Girl Power Programme – Mid-Term Evaluation Country Report
BANGLADESH
3 January 2014
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Executive summary ............................................................................................... 3 Acronyms ............................................................................................................. 8 1
Introduction.................................................................................................. 10 1.1 1.2
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Methodology ................................................................................................ 13 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6
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Girl Power programme in Bangladesh ................................................................ 10 Purpose of the evaluation ................................................................................. 12 Evaluation framework ....................................................................................... 13 Evaluation questions ......................................................................................... 13 Sampling and target groups ............................................................................... 14 Tools................................................................................................................. 15 Reconstruction of baseline and MTR measurements .......................................... 17 Challenges and Limitations ................................................................................ 17
Findings related to the Monitoring Protocol (Baseline/MTR) ......................... 18 3.1 Findings related to MDG component (box 1 and 2)............................................. 18 3.1.1 Outcome result: Better protection against violence for G&YW ......................... 19 3.1.2 Outcome result: Enhanced (post)primary education opportunities for G&YW . 37 3.2 Findings related to Capabilities of partner organisations (box 3) ......................... 38 3.2.1 Partner 1: Association for Community Development (ACD) .............................. 39 3.2.2 Partner 2: SUPK ................................................................................................... 45 3.2.3 Partner 3: Shariatpur Development Society (SDS).............................................. 53 3.2.4 Partner 4: BNWLA ............................................................................................... 57 3.2.5 Partner 5: Aparajeyo Bangladesh (AB)................................................................ 60 3.2.6 Partner 6: Plan International Bangladesh ........................................................... 62 3.3 Findings related to Civil Society (box 4) .............................................................. 65 3.3.1 CIVIVUS CSI findings Rajshahi ............................................................................. 66 3.3.2 CIVIVUS CSI findings Dhaka ................................................................................. 70 3.4 Findings related to the Learning Agenda ............................................................ 71
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Overall findings ............................................................................................. 74 4.1 Relevance ......................................................................................................... 74 4.2 Effectiveness..................................................................................................... 75 4.3 Efficiency .......................................................................................................... 79 4.4 Sustainability .................................................................................................... 80 4.5 Coordination and harmonisation ....................................................................... 82 4.5.1 Internal coordination at national, regional and global level .............................. 82 4.5.2 External coordination at national, regional and global level .............................. 83 4.6 Do No Harm and Conflict sensitivity................................................................... 84 4.7 Gender transformative potential ....................................................................... 84
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Conclusions and recommendations ............................................................... 86 5.1 5.2
Conclusions based on country specific SWOT analysis ........................................ 87 Recommendations ............................................................................................ 93
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5.2.1 Recommendations related to quality programme implementation .................. 93 5.2.2 Recommendations related to programme management ................................... 95 5.2.3 Recommendations related to programme logic / Theory of Change / GPP monitoring protocol ........................................................................................................ 97 5.2.4 Recommendations related to target setting for 2015 ........................................ 97
Annexes.............................................................................................................. 98
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Introduction The Mede Financiering Stelsel 2010-2015 (MFS-II) framework of the Dutch government funded Girl Power Programme (GPP)is designed to build capacity in local civil society, to support the empowerment of girls and young women for gender equality. The GPP is implemented by six Dutch civil society organisations, forming the Child Rights Alliance (CRA)1: ICDI, Women Win, Free Press Unlimited, Child Helpline International, DCI-Ecpat, and Plan Netherlands. The GP is carried out from 2011 to 2015, in 10 countries, across four regions, namely Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Zambia and Ethiopia. The key objectives of the programme are to support the economic participation of girls and young women; to increase their access to quality (post) primary education; to strengthen structures that protect girls and young women against violence and to support the active socio-political participation of girls and young women in decision-making.
The GPP in Bangladesh The GPP in Bangladesh focuses on one of the four thematic areas i.e. protection against violence. The coordination and alignment within the overarching GPP framework is done in Country Steering Committees (CSC). In Bangladesh the following partners are engaged in implementing GPP: Plan International Bangladesh, Aparajeyo Bangladesh (AB), Association for Community Development (ACD), Bangladesh National Women Lawyer’s Association (BNWLA), Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication (BNNRC), NariUddog Kendra
(NUK),
News
Network
(NN),
Shariatpur
Development
Society
(SDS),
SamajUnnayanPrashikshan Kendra (SUPK), UdayanSwabolombeeSangstha (USS), Dhaka Ahsania Mission (DAM) and Rupantar.
