GPP MTR Country Report by Plan Nederland

GPP MTR Country Report Feedback sheet Bangladesh Feedback by Child Helpline International Country Name reviewer Organisation(s) Date

Bangladesh Leilani Cura Child Helpline International 20 December 2013

General comments & observations Page

Comments

Response

Throughout the report acronyms were liberally used without defining them. Who are our target audience for the report? Are we only targeting those involved in the project? Readers of the report who are not familiar with the program will find it annoying to have to refer back to the list of acronyms always. Please define the acronyms when first used in the report. How the report is written is not up to standard. There are sentences that are difficult to understand due to the inappropriateness of the words chosen. Poor sentence construction. Concepts are not clearly presented. There is no smooth or logical flow of concepts/ideas. The report needs thorough editing by a native English speaker and a professional editor. The report as a whole needs thorough editing. There are a lot of missing words, sentences that does not make sense and typographical errors. Throughout the report , there are statements made which reflects the authors personal view or opinion which is not appropriate in this kind of report. The author should be objective, neutral and factual. (details are reflected in my comments per section)

The acronyms issue has been addressed. As this is a mid term review its primary readers are supposed to be the donors and CRA members who have some prior knowledge of the project. Concerns appreciated and the terminologies are defined first time fully. Standard is very much subjective and defining a benchmark is difficult. The report structure is developed by TI and we have tried to present ideas in Plain English. However, we appreciate the concerns related to the flow of ideas and clarity issue which we have tried to improve further. Report edited

This report is a mix of reconstructed baseline and review. As a result, while maintaining objectivity in terms of data/facts, there are some areas where we bring in beneficiaries as well as researcherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s reflection. In general, we have tried to be as impartial as possible. Moreover, specific

comments/feedback will be incorporated in the respective sections. There are several statements made that does Surely, these comments are not have basis in the report (please see addressed and changes made as individual section comments for details) deemed necessary Executive summary Page

Comments

Define G&YW, B&YM, POs ,VAW,CPGs, CSO, All comments addressed CBO as well as other acronyms when first feedbacks incorporated used.

Response

and

Under Effectiveness – “they know how to RESPOND instead of RESPONSE; “ some women are now more SELF-DEPENDENT – use SELF-RELIANT instead. Last sentence - should be rephrased as follows: In order to create more impact follow-up trainings should be provided and expansion of project coverage should be considered

Under Sustainability – “However, until now local authorities are not able yet to give efficient continuation to GPP activities” – due to what?? It will be helpful if the researcher can cite the reasons behind such statement. Coordination an Harmonization - First sentence doesn’t make sense, poor sentence construction - consider revising; Last sentence is contradictory to the earlier statement. Evaluator reported a strong coordination through expertise sharing and yet it was followed by a recommendation to improve experience sharing.

It is simply due to the ‘status quo’ mindset of the government staff and they are not made accountable to their responsibilities. All of the comments/feedbacks are incorporated

Though expertise sharing is in place, other means of experience sharing such as making a information clearing house on the GPP themes, Do No Harm and conflict sensitivity – delete publication of success stories and “loaded” in the last sentence and simply put case studies would add value to “Also, the organizations recognize that the promote cross-learning. context where the program operates has structural and cultural challenge, which they try to manage through strategies and methodologies tailored to the local context.” Gender transformative potential – First sentence should read as “GPP prioritizes women’s empowerment, focuses on GBV

through provision of life skills, gender and selfdefense training for G&YW. Last sentence –the use of main “future” perpetrators. Evaluations should be based on facts not predictions. Conclusions – Last sentence –missing words, avoid double superlatives eg. enormously and significantly. Should read as: “The percentage of teenage girls and YW that feel THAT THEY WERE able to say no to sexual activity and know how to act when in need of protection, has increased significantly since the GPP started” 2nd paragraph – poor sentence construction, consider revising Conclusion should be supported by data or major findings. Cite actual numbers rather than using vague words such reduced, majority, decreased. Structure and consistency The executive summary does not really give you a good overview of the findings of the review. The interconnectedness of the findings, conclusions and recommendations is missing. 1. Introduction

As the data has been presented and analysed in respective sections, we decided not to repeat the data again in conclusion.

Page

Comments

Response

3rd Paragraph – the statement “ Plan as a lead Addressed organisation has initiated and designed GPP in Bangladesh” Plan is the lead but it is not appropriate to say that it is the initiator and designer of the program in Bangladesh as the program is implemented through various its partners.

