-law and told her, “She (her against child marriage. Photo © CARE, 2019. daughter-in-law) left her mother, father, and other relatives and is living with you. You should act like her mother and care for her just like you would treat your own daughter. Why can’t you treat her like a human being?” After several consultations, her mother-in-law realized and told her son to stop. Hamid never expects anything in return of his contribution to women empowerment. He boldly said, “I do not worry about what I’ll get in return of my work; addressing people’s needs is the most important thing to me.”
Purpose 5: Provision and utilization of public services (Local Elected Bodies & Nation Building Departments) for communities especially for PEP women increased. The SHOUHARDO III program is an advocate of good governance and aims for it to be promoted at all levels. In this reporting year, the program built the capacity of the PEP households to demand and negotiate public services. It facilitated the process of enhancing
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accountability of Locally Elected Bodies (LEBs) and Nation Building Departments (NBDs). In FY19, the program continued to support UPs to organize the Union Development Coordination Committee (UDCC) meeting with PEP representations and worked closely with the Program Advisory and Coordination Committees (PACC), consisting of representatives from 14 Ministries of the Government of Bangladesh at the national, divisional, district and upazila levels to ensure better and sustainable services for the vulnerable communities. The results of these activities cut across in accelerated achievements of other purposes – including those focused on livestock, fisheries, health and family planning, as well as women affairs. Major achievements of this reporting year are given below:
5.1: Poor and Extreme Poor communities, particularly women, are able to demand and negotiate increased public service provision.
The program facilitated the process of empowering the community and strengthened the accountability of government service providers. In order to assess the capacity of UP, the program applied a Management Score Sheet (MSS25), which is a participatory tool for assessing institutional capacity on management, transparency, governance, and women empowerment. In FY19, according to MSS, the management capacity score of VDCs’ was 82 compared to 73 in FY17. This is indicative that the program rigorously strengthened the capacity of VDC. For example, the VDC members in Phulbari, Kurigram mobilized the whole community in constructing a bamboo bridge over a canal, which created better access of community people to schools, markets and health facilities. The program in cnosultation with communities has been reviewing the VDC model and has come up with two approaches where communities decide between the existing VDCs, taking some members from the old VDCs and mixing with new members, or form completely new VDCs. The principle is that the community groups have the choice and ultimately need a VDC that represents their interests, and not how they had been set up before to support program implementation.
SHOUHARDO III continued its support to PEP in accessing services related to health, agricultural production, and DCRM. Results26 suggested that 60 percent (542 of 900) of children aged below 12 months were immunized on eight diseases following the government protocol. As stated in section 2.1 ANC visits increased with 57 percent (125 of 221) pregnant women receiving this service from community clinics up from 20 percent (28 of 140) pregnant women receiving antenatal care from community clinics. This influenced the health outcomes positively as this would reduce the chances of children falling sick as well as a reduction in the household medical expenditures.
Access to information was crucial in FY19, because several programs implementing areas were severely affected by floods. The PaBSS also revealed that 84.2 percent (1292 of 1559) of the respondents received early warning and climate risk information. Accessing early warning information helped participant households in taking preparation before the flood.
25 http://www.carebangladesh.org/shouhardoIII/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/ME-Plan_SHOUHARDO-III_CARE.pdf
26 The PaBSS 2019
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In this reporting period, the communities realized their own strengths to resolve problems with the support from LEBs and local elites. They took collective actions for road maintenance, small bridge construction, tree plantation, and vaccination. MSS results suggested that 93 percent (177 of 190) PEP members in UP committees reported meaningful participation. For instance, Mosammat Hafsa, a PEP member in Tahirpur, Sunamganj, attended a UDCC meeting and demanded UP resources for repairing a one-kilometer long road in their village as it was often inundated after little/moderate rain. The road was connected to the primary school and the local market. Therefore, the students and villagers were having trouble in commuting. After they raised this in the UDCC, the chairman sanctioned necessary budget to repair the road.