Methodology The key question evaluated in this Mid-Term Review is: To what extent has the GPP been implemented as intended, and is progress made on indicators formulated in the monitoring protocol between 2011 and 2013? This mid-term evaluation of the GPP in Bangladesh reconstructed baseline information in line with the January 2013 revised Girl Power monitoring protocol, and assessed progress
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ICDI, Women Win, Free Press Unlimited, Child Helpline International, DCI-ECPAT, and Plan Nederland.
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made to date at individual, socio-cultural and institutional levels. Furthermore, it collected lessons learnt, and makes concrete recommendations for further increasing the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, sustainability and coordination of the GPP. Prior to data collection, representative target groups, locations, and samples were prepared and selected in collaboration with the CSC. In Bangladesh, data has been collected from 400 girls and young women (G&YW), 120 community members, 20 girls’ panel members, 5 professional panel members, 19 members of district panels as well as from representatives of the partner organisations within two months of study. Thirteen tools have been developed and tested to evaluate progress made on 46 programme indicators.
Main findings Relevance: GPP is a highly relevant programme in a society where social norms, values, superstitions and hegemonic forms of masculinities lead to violence against women and issues like poverty, religious norms and social insecurity are identified as main reasons for the high rate of child marriage. Protection is only a focused thematic area of GPP in Bangladesh but to ensure protection aptly, some activities are taken on education and economic participation theme. The programme has addressed urgent needs of, especially vulnerable, G&YW, including empowerment and the presence of effective protection mechanisms. Moreover, reflection of GPP objectives in sixth 5-year Plan of Action prepared by the Government of Bangladesh reinforces the need of such programme. However, more focus could be given to working with boys and youngmen (B&YM) and in bringing other GPP themes like education and economic participation into the programme scope.
Effectiveness: some of the positive effects are worth mentioning. GPP is in the process of increasing awareness at individual, community and institutional level. Especially, the direct beneficiaries seem more aware about violence and empowerment issues. Moreover, girls and young women are more self-confident and have learned self-defence; G&YW know about services availed for violence survivors; they know how to response if violence happens to them; some women are now more self-reliant through livelihood support training and community members are now more aware about violence issues. However, in order to create more impact follow-up trainings should be provided and expansion of project coverage should be considered (i.e. including more G&YW as well as B&YM). Introduction of ‘non-skills training’ such as communication/negotiation skills training would add value for those vocational skills trainee while in the workplace as this component is missing so far.
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On civil society level partner non-government organisations (PNGOs) have increased their capacity to strengthenother CSOs on child rights issues but not so much on gender equality. At institutional level, the changes in the policy level caused due to advocacy and the government ownership of the programme components have been lauded. However, there is still a need to make the advocacy effective, especially regarding the implementation of existing legislation.
Efficiency: The cost-effectiveness of GPP in Bangladesh is high as indicated by the number of girls and young women reached and served with the limited resources and time. However, provision of more human resources could have contributed well towards effective reach to the institutional, individual, socio-cultural, community and civil society level.
Sustainability: GPP has developed remarkable knowledge and experience regarding protection and consequences of VAW, and built an extensive network of organisations and individuals. G&YW Forums, Child Protection Group (CPGs) and Civil Society Organisation (CSO) networks can maintain their activities in close collaboration with the local government and law enforcement agencies. However, until now local authorities are unable to give efficient continuation to GPP activities on their own. PNGOs on the other hand have indicated that they want to continue supporting the targeted groups on their own. GPP local partners have formed alliances with likeminded community based organisations (CBOs) and CSOs already. Bangladesh-GPP Alliance anticipates continuing the work with the support from duty bearers, local government and parents. Further it aims to work with corporate sectors in promoting corporate social responsibility (CSR). They continue to assist the government, the CBOs and G&YW forum in their activities related to protecting G&YW from violence. Local partners have mentioned that they will build sufficient capacity to be able to adequately support the CSOs and CBOs in the many on-going aspects of protection.
Coordination and harmonisation: Coordination between the GPP partners was found satisfactory. The GPP partners are found sharing their expertise and they are a part of Bangladesh Girl Power Allies, local level network, Expertise Wheel2. The Country Steering Committee (CSC) is coordinating GPP activities well and there is a sufficient communication
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expertise NGOs among the PNGOs. Expert organisation provides training on their expertise area to other PNGOs’ to contribute better and safe life for girl & young women
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among CSC members at both individual and organisational levels. However, experience sharing could be improved, so that partners can learn from each other’s and improve programme outcomes.
Do No Harm and conflict sensitivity: The partner organisations and Plan International Bangladesh know the context very well and are very much sensible to the themes and their possible impact on this context. The vast majority of them have a long track-record working on the issues of violence and children’s rights, and have a high conflict management capacity. Also, the organisations recognise that the context where the programme operates has structural and cultural challenges, which they try to manage through strategies and methodologies tailored to the local context.