After incorporating all of the comments the summary is improved

Level of Civil Society : Organization of child protection as one of the Done main activities does not make sense – do you mean establishment or strengthening of CP system? Please clarify. provide definition of Upazila in the footnote.

Institutional level: Write “Facilitate the formation of CPG” instead of “they organize Child Protection Done Group (CPG) formation” to avoid redundancy Sociocultural and individual level activities – Done

both paragraphs were badly written. Too many concept lumped together makes it difficult to understand – consider revising. 2. Methodology Page

Comments

Response st

Sampling and target groups – 1 sentence Done “Based on the guidelines PROVIDED, a balanced representation ….” 2nd paragraph states “in the table below” – Done there is no table presented in this page. 3rd paragraph – the term “excluded communities” is not commonly used in the Accepted development field, the term “marginalised communities” is more appropriate.

4th paragraph – the use of “district 701/community ward 22” will not make sense to someone who is not familiar in the area. What’s the point of naming the district was not referred to anyway in the rest of the report? Done Also “Tool E and F”, delete or describe define in a footnote. Tools: 1st paragraph, last sentence – missing word. “Tailor made Tool Packages and the instruction manual WERE developed for every target Done group and can be found in annex X.” 2nd paragraph – mention of a “shared agreement on the topic” , what does this Rephrased mean?

3rd paragraph – The following statements as presented in the report, seem to be opinions of the researcher : “ The process and method Rephrased were found very structured with clear instructions, which helped the evaluation team to achieve the goal” “Participants were very interested” This can be presented as “Participants were responsive and found the process and instructions clear” 3. Findings related to the Monitoring Protocol Page

Comments

1stParagraph – There are 2 opposing statements said teenage girls and young women perceive that the prevalence of all

Response

categories of violence had decreased and yet Sentences rephrased they claim that violence still happen to them often. Can this be presented better as this is confusing? Same comment under Specific outcomes on protection at the individual dimension. 2nd paragraph – The use of “female and male community members”, what are their ages? So Sentences rephrased we can see the trend – do older women and boys/men generally agrees to the idea that children should not be beaten? Last sentence on paragraph under Specific Sentence rephrased outcome: Perceived prevalence of violence against you or girls that you know - It is unclear what the author wants to impart. Please expand on this.

1st paragraph – the statement “The dowry Concern addressed system is a major tool of economic oppression”. Again, this is the researchers opinion and should not be mixed with what the respondents had stated. Last paragraph – “To a lesser EXTENT not Done EXTEND” I struggled when reading this page. The information was poorly presented. Inappropriate use of words to capture and Accepted present the responses. Eg. Freedom restrictions can be changed to mobility restrictions, multi-media handset to multimedia device. Paragraph 2 – “the rate of early marriages was also more eminent”. The use of the word eminent here is not appropriate.

Accepted

“In the case of Deopara YW..” can state instead Rephrased “A Deopara YW indicated that … “cyber crimes are expanding the territory “ can Rephrased state instead “ cyber crimes are becoming a widespread phenomenon” “Cultural stigma may have influenced their Changed promptness in sharing experiences” – promptness is not appropriate , readiness or willingness is more appropriate in this context.

17 20

“However, and this is maybe surprising,” is not appropriate in an evaluation report maybe for Concern addressed a commentary this will work. Seasonal effect ??? or a pattern or trend Changed observed 1st paragraph - Again, the use of double Changed superlatives – enormously and significantly 3rd paragraph – “they KEEP bad company” ASSOCIATE WITH is a better word 2nd paragraph – “ In various of the FDGs – Accepted doesn’t make sense use of “ finally, especially “ is not necessary last paragraph – the use of “ a bit more” instead of stating the real numbers 2nd line – legal services, why are they in Addressed brackets?? 2nd paragraph – “In general, community members (both male & female) are biased by patriarchal attitudes and it was really difficult to deal with them regarding the violence issue.” Again, this is the researcher’s opinion (at least how it was presented) and not a statement from the respondent. Since the researcher consider the findings related to the capabilities of the partner organisation as not reliable to what extent can this document serve as a resource in Concerns addressed determining the capacity building needs of partner organisation. Why was it different in the case of Bangladesh and not in other countries such as Pakistan and Nepal where they don’t have the same issue in terms of data collection Succeeding pages were easier to understand Unclear comment and read. Concepts were presented well and the format (use of a matrix) makes it easier to read eg. Findings related to the learning agenda where activities were identified per learning agenda item.