Sub-Purpose 5.2: Local Elected Bodies & Nation Building Department services are responsive to the needs of communities, especially to PEP women.
The program continued to support UPs in organizing the Union Development Coordination Committee (UDCC) meetings by engaging frontline NBD staff, local elites, and representatives from the PEP communities for better coordination and to ensure quality services across all levels of development stakeholders. The UDCC27 steers the development at the union level that meets bi-monthly and includes a range of stakeholders, like – NGOs, private service providers, PEP representatives, and local elites. Working with UDCC instead of a number of committees including UP Nari Nirjaton Protirodh Committee (NNPC) and UDMC, ensured a coordinated effort for the community development. Results from MSS 2019 suggested that 115 UP meeting decisions were based on the need for PEP. It28 also found that the mean management score of UP was 85.38.
SHOUHARDO III reinforced its effort to sustain linkages between local community leaders and government service providers. In FY19, an increasing number of program participants reported receving services related to agriculture, health and nutrition, hygiene, climate risk awareness, and women’s rights. In this reporting year, increasing interaction among PEP housheolds and governemnt service providers led to improved governemnt service delivery. The 2019 PaBSS found that 56.7 percent (884 of 1559) of surveyed respondents were satisfied with the overall services provided by the local government. Results from the MSS showed that 57.8 percent (113 of 230) households reporting that their communities raised their demand to local government related to Disaster and Climate Risk Management (DCRM). The result of institutionalizing community need was visible in most of the implementing areas in FY19. For instance, in Nikli Upazila 12 households received fully constructed houses from the ASHRAYAN-2 project29, a government program working to alleviate the poverty of the landless and homeless families of Bangladesh. The approximate value of each house is BDT 100,000 (USD1,204.52).
27https://www.undp.org/content/dam/bangladesh/img/Projects/UZGP/CPS%2520report_edited_MH%2520_Final%2520repor%25 202015.pdf
28 MSS 2019
29 http://www.ashrayanpmo.gov.bd/site/page/5e75d465-34fa-48a6-b1af-54b983a666d7/-
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The program mobilized leaders from community groups to lobby with UP and ensure that participants avail services according to their needs. The program learnt from its implementation experience that in Haor, many people are landless; hence, there is an increasing demand for khasland. In FY19, 27 PEP households in Manik Khila and Mahmudpur villages in Tahirpur, Sunamganj were entitled to khasland (government owned fallow land). Each of them was allocated .5 hectare of land. One of them is Jely Begum, who lives in Patabuka village in Tahirpur, Sunamganj. She received khasland in FY19. She stated, “Now my family has no fear of eviction. We are living and utilizing this khasland without any fear. I have started growing vegetables and rearing poultry.”
SHOUHARDO III applied an integrated approach to get the maximum impact out of its interventions. Its work on strengthening local government including the NBD had multiplied achievements in areas of production, livelihood, and disaster risk management. Findings from the Youth-Led Food Mapping (YLFM) suggested that most of the field crop farmers received greater technical support from the Sub Assistant Agriculture Officer (SAAO) on quality seeds and increased production. Moreover, in FY19, not only a good number of youths received training from government technical institutes but also were registered in the government skilled labor list, which will ease the process of their employment either nationally or abroad. In addition, results from RMTS suggested that there was an increased adoption of UDMP by local government institutions. Pro-poor actions from the UP were also noticed in Fulchari, Sundarganj, and Shaghata Upazila, Gaibandha, one of the severely affected districts30 by the 2019 flood where 412 program participants received paddy seedling from the UP.