Gender transformative potential: GPP prioritises women’s empowerment, focuses on GBV, through provision of life skills, gender and self-defence training for G&YW. Gender training is also given to representatives of CSOs, CBOs, government officials, and other stakeholders with the goal to make them gender sensitive. However, in order to really be gender transformative, and reduce gender-based violence, achieve empowerment and ultimately reach gender equality the traditional patriarchal attitudes should be changed. This requires focusing not only on G&YW but also on boys and men to make them gender sensitive, as in most of the cases men are found committing violence against girls and women.
Conclusions Perceived prevalence of all categories of violence for both teenage girls and young women decreased significantly between BL and MTR. However, according to their perception, all types of violence are still happening “often” to them or their peers; also in the case of girls from 10-13 years old. On a positive note, the percentage of teenage girls and young women 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. Similarly, male and female community members strongly confirm the reduction of adults beating children or men beating their wives or girlfriendsin the last two years; and the majority now agrees that violence to G&YW should always be reported.
At the institutional level, if the role of the government is increasingly better, is still a question. Professional panel members indicated that at the time of the BL government was
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more supportive than now with policies, legislation and, especially, services regarding protection of G&YW against violence. The girls’ panels, on the other hand, were more positive about governmental service provision today.
Recommendations 1. Regarding GPP activities: a. Increase the number of life skills and karate (martial arts) trainings. b. Include the topic of sexual harassment via Internet and other communication media. c. Include lessons on sexual and reproductive health. d. Analyse the possibility to include income generating trainings and activities. 2. Regarding the target groups: B&YM as well as male and female community members need to be included more in programme activities in order to generate gender sensitiveness. 3. Increase target group’s participation in programme design to make activities and strategies more need based. It could be done by ensuring a space for community to suggest through the partners. 4. Work more closely with different ministries and other governmental agencies to come up with a mechanism that will remove any obstruction faced by women in gaining access to justice. Plan International Bangladesh, along with CRA, may make a move to increase the involvement of these institutions. 5. Partner organisations need capacity development support in relation to human resource management, Project Cycle Management, M&E, advocacy and lobbying as well as gender, specifically for the development of gender policies and strategies. 6. Augment the number of technical staff (one technical officer for one upazila is not enough for an overly populous country like Bangladesh) 7. Focus on further advocacy, specifically regarding updating out-dated laws and putting recent laws into practice. 8. PNGOs need to work more closely together to advocate and represent their sector’s needs in external forums. Exchanging information about experiences and the lessons learned is crucial to this type of collaboration.
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ACRONYMS 5C
Partner organisation capabilities
AB
Aparajeyo Bangladesh
ACD
Association for Community Development
BL
Baseline
BNWLA
Bangladesh National Women Lawyer’s Association
BNNRC
Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication
B&YM
Boys and Young Men
CB
Capacity Building
CBO
Community Based Organisation
CIVICUS
Civil society capacity
CP
Child Protection
CPG
Child Protection Group
CRA
Child Rights Alliance
CS
Civil Society
CSC
Country Steering Committee
CSO
Civil Society Organisation
CSR
Corporate Social Responsibility
DAM
Dhaka Ahsania Mission
FGD
Focus Group Discussion
G&YW
Girls and Young Women
GBV
Gender Based Violence
GP
Girl Power
GPP
Girl Power Programme
ICT
Information & Communication Technology
LGI
Local Government Institute (Union being the smallest unit, called “community” by GPP Bangladesh)
LST
Life Skills Training
MDG
Millennium Development Goals
MFS II
Mede Financiering Stelsel 2010-2015
MP
Monitoring Protocol
MTR
Mid-Term Review
NUK
NariUddog Kendra
NN
News Network
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PNGOs
Partner Non-government Organisations
SAARC
South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation
SDS
Shariatpur Development Society
SUPK
SamajUnnayanPrashikshan Kendra
TFD
Theatre for Development
TO
Technical Officer
UC
Upazila Coordinator
UNO
UpazilaNirbahi Officer (chief executive of a sub-district)
USS
Udayankur Sheba Sangstha
VAW
Violence Against Women
YM
Young Men
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INTRODUCTION
1.1 GIRL POWER PROGRAMME IN BANGLADESH The main goal of GPP is building capacity of local civil society to support the empowerment of girls and young women for gender equality. Girl Power focuses on four UN promoted thematic areas relevant for MDG 3 and MDG 2: Violence against girls and women, socioeconomic participation, socio-political participation and (post) primary education.