Structure and consistency The use of direct quotes from the interviews and examples given were good but how it was presented doesn’t add value to the report but in contrary it made the report difficult and tiring to read.

It has been so difficult to address all of diverse comments/feedback received from different sections/persons. However, we have

tried to incorporate all as far as we are convinced. A lot of poorly constructed sentences, missing words, Report is edited inappropriate words based on context and typographical errors. The report needs a serious editing by a native English speaker and a professional editor. 4. Overall findings Page

Comments

Analysis of beneficiaries satisfaction with the OK activities of GPP organised as a measure of the projects relevance is a good perspective. 2nd paragraph – “When they complete the karate Inserted in findings as well

Response

game, they feel empowered and are very bold”, there’s no mention of this in the findings

2nd paragraph - to only state the ratio between Concerns addressed population of the area being served by GPP versus number of staff is not enough basis for claiming the cost effectiveness of the program. Comparing the number of girls and young women reached and benefitted from the program will have more bearing. Government has the primary responsibility in Concerns addressed protecting its citizens. With the government and local authorities not being on board, sustainability cannot be claimed. Strong CSO in Bangladesh however, is commendable and worth mentioning.

Feedback by Aparajeyo-Bangladesh Country Name reviewer Organisation(s) Date

Bangladesh WahidaBanu, Executive Director Aparajeyo-Bangladesh (AB) 17 December 2013

General comments& observations Page Comments (if applicable) On main findings Relevancy To add: Adequate laws, legislations, Policies and planning are available with Government of Bangladesh including sixth 5-year Plan of Action where objectives of GPP reflected prominently. Efficiency Few more Human Resource could have

Response

Text inserted

Concerns addressed

been reflected more effective achievements in reaching targets of GPP in Institutional/individual/socio-cultural and community and in Civil Society level mobilisations. Effectiveness ‘Non-skills training’ arrangement such Concept addressed as communication/negotiation skills is required to add with the Skills and Vocational training part as they can sustain in the job. Most of the vocational and skills development training providing institutes do not have the arrangements on the issue. Indeed, agree Require to work with the local CSOs and CBOs in a ‘partnership form’. Its’ difficult to mobilise CSOs fully without having formal partnership and sharing resources. Sustainability Bangladesh-GPP Alliance anticipates Accommodated continuing the work with the support form duty bearers, Local government, parents and CSR of the corporate sectors. Indeed The ‘partnership form’ with CSO and CBOs will also support to sustain and carry forward the excellent work that has been done under this GPP project. 1. Conclusions & recommendations Page Comments Response Trainings: Can be included other trainings for the Any justification ??? GPP girls and young women such as Football, Activities Cricket etc. (Page-5) Page-6: Also require Project Cycle Management OK point 5 (PCM) training as the project is ‘result based project’. Page-62 Project has identified ‘Early/child Done Relevance Marriage’ as main problem in the area and are organised activities focussing on this issue. Page-63 The CPG of Aparajeyo have introduced Incorporated Effectiveness Toll Free Child Help Line 1098 and couple of cell numbers for any emergency to help and provide service through their cell phone when they come

to report child marriage case through G&YW Forum and, or community. Page-64 Follow-up of life skills training is missing. Effectiveness One day training is not enough. Structure and consistency Page 64: weakness of Sustainability: Government of Bangladesh does not have policy on ‘Child protection System’, which is difficult to sustain this in the local area.

Incorporated

Feedback by ICDI Country Name reviewer Organisation(s) Date

Bangladesh IordanIossifov International Child Development Initiatives 19 December 2013

General comments& observations Page Comments Response (if applicable) On main findings I had a look at it and in my humble opinion Appreciated. it is a well structured, readable text. I did not notice any major inaccuracies, at least not with respect to SDS our Bangladeshi partner; unfortunately I did not get SDS’s feedback yet. I would prefer to wait for their feedback before commenting further on the accuracy of the text as long as their interventions are concerned also because I took over this project relatively recently (in the middle of 2013).