Bangladesh is on the verge of becoming a lower-middle income country. Nonetheless, the benefit of its economic growth has not trickled down to the bottom of the pyramid population. Thus far, ensuring people’s effective participation through greater accountability is essential. One of the initiatives taken by the Government of Bangladesh (GoB) to ensure this was introducing the provision of open budgets under section 57 of the Union Parishad Act 2009. In FY19, 18 unions in Char Rajibpur, Nageshwari, Fulbari, and Rajarhat held open budget meetings where PEP representatives voiced their opinion and raised their needs (e.g. road maintenance, safety nets). This implies that the program’s intent of community-driven development is gradually becoming a reality as more communities are empowered to the extent where they can identify their needs, mobilize by themselves, and raise demands to service providers. Given that the program is developing Local Service Providers (LSPs) to address the gaps in service and technical support, it aims to reinforce its effort to strengthen the relationships between them and local government for sustaining its impact.
In FY19, The program facilitated PACC meetings at the national, divisional, district, and upazila levels to review and support program progress and identify ways to improve government services for the PEP. Following the meetings, PACC members visited several program sites and interacted with program participants. Abeda Akter, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Social Welfare, GoB reflected during her visit to Sunamganj in this reporting year, stating, “I am truly amazed to
30 https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/nation/2019/07/19/gaibandha-worst-hit-by-floods, cited on 16 October 2019
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see the program activities. It was very apparent from the words of the community people that because of all the community groups formed by SHOUHARDO III, the livelihoods of these people have significantly improved.” The PACC members also suggested areas for further improvement in the program.
4 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT MONITORING AND EVALUATION 4.1 Monitoring and evaluation This year, with all the adjustments that took place from strategic to community level, the program achieved remarkable results in its aim to deliver holistic approaches to food security in northern Bangladesh. The results that reflected significant changes in the participants’ lives were supported by two of the major studies that SHOUHARDO III adopted: (i) Fostering Learning and Adaptation in Resilience Building (FLAIRb) 31, a longitudinal panel study surveying 680 respondents every six months that started in July 2017 and finished its fifth round this FY19, and ii) the annual Participants’ Based Sample Survey (PaBSS) formerly known as BBSS, which stood for Beneficiary-Based Sample Survey that sampled 1,560 respondents but extrapolated to represent all the targeted (168,521) households. The FY19 IPTT also (attached in Annex 4) exemplified overall improvement in specific areas from FY16 (baseline level) to FY19 the fourth year of the program and resembles out-turn of strategic interventions made by SHOUHARDO III:
The program’s Systems for Tracking Results and Evidence for Adaptive Management (STREAM) has been more reliable than ever, especially in FY19 where various changes and emerging result areas took center stage. One of the added key features, is the real-time tracking of VSLAs as they setup new groups following the minimum USAID/FFP standards. It contains the vital information such as the group details, number of members, total amount of loan and total savings. The program also exhausted the online system in monitoring the overall progress of different purpose areas, details of participants and their locations. This helped in designing methodology for various internal research that the program conducted this year, such as ROI for youth and flood recurrent monitoring system.
31 http://www.carebangladesh.org/shouhardoIII/2018/11/28/shouhardo-iii-longitudinal-study/
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Following the groups reformation that started halfway through FY19, the program conducted the Village Grading exercise (Annex 5) where all the 947 villages assessed their performance and rated their villages vis-à-vis the program interventions that they received in the past three and a half years. After the assessments, the villages ranked as follows in all the eight districts of the program: 5.07 percent (48 of 947) villages ranked as strong, 81.7 percent (774 of 947) villages ranked moderate and 13.2 (125 of 947) village ranked as behind expected levels. Figure 6 alongside shows the geospatial results from the village grading exercise while Figure 6: Map of villages based on the Village Grading ranking Table 5 summarizes all the program M&E tools and procedures adopted by the program.
Table 5: Program M&E Data Sources
Source of M&E Summary of Content Evidence Based Learning that support Data Adaptive Management Routine Training Improve quality of intervention Monitoring Awareness Session Ensure Beneficiary eligibility and Tracking System Workshop transparency of cash transfer (RMTS) Cash Transfer Tracking progress towards stated And periodic progress of target. program intervention (like COG, GMP, counselling, IFA, youth employability etc.) Village Grading Purpose-wise set Identify and extract best and worst areas/indicators for performing villages including program assessment areas which helped in planning of need Categorized villages in based support for different community three categories (strong, level group. moderate and behind) Participants Track program results in Provide indication whether program Based Sample different purposes through achieves its stated outcomes as Survey (PaBSS) participants-based survey expected in specific areas of use survey questionnaire on intervention. five different purposes FY19 survey covered 1,560. (Agriculture, Health & Help to review ToC and make adjustment.