The Mede Financiering Stelsel 2010-2015 (MFS-II) funded Girl Power Programme (GPP) that is implemented by 6 Dutch civil society organisations, forming the Child Rights Alliance (CRA): ICDI, Women Win, Free Press Unlimited, Child Helpline International, DCI-Ecpat, and Plan Nederland. The GPP is carried out in 10 countries across four regions: Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Zambia and Ethiopia. Not all CRA partners are active in all countries. In Bangladesh the following CRA partners are implementing: Women Win, FPU, CHI, ICDI, and Plan Nederland. Their theme of intervention is Protection. The coordination and alignment within the overarching framework is done in Country Steering Committees (CSC) in which local partners are represented, in the case of Bangladesh these are: Plan International Bangladesh, Aparajeyo Bangladesh (AB, CHI partner), Association for Community Development (ACD, Plan International Bangladesh partner), Bangladesh National Women Lawyer’s Association (BNWLA, Plan Bangladesh partner), Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication (BNNRC, Plan International Bangladesh partner), NariUddog Kendra (NUK, WW partner), News Network (NN, Plan International Bangladesh partner), Shariatpur Development Society (SDS, ICDI partner), Samaj Unnayan Prashikshan Kendra (SUPK, Plan Partner), Udayankur Sheba Shangstha (USS, Plan partner), Dhaka Ahsania Mission (DAM, Plan partner) and Rupantar (Plan partner).
GPP, a CRA programme is implemented by 11 partner organisations in eight districts: Dinajpur, Nilphamari, Lalmonirhat, Rajshahi, Kishorganj, Gazipur, Dhaka and Shariatpur. A total of 30 Upazilas (sub-districts) and 10 Zones (Dhaka) have been covered under those eight districts.
In Bangladesh the GPP is working in the field of ‘protection against violence’ with the goal of ‘reducing gender based violence against girls and young women’. GPP in Bangladesh, aims to
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build the capacity of civil society in order to achieve: (i) increased awareness, knowledge and skills of girls and young women in protecting themselves against violence and claiming their rights, (ii) increased awareness and knowledge of communities in establishing and/or strengthening community based protection mechanisms that support protection of girls and young women against violence, (iii) increased awareness and knowledge of government officials (national, district, local level) in establishing and/or strengthening a social (child) protection system that support protection of girls and young women against violence. In order to ensure the programme outputs contribute logically to these outcomes, activities are being implemented at four levels:
Individual level: At individual level, PNGOs organise a range of capacity building trainings for girls and young women. Life Skill training, self-defence training (Martial Arts), awareness training on child protection and child rights, communication and gender are key interventions at the individual level. Similarly, PNGOs facilitate formation and strengthening of sports club through material support. The livelihood training and self-employment support for girls and young women are other key areas of PNGOs engagement.
Socio cultural level: At socio-cultural level, PNGOs organise Theatre for Development (TFD)3 shows on various GPP themes. These themes include ‘violence and child protection’, child marriage and birth registration among others. Similarly, they organise several trainings such as ‘child rights and child protection training’, ‘gender training’ for local elites, CBOs and other relevant groups. In addition to that PNGOs facilitate formation and operation of girls and young women forums with technical support to meetings and annual conventions at Upazila level.
Institutional level: At institutional level PNGOs organise Child protection and Gender training for Union parishad, CPG and upazila level government officials; they facilitate the formation and increased functionality of CPGs; and organise advocacy workshops at Upazila level.
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Theatre for Development is a platform from where GPP local partners train adolescent and young boys and girls on drama presentation and eventually they stage that drama in the communities.
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Civil society: The main activities of GPP at CSO level include: strengthening Child protection system, policy advocacy and local level lobbying as well as Gender training for CSO representatives. Partner Organisations also organise CSO network coordination meetings at Upazila 4 level, sensitisation workshops for journalists on gender and child protection, and provide awards to journalists for their best reporting.
1.2 PURPOSE OF THE EVALUATION This Mid Term Review and reconstruction of baseline has been designed by Transition International, with inputs of Avance, on behalf of the Child Rights Alliance. CSCs have actively participated in this evaluation. The global programme has been evaluated in the ten countries where the GPP is being implemented, based upon the Global Monitoring Framework.
The GPP runs from 2011 to 2015 and the purpose of this midterm evaluation is threefold: 
Validate and (re)construct Girl Power baseline information, in line with the revised Girl Power monitoring protocol dated January 2013.

Assess progress made to date, measured against the reconstructed baseline information, and set targets.

Identify lessons to be used for greater programme effectiveness, efficiency, relevance, sustainability and lessons learned.
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Upazila literally means sub-district and is a smallest administrative and political unit in Bangladesh.