Feedback by Plan BGD & CSC Country Bangladesh Name reviewer Mohammed Masud [with the support of Country Steering Committee] Organisation(s) Plan International Bangladesh Date 23.12.2013 General comments & observations Page Comments Response The full name of Plan in Bangladesh is Plan OK, done International Bangladesh and it should be same

everywhere in the report Plan International Bangladesh uses the acronym of partner NGOs as PNGOs rather PO, so please us PNGOs where relevant Footnote on Girl Panel, Child Protection Group will help the general readers to understand 9 The acronym of ‘Technical Officer’ is TO 7 The acronym of ‘Aparajeyo Bangladesh’ is AB, please correct the spelling of Aparajeyo. Executive summary Page Comments 3 The full acronym of Udayankur Sheba Shangstha is USS, please correct spelling of Udayankur 3 NGO word should be removed in front of SUPK, USS, DAM, Rupantar. 3 Plan International Bangladesh rather Plan Bangladesh 4 Relevance: Bangladesh is working only on Protection thematic area and to ensure the protection aptly, some activities are taken on education & economic participation theme. Therefore, articulation of focus could be rephrased. 4 Effectiveness: .....not so much on gender equality. One/two example on gender inequality towards CSOs capacity building would help the readers or implementers to understand 4 Please use PNGO rather PO 5 Please correct as Expertise wheel and add footnote on it as ‘expertise NGOs among the PNGOs. Expert organization provides training on their expertise area to other PNGOs’ to contribute better and safe life for girl & young women 6 Recommendation 3: communities have already been involved during the project designing and the project was designed on need based. So there is little scope of involving target groups at this stage. But there is always room for suggestions from the community which could be collected through partners. 6 Recommendation 8: Please use PNGO rather PO 6 Recommendation 9: GPP is represented at the regional level through SAIEVAC (South Asian Initiative to Eliminate Violence Against Children) where the SAARC countries are present.

Done

Is regarded as known to the audience Done Done

Response Done Done Done Concern incorporated

We believe it is clear, no additions to be made

Done Done

Intention accommodated

Done This concern is accommodated in coordination issue. However, it is surprising that this issue was not discussed during the national summit.

Structure and consistency The structure of the executive summary is fine but it seems little inconsistency. In some places it is mentioned that GPP reached a large number of beneficiaries with limited resources. In another section it is mentioned that the number of TOs should be increased which will have budgetary implications. So the cost effectiveness would be mislaid. Therefore, the consistency of the report should be reviewed. 1. Introduction Page Comments 8 GPP in Bangladesh: NGO word should be removed in front of SUPK, USS, DAM, Rupantar. 8 GPP activities are in carried out on four levels should be GPP activities are carried out at four levels 8 The full acronym of Udayankur Sheba Shangstha is USS, please correct spelling 8 Plan International Bangladesh rather Plan Bangladesh 2. Methodology Page Comments 11 2.3 Sampling and target group: The study areas for district 701 / Community Ward 22 are not much clear to general reader. Few words for more clarification could be added 12 2.4 Tools: Due to delay recruitment, National Researchers was unable to attend Regional Level training on different tools 3. Findings related to the Monitoring Protocol Page Comments 14 3.2: At the institutional level…………BL government was more supportive than now please check the data again. It represents the whole services of govt. on protection and it could be conflicting. So, example of services, what kind of services, [that got during interview] could be added. 36 Concluding remarks and recommendation: These are not written during 5C of other NGOs

The intention of TOs to be increased meant to increase the coverage as such because still many girls and young women need such services. Therefore there is no contradiction. Unchanged. OK, done to the extent possible within the agreed structure for all country reports Response Done Done

Done Done

Response As this is the area name as mentioned in sampling plan, we can’t change this now. Incorporated

Response It is clearly mentioned that the services mentioned are related to the protection of G&YW against violence.

Good observation. I agree, but 5C exercise was done separate at each PNGO level and the reflection was more of the participants attending the process. At this stage it seems impossible to change and present all 5Cs ideas consistently in same format.

Prioritisation of improvement points: It is not Same remarks as earlier one. mentioned during 5C of other NGOs 44 3.2.6: Write only Plan International Bangladesh Done rather PIB 46 Over all summary on 5C could be added It is not possible to summerise as this reflects individual findings 46 3.3: Write only Plan International Bangladesh Done rather PIB. Please add footnote of CIVICUS 50 Conclusions of the evaluator. Is it necessary? If This was agreed format PLAN. you put, write it also in section 3.3.2 51 All five levels i.e. civic engagement, level of org, Done practice value etc should be narrative analysed in 3.2.1. Please use Plan International Bangladesh 52 Learning: All the process of Learning i.e. learning Done capturing, compiling, sharing started [during MTR data collection], so change the form of tense [continuing] rather future........ Structure and consistency Structure and consistency should be same in both Done CIVICUS findings [3.3.1 and 3.3.2] Structure and consistency of reporting should be same Done during 5C reporting for all NGOs in the report 4. Conclusions & recommendations Page Comments Response 62 Relevance: 1 Technical Officer at Upzilla level and Done 1 Project Coordinator at partner level rather 1 unit coordinator. 65 In some cases opportunity and threats are Checked contradictory, please rephrase the contradictory points 66 Coordination and harmonization: Bangladesh Girl Done Power Alliance (BGPA) is already initiated. Only 7 EDs [out of 11] are the CSC members 67Recommendations: All recommendations are not In those cases it is 76 applicable for Bangladesh, some are applicable recommendations to donors for Donor. supporting GPP, including GPP Bangladesh Structure and consistency Conclusion should be drawn based on overall report. The Addressed conclusion was drawn based on organizational SWOT analysis. These structure consistencies need to be reshaped.