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Nutrition, WE, Resilience and Governance). Management Capacity Assessment of UP Assess the institutions and identify Score Sheet And VDC on some selected weak and strength area of (MSS) for UP areas intervention/strategy. and VDC Return on Assess the economic and Inform management about Investment (RoI) social returns of the skills effectiveness of different trades. Survey for Youth training provided to the Quality of training both lie in skill and youth participants of vocation. SHOUHARDO III. Recurrent Assess households’ capacity The findings supported participant Monitoring to manage shocks and households increased capacity to System (RMS) vulnerabilities during natural combat shocks and later explored disaster associated impacts on markets, health and other socio-economic facilities and livelihood determinants. Progress Qualitative Process Define program quality and efficiency Monitoring monitoring of program intervention. Tracking System (PMTS) Fostering Fixed targeted participants Measure the longitudinal effects of the Learning and Track periodic progress of project intervention. Based on a Adaptation in participants’ asset cohort of 680 HH Resilience ownership Determine if project interventions are Building Agriculture, food security, effectively contributing to the (FLAIRb) Health and nutrition, resilience capacities, and inform Women empowerment, program decisions on how to adjust Exposure to shock and interventions accordingly. resilience capacity
The program remained on top of what is taking place in the implementation through the systematic monitoring mechanisms in place such as Data Quality Assessment (monthly), Commodity Monitoring (monthly), Routine Monitoring Tracking System (quarterly), FLAIRb (bi- annually) and PaBSS (annually). Findings from these routine surveys/queries were discussed internally by the program and shared to relevant stakeholders such as USAID Dhaka Mission and CARE Bangladesh. Through this approach, the program is aware of any improvement required in delivering holistic food security interventions to the PEP of northern Bangladesh. 4.2 ToC Review FY19 SHOUHARDO III conducted a review of its Theory of Change (ToC) following the receipt of key results data (PaBSS and FLAIRb) in line with FFP recommendations, program Management and Technical Team from different technical and thematic areas led the thorough review while M&E team supported data source to make the review evidence based. The primary intend of the review was, how well the ToC represents the activity’s current implementation, observed outcomes, and factors that have affected either the implementation or outcomes. This review
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was focused on identifying key lessons; what has changed in the context, assumptions and external actors; how the activity has been affected by the context; and what new evidence has come to light, including programmatic findings, since the previous review. No Activity For ToC progress mapping, survey data (i.e. achieveme Planned in Fully nt, 3% FY20 19,6% achieved, FLAIRb, PaBSS), Routine Monitoring Tracking 37% Behind, System and other assessment tools were used as 16% key data sources. When reviewing TOCs, out of 140 ToC Result Level Statement 37 percent of targets were fully achieved, 23 percent were
Moderate, marked as good progress in the program. On the 15% other hand,15 percent of Result Level Statements reported moderate progress, whereas, 16 percent Good, 23% of outputs and outcomes fell significantly below targets and require further programmatic Figure 7: : ToC Progress Mapping Based on Data attention; while 3 percent of result areas had no achievement and around 19.6 percent of result statement will be assessed in following year since relevant intervention/activities are planned for FY20. Figure 7 alongside summarizes this analysis. The key takeaway from this year review revealed that as the program matures results will be spread across programmatic purpose and so should implementation. For example, with many women having achieve significant progress in building aspirations, the aspirations will only materialize into empowerment if incomes, access to public services and markets are improved all of which are not implemented as part it purpose four activities. One other key issue was the need to do a more robust review to update the ToC in line with the extension proposal focus as is appropriate. The program is planning this review by the time of submission of the first quarter report at the end of January 2020.