Feedback by Plan Netherlands Country Name reviewer Organisation(s) Date

Bangladesh Samira al-Zwaini Plan Netherlands 24 December 2013

General comments& observations Page (if applicable)

Comments

Response

General

On page 10/11 it says â&#x20AC;&#x153;This MTR will evaluate the strength of the figure [6 boxes] described above. The following subquestionsâ&#x20AC;Śď&#x192; actually in the report I did not find the focused answers on these important questions (apart from the 4th, partly). Between findings, conclusions and recommendations there seems no connection, no substantiating of conclusions and recommendations, which make these very fragmented and not really answering the sub questions of the evaluations (the connections between the boxes). The specific role of Plan Bangladesh as part of Plan (and thus more a facilitating organisation which needs to give capacity support to the local CRA partners) is not coming out of the report. In the 5 C chapter Plan Bangladesh is scored just as one of the other partners.

Changes have been made throughout the report and a section on conclusions regarding the research questions has been incorporated in chapter 5.

General

general

General

A specific recommendation on this issue has been included. Regarding the 5C auto-evaluation: although Plan has a different position than the partner organisations it is a locally present organisation that is receiving support from the MFS and is in charge of a relatively large budget of the GPP. This was the reason to also do a 5C workshop with Plan and the methodology for this workshop is based on guidelines from Minbuza. Repeatedly, the level of reporting of This issue is addressed by findings is activities instead of objectives. I addressing the specific comments in will indicate below where necessary. It each section as expressed below. seems that the GPP project logframes were not looked into also in other aspects, which I think is necessary. This is also applicable for the country logframe. Selection of partner organisations for the For 5C a maximum of 5 5C chapter is not clear. Especially NUK is organisations per country was missing as partner of Women Win. Scoring established in agreement with CRA

of BNWLA and AB is very short and not really informative, as compared to the ACD, SUBK and SDS scorings which are very comprehensive and informative. BNWLA and AB should be the same quality (and add NUK)

General

Nothing about the ARO Civil Society Strengthening Program which involves Bangladesh GPP in many aspects. I know there was at least an interview with the coordinator of this program. Needs to be addressed. Throughout the report I miss a focus on Child marriage as one of the most important forms of violence (with dowry as derived form of violence from this) and very prominent in GPP focus (cf Child marriage free villages etc). No focused analysis and thus recommendations about strengthening of grass roots organisations (CBOs)

taking into account the available time and resources for the MTR. In the case of Bangladesh 6 were done. Selection of partner organisation for 5C is explained in the sampling plan (annex B of the report). The extensiveness of the explanation of the scorings depends upon the information partner organizations shared as well as the capacities of the different researchers that facilitated the workshop. This issue is addressed to the extent that information was available and specifically included in the recommendations.

The issue of child marriage and related dowry issues has been discussed extensively throughout the report as one of the mayor forms of VAW. All stakeholders have been involved in the MTR. Specific analysis has been done on each partner’s capacity (mainly in 5C chapter but also through partner interviews). CBOs and public institutions were specifically included in the CIVICUS workshops and analysed throughout the report. More specific mention has now also been made in the recommendations section.

1. Introduction and Methodology and Findings related to the Monitoring Protocol Page

Comments

Response

There are some mistakes here. DCI/Ecpat is not a CRA implementing partner in Bangladesh. And ICDI is which is not mentioned in the sentence “” In Bangladesh the following CRA partners are implementing…”. A little further in this alinea, in needs to be corrected as ACD is not a DCI/Ecpat partner in GPP but it is Plan Bangladesh partner. Further, BNNRC

This concern was already addressed while incorporating feedback from other partners. Please see the changes in the updated report.

and NN are not the FPU partners in GPP! In GPP they are partners of Plan Bangladesh. In the next alinea starting with “Plan as a lead organisation”” it needs to be recognized more that GPP is a CRA program (and not Plan only). When describing the GPP activities, as remarked above it is better to start with mentioning the objectives (and then the activities) . Then it will be more according to the logframe and focused on the outputs (and outcomes) which are missing here. The order is a bit reversed here, in general GPP even working on all levels simultaneously starts with mentioning (as is also done further in this report) first individual level, then social-cultural (or community), then institutional and then civil society level. Last alinea end “(the partner organisation didn’t start [not started] to work with the community members…” which organisation is this about? It doesn’t make sense to start with direct beneficiaries without involving the families/communities at the same time 2ndalinea under 2.4. heading: (quantitative) statements  I’d assume it would be meant also qualitative statements here?

Change has been made

This comment is addressed. As the project outcomes and outputs at individual, socio-cultural and institutional level would be too long to present here, it has been briefly mentioned and the order of activity is changed as suggested.

After addressing comments of other partners, this issue is no more there.

Indeed, it is a mixed method of both quantitative and qualitative approaches. Concern has been addressed. Under heading 2.6. as challenge mentioned This concern was addressed. that there was a need for tools to be translated into the local language  was this done? If not, why not? Under 3.1.1. no mentioning at all about This information was (and is) not involvement of boys as direct beneficiaries, available to the MTR team. whereas this came out of the last mid-year Moreover, the partners also did not report (even if limited numbers).. raise the issue while reviewing the draft report, so, it is not included here. Graphic  was there no baseline info 10- In some cases no data was collected 13 years? since the girls were either considered too young to respond to this indicator (3) or asking the baseline question (referring to 2 years before) was not considered

15 a.f.

24/25

26 a.f.

27 All scorings

appropriate since young children have difficulty interpreting these large time gaps. Therefore, we considered that these responses would not be reliable. This is specifically mentioned in a footnote in annex D, table 4 where this data is presented. Why is incidence Child Marriage not It is mentioned in the report mentioned as one of the most general already. forms of VAW/G? Only very few services are mentioned This issue has been addressed, under Protection at the institutional level specifically in the second paragraph paragraph. Could be more detailed. In the in this section of the report. first full alinea of page 25, I miss mentioning of the Kazi (marriage registrar) as having an important role in CM (prevention). As mentioned above, in the 5C scoring I See response given above miss the WW partner NUK and further the scoring reportings of BNWLA and AB are too short and superficial, could be more like the other organisations’. Again here description of activities instead Concern addressed. of objectives No mentioning at all about child protection 5C is an auto-evaluation and only policy and – implementation of the includes those issues that according organisations to the staff are more urgent. However, the MTR team did identify it as a lack and included it in the findings (section 4.4), conclusions and recommendations. SUPK chapter, second last sentence this As the financial support provided by page  why does SUPK provide financial SUPK is not part of GPP, it has been support to three girls??? Is this part of removed from the report. GPP? It is not an objective/kind of activity we want to see. And even if it is done, why only three girls as I would think there are many more “candidates”. How were these girls selected? Second alinea from below  when talking Off course, men-women proportion about gender sensitiveness of the is not the single indicator for gender organisation, only proportion men-women sensitiveness. However, this is what staff is mentioned which is not the only the staff members reflected during and even not the most important indicator the workshop. It implies to the poor of gender-sensitiveness of the gender understanding of those organisation. involved in the process as well.

Please see general remark above about role of Plan Bangladesh. As SUPK is partner organisation of Plan Bangladesh, it could be mentioned here in the recommendation what Plan it this role should do to improve the capacity 3.2.4.and As mentioned before, these chapters are 3.2.5. much too short and thus not very informative at all, need for better analysis and recommendations Chapter This chapter is very descriptive and not 3.3. page structured, so the info is a bit fragmented. 46 and Could be much more analytic and leading further to useful inputs and recommendations for the overall objective of GPP.

Comments inserted/addressed.

Under 3.3.1. Five CSO networks are formed  could be more detailed. How many CSOs are involved, what kind of organisations are these, is there any difference made in this report between CSOs and CBOs etc??