4.3 Knowledge Management and Learning (KML) SHOUHARDO III, a program that is always intentional about learning, improved on its Knowledge Management and Learning (KML) approaches this FY19. The program followed USAID’s framework on Collaboration, Learning and Adaptation (CLA) which resulted in compelling initiatives across the program. Table 6 shows the major KML activities and their contribution in the program.
Table 6: Details of KM&L activities and its contribution in the program Source of Summary of content Enabling environment, fostering the knowledge culture of learning, and adaptive management to ensure program quality
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Staff Facilitated sessions and disseminated Improved collaboration in program, engagement information on program’s strategic better understanding of the staff regarding changes particularly the transition the changes made in program, towards sustainability, embracing enhanced capacity of staff to document failures, documentation of learning program’s learning and results as well as and knowledge management; panel sharing discussion, team building Staff recognition award and case Increased ownership, promoted story writing competition positive/learning attitude and recognition of staff’s efforts in the program Greater understanding of the results reflected in the community; documented and shared good practices; Set up communities of practice at Initiated forum/platforms dedicated to regional levels learning sharing and knowledge/information dissemination.
Communication, Infographics on key program Enhanced knowledge of program staff outreach, and learning initiatives such ROI study, and stakeholders around programmatic visibility youth intervention, village grading, impact and progresses. learning from communities, TransAcct, FLAIRb 4th round results, program’s revised strategy Website: renovation included Created an easily accessible knowledge updated contents and resources bank of SHOUHARDO III to refer to donors, stakeholders, and media easily. A good archive for all staff to get published documents any time any places.
Knowledge ration and Newsletter Updated all staff regarding best practices and key achievements of each other to nurture learning and at greater pace and boost up competition of quality work within program Video production of key learning Multiplied the impact for participants pieces and print and electronic through sharing process, successes and media coverage. recommendation on particular areas with stakeholders applying appropriate media
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Facebook: e.g. posts on Generated proven learning sharing community mobilization, youth attitude and practiced using social media employment, VSLA, livelihoods, and technology which are easy to track, flood response, collaboration with monitor and use further. The process public and private sectors, hygiene deducted formalities and made a and sanitation, nutrition, and common platform of knowledge flow for learning and sharing all staff regardless of position and location. Journalist visit/ DFSA Cross visits Learning documentation and better and USAID mission team visits exposure through leading dailies in the country. Exchange learning among DFSA partners to reflect and improve areas, such as sustainability planning. Created space for the mission team to engage and support for further improvement and assuring program quality Youth Led Food The key objective of this youth-led This participatory mapping process Mapping food mapping was to increase increased the program’s understating of awareness and engagement of the selected communities as the youth youth in the local food system. identified community resources, identified the employment opportunities for themselves, and explored the influence of the local food system on a range of social groups. TransActt Streamline the complaint and Ensure transparency and accountability (Annex 9) feedback mechanisms including a as well as improve participatory decision Accountability hotline, complaint box, information making in the program mechanism. banners on entitlement and rights of participants.
5 CHALLENGES, SUCCESSES, AND LESSONS LEARNED
The program experienced a number of implementation and contextual challenges that affected its ability to achieve planned activities and produce desired results. Table7 below summarizes the challenges, program’s response and resolution status.