Could be more analytic. Cf. Middle of page sentence “All participants agreed…” this does not say anything, needs to give more info about the context, what were the objectives, what results, and then it can be concluded if this was relevant, effective etc. First sentence under heading Perception of Impact  I do not understand this sentence, in first half it says the participants did not consider the contribution successful and then it still scores an 8 because 50% success rate? Not clear where this 50% is based on, not substantiated, no examples, very unclear. Alinea starting with “There was a unanimous opinion…” First sentence, that

The CIVICUS workshop is conducted in line with the Ministries guidelines and addresses a wide range of issue. Therefore it is not always possible to go more in-depth. This also depends on the information participants have and give. Regarding terms: CSOs is taken as a broad concept that includes NGOs and Community based organizations (CBOs). Where necessary CBOs are mentioned specifically. All of the participants here means those 8 representatives attending the CIVICUS workshop as mentioned in the introductory paragraph of 3.3.1

See response above

Has been addressed as much as possible with the information that is available. Recommendations are based on those given by the participants in the CIVICUS. Those from the MTR for the GPP are included in chapter 5.

The sentence has been restructured to clarify the idea.

Yes, the group decided to round up the 8,5 score to 9 for that reason. It

ACD â&#x20AC;&#x153;provide services that respond to one or more basic social needs of their target groupâ&#x20AC;? : I certainly should hope so, and this makes the score already a 9?!?!?!? Further on in this alineaabout the government agencies: this does not say anything about the role of CSS in GPP in relation to the institutional level. What was the impact of the GPP actions towards the institutional level? If it is agreed that the government agencies need to be more friendly and flexible to support CSO efforts, what then do GPP partners do about this??

Last bullet point above Conclusions heading: it is a pity that this reflects on what GPP does not focus on as other themes instead of also going more in depth into what theme GPP does focus on , namely protection, and how GPP could improve within this theme.

Chapter 3.3.2 is very short and in how far is this relevant as all the organisations mentioned here are not CRA/GPP partners? At least it needs some explanation why these organisations took part in the workshop. The recommendations in this chapter thus do not seem to be relevant for GPP in this way (very short, not substantiated with GPP findings)

Learning Agenda: again activities instead of objectives.

is their interpretation that we have presented in writing. However, the MTR team does consider that this is a too positive reflection, which is now more clearly expressed in the writing. For the other part: Though the group did not come up with what GPP partners need to do in making govt agencies more supportive it is a matter of GPP partners to consider in their learning agenda and make the necessary plan. This issue is addressed in the recommendations from the MTR team as well (chapter 5). This issue could have been better responded to by the researcher However, whatever has been presented here is based on the information gathered during the workshop, which reflects the issues that are most important to the participants. The objective of the Civicus CSI exercise is to assess the role and function of GP partner organisations in the broader civil society and interaction with public and private sector. Therefore, the district panel participants consist of 7 to 8 key informants both external of GPP (like institutional and civil society stakeholders) as partner staff. Actually, out of 11 representatives in this workshop, non CRA partners were just 5. Furthermore, these issues should be clear by now as they have been clarified and decided upon with CRA since the inception phase and can be found in the sampling information. The learning agenda section begins with its objective and the expected resuls followed by the activities corresponding to these learning

..”through appropriate methodologies” this is very vague, what kind of methodologies? Further, in this chapter I miss reflection on (lack of) application of the LA learnings in the program implementation. Here it seems as the LA has its own outputs (report, e-book, seminar) which seem something apart from the project implementing, whereas the LA is basically meant as reflection serving to improve the project implementing (and reports, seminars etc are at best a means rather than a goal). A good example is that there is a specific LA What about boys and men, whereas involvement of boys and men in GPP implemention as important finding of the evaluation is lacking. So something went wrong here, and in this chapter the evaluator should reflect on this. Structure and consistency 2. Methodology Page

agendas. The methodologies are explained now. These outputs are off course to be used by the GPP partners for improving program performance which is the objectives of learning agenda. But it is pretty clear from the information that they have started taking learning agenda as a serious issue and putting their efforts towards this end. Regarding the inclusion of boys and men in GPP, it is one thing to have this as one of the learning agendas which are in their initial phases of being implemented and another that this is already fully happening in the programme. This is clearly reflected upon in further chapters (and also more specified in section 3.4 now)

Comments

Please see above Structure and consistency 3. Findings related to the Monitoring Protocol Page

Comments

Please see above

Structure and consistency 4. Overall findings Page

Comments

Response

Second alinea and further reflects on what the participants of the Evaluation Summit think, not clear what is the evaluators own finding and conclusion? The external factors mentioned here (legal framework, laws enacted during GPP period), was there any connection with GPP Advocacy efforts leading to this?? Good to mention the UN program on VAW, although not clear in how far this was also focussing on girls (below 18)? “the cost-effectiveness relationship is very high”  this needs more specific info, esp. are there only direct beneficiaries meant here or also indirect beneficiaries? And when does someone count as beneficiary