Table 7 - Challenges, program's response, and status of resolution Challenge Response Status and Resolution Unexpected long time The program engaged internal staff in The VSLA implementation required to draft and conducting the studies and developing commenced. Approvals receive approvals for some strategies ensuring better learning and have been received for technical program preparedness to implement the the Livelihood Study and
CARE Bangladesh-SHOUHARDO III (Cooperative Agreement No: AID-FFP-A-15-00009); Page | 34 FY 2019 Annual Results Report. Submitted: 4 November, 2019 strategies especially the recommendation the program has made WASH, VSLA and Off-Farm progress in shortlisting Livelihood Strategies potential sub-awards pending approval of the sub award request. The program was unable to The program has designed a qualitative Field work to be reach as many young analysis to be conducted in Quarter 1 FY20 commissioned on Quarter mothers and adolescents as on different approaches of reaching this 1 FY20 anticipated. (refer to table groups; including reassessing realistic targets. 1). This presents a new challenge in terms of approaches and strategies for the program including the fact many youths who drop out of school do not reside in their villages. Transition of groups and The program went ahead to establish the Most adult groups are program methodologies. easy to reach groups especially adult women formed and engaged. This took a while to get and men. It also conducted a phased roll out Adolescent and young underway and some villages of VSLAs with 345 villages covered in the mother groups action are went as long as six months first phase. as stated above without any specific program activities.
Additionally, staff took The program management has continued to There is increasing some time to embrace the receive comments/concerns and queries understanding and approach of doing much from staff to ensure better understanding of alignment to reformulated reduced activities and their concerns and gaps. In addition, community engagement leaving communities to trainings and meeting have been utilized as and sustainability driven forge their own opportunities to clarify key issues received programming among staff. developmental priorities or observed. and agenda riding on previous program success. Managing monetization All awardee and USAID local mission had Finally, the commodities commodity clearance with communicated with the GoB high officials to were cleared with the US Department of facilitate the clearance process with the USDA and provided Agriculture (USDA) USDA provided phytosanitary documents. phytosanitary certificates provided phytosanitary The efforts resulted to convince the GoB to through the joint effort documents where all the IP provide assurance to clear the cargo subject from all concerned (Import Permit) conditions to meeting all other specifications of the (USAID, USDA, USA were not met GoB import policy. The USDA freight forwarder, representative at Bangladesh were updated Awardee). of the issue. CARE has planned to put USDA and USAID issued separate letters the import permit
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to GoB explaining the APHIS languages condition to the Call with the phytosanitary certificate. Forward in the future to avoid any complexities during cargo clearance at discharge port. Partners staff turnover CARE staff provided support to PNGO for Partners managed to have recruitment staff in place in different required locations
i) Lessons Learned • In order to leave a legacy of delivering sustainable interventions, it takes a lot of intentional learning to take place in the program. SHOUHARDO III has done so with all the learning initiatives conducted this year through studies and program-led researches. Applying qualitative inquiries to obtain better understanding led the program validate findings from quantitative sources and explore the ‘faces’ and stories behind the numbers and graphs. • Staff engagement at all levels is important when a program is going through various changes. It could take a simple staff survey to know what they want to discuss in a meeting, or the areas that they need to improve to gain additional skills and be more effective in delivering their roles. Consultation with other stakeholders are equally important too, as this would form decisions that would be beneficial for all. • The participants should be given the space to thrive on their own (transition to community-led approach). This was one of the reasons why the volunteers who used to engage with them regularly were phased out. Being at the core of the program, SHOUHARDO III’s success could be measured with how the participants will perform without the prescriptive interventions of the program.
4 CONCLUSIONS AND KEY REFLECTIONS SHOUHARDO III is off to a great journey with the collective efforts in place to deliver sustainable interventions. The ride has not been easy, it even faced challenges from different sides that delayed some of its initiatives, but in the end, what stayed was the aspiration that resulted to paving way for the women and girls in northern Bangladesh to have a better outlook in life.
Recalibration of its key interventions presented a technical and logistical challenge to the program. However, with technical support of CARE, donor’s guidance, collaboration with various stakeholders and listening to the participants, it was all possible to readjust its approaches and complete the MTE action plan within a short timeframe of one year.
As the program steps into its fifth year (FY20), documentation of all lessons and emerging result areas will deem necessary so that SHOUHARDO III could contribute to better CARE and USAID DFSA programming in future.
CARE Bangladesh-SHOUHARDO III (Cooperative Agreement No: AID-FFP-A-15-00009); Page | 36 FY 2019 Annual Results Report. Submitted: 4 November, 2019