Evaluators findings are reflected in the following paragraphs and further in the conclusion section as well. Causality of the policy advocacy and conducive environment is highlighted in one of the paragraphs in section 4.2. As indicated: “Its aim was to have a positive effect on the lives of women and girls of Bangladesh…” This issue has been specified where possible. It is important to note that each partners has different types of beneficiaries but they are classified according to individual, socio-

of GPP, is this already when having watched a TfD show or when (other end of spectrum) having been supported with legal aid BNWLA to fight a case before the court, or having benefited from shelter service during a longer period? Sport club and girls clubs are not running well because of resource restrain” This sentence is not informative or helpful at all. Cf NUK which is focussing on this, what does this say about their outputs? And there was a training by WW on this theme which GPP partners attended, what was the result of this? Under 4.4. Sustainability I miss any mentioning of the concept Child Marriage Free villages which is part of GPP in quite an extensive way. Wouldn’t this be a concept to ensure more sustainability?

cultural and institutional levels.

Due to lack of further information the sentence has been shortened (not deleted because the issue came out during the evaluation discussion but lacked further digging out). This has been explained in a footnote

‘Child marriage free villages’ was not found in the project logframe nor did this come out during the evaluation process. So, in the absence of evidence, we find it better not to incorporate that here. Second last alinea “Girls clubs are being This issue was already addressed run by girls themselves” wasn’t there above (comments from other any support by GPP partners to set them organisations) up? Are there no GPP partners involved any more? 3rdalinea under 4.5.1. : I assume the Addressed partner meant here is BNWLA? Why not just name them? This is an important finding, as mentioned above there is much opportunity for horizontal learning between GPP partners, which is not reflected on in this report. As mentioned under general comments, I Concern addressed miss any mentioning of the regional Girl Power activities under the ARO Civil Society Strengthening program. This is relevant for GPP Bangladesh, cf Bangladesh is part of SAIEVAC, NACG is being formed in Bangladesh under this program etcetc etc. Conclusions & recommendations

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Whole chapter

Why a swot analysis which makes all of it very fragmented (bullet points instead of substantiating conclusions with previous findings). This could be much more analytic based on the findings and overall on the evaluation framework on page 10, and the evaluation questions on page 10 and 11

Overall conclusions on the research questions have been included. Regarding the SWOT analysis presented here, these findings were drawn by the MTR team and then presented in the national evaluation summit attended by all GPP

66 e.v.

should be answered in this chapter. Which is partners and then validated. not really the case now. Moreover, it is organized on various aspects of evaluation such as relevance, effectiveness, efficiency etc. which has been the case for other country reports as well. Under sustainability, second bullet point: not Concern was already addressed clear what is meant with “communities and above LGI are being developed”?? Same for the next bullet point, what is meant It means those unions formed at the with “Some of the left-out unions are trying later stage of GPP implementation. to replicate GPP”???? The concern was already addressed above Bullet point under Effectiveness ..”The It was not about the wrong choice project has limited coverage. There are etc. but there are some communities left out..” What exactly is communities which could have meant here, which communities? In the GPP gotten benefit had they been also working areas? Needs much more info why targeted by the GPP. Every these should have been involved in the GPP programme has to deal with with its (limited) budget, where wrong limitated resources, but as it was choices made, when, where, how to mentioned by various informants, improve?? this issue is indeed addressed in the conclusions . A footnote has been added though Most of the recommendation could be much Recommendations come out of the more substantiated by findings and findings as described in previous conclusions. Now they are not very SMART. chapters. It would go to far to repeat them here. Not sure what is referred to by SMART as that is a term used for the formulation of indicators for a logframe. These recommendations are propositions of the MTR team, not already decided upon indicators for the programme. Recommendation 1 under 5.2.1. indeed a See the improved version of good point that B&YM should be included, recommendation. does the evaluator have specific recommendation how GPP could do this?? Recommendation 3: why should accessing Yes, see the new recommendation. the girls through their families be replaced by accessing them though communities? Should it not be both? Recommendation 4: very short cut to See the latest version. conclude that Karate trainings lead to the social political empowerment of girls, should there not be more involved for this? Could be

more comprehensive. Recommendations related to program Changed. management: very fragmented with only short bullet points and could be much more substantiated with findings and conclusions so they recommendations would be more useful (SMART).