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METHODOLOGY
2.1 EVALUATION FRAMEWORK The Girl Power results framework describes the theory of change, or intervention logic underlying the Girl Power Programme. The model below shows a simplified version of expected (direct and indirect) relations between the respective programme elements (called boxes). It also shows the level of control or influence the CRA has on achieving the overall objective of the GPP, which is achieving gender equality in society.
Figure 1: Conceptual framework for evaluation
2.2 EVALUATION QUESTIONS The key question to be evaluated in this Mid-Term Review is: To what extent has the GPP been implemented as intended and is progress made on outcomes formulated in box 1-4 between 2011 and 2013? For every box displayed in the graphic above, specific outcomes are defined in the revised Girl Power monitoring protocol dated January 2013 (see Annex A). Furthermore, this MTR will evaluate the strength of the figure described above. The following sub-questions related to the linkages (arrows) will be evaluated:
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1.
Is the CRA financial and technical support leading to, or at least contributing to increased capacity and outputs produced by partner organisations? (arrow 1)
2.
Is the increased capacity of partner organisations leading to, or at least contributing to the empowerment of girls and young women, especially in terms of protection against violence, socio-political participation, economic participation and education? (arrow 2)
3.
Is the increased capacity of a partner organisation leading to, or at least contributing to civil society capacity to act as an agent in development for gender equality (arrow 3)
4.
Are there other (external or internal) factors at play that influence the outcomes (or said in other words to what extent are the observed outcomes due to programme activities rather than other factors)?
5.
Does the GPP have unintended spill over effects at civil society level?
2.3 SAMPLING AND TARGET GROUPS Prior to data collection, target groups and samples were prepared and selected in collaboration with the CSC. Based on the guidelines provided, a balanced representation of project locations (districts and communities), thematic areas of work, as well as budget allocation was planned for.
Sample size calculation was based on the total number of beneficiaries reported in the Annual Report of 2012. When computing the samples for G&YW, a reasonable level of confidence (95%), and a conservative confidence interval (.05) was assured, resulting in a representative sample of 360-400 G&YW per country.5 For a full overview of the samples and target groups aimed for, please be referred to the Country Sampling Plan (annex B), where all sampling steps and sizes are explained in detail.
Districts and communities have been selected in consultation with GPP partners. Districts were selected according to budget allocation as well as percentage and number of target groups. Communities were selected to ensure rural, urban and (peri) urban communities are included as well as marginalised communities (e.g. slums and religious minorities,).
5 The accepted statistical formula for calculating sample size is built up by four variables: A=Total size of target group; B=Confidence level (95% is conservative); C=Estimated likelihood of variety in opinions (conservative choice is 50%); D=Confidence interval or margin of error (.05).
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The study areas for district 701 / Community Ward 22 were selected by the partner organisations who are working in these areas. The evaluation team went to this area and found that they only worked with adolescent girls. However, also tool E and F 6were applied as planned with female and male community members that are considered indirect beneficiaries and potentially future direct beneficiaries (the partner organisation didn't started to work with the community members yet as they are first focusing on direct beneficiaries). In all other locations, direct beneficiaries were targeted as planned.
In Bangladesh, there is no girls’ panel at the national level, but girls groups at district level do exist. Two of these were selected for participation in the MTR.
2.4 TOOLS The tools used and developed for this MTR are generally composed of a qualitative and a quantitative component (mixed method approach). Tool developed for minors were tailored to the children’s evolving capacities and interests and participatory exercises, such as focus group discussions, ranking and mapping (e.g. road journey) were used. Regional trainings on tools were conducted for all regional coordinators and national researchers. However, due to delay recruitment, National Researchers were unable to attend Regional training on tools. In addition, the in-country preparation process with the CSC allowed for contextualisation of wording, and probing, so that tools will were adapted to the local context. Tailor-made Tool Packages and the instruction manual were developed for every target group and can be found in Annex F.
The general approach to all sessions is to have a warming-up and trust building phase, a data collection phase with qualitative and quantitative measurements and a closing exercise. During the participatory warming up exercise, the facilitator introduces the topic of the session and make sure everyone has a common understanding of it, before participants start responding to the (quantitative) statements. This way, participants are triggered to think about certain concepts (e.g. protection mechanisms for G&YW, core capabilities of partner organisations) and it creates a non-intrusive opportunity to check whether participants have
6 Tool E and F are two tailor-made tools included in Manual for MTR where, tool E aims to gather data from community members (male) while tool F was to gather data from adolescent boys and young men (16-24) for target group specific indicators
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a common understanding on the aspects of evaluation under discussion.
Moreover,
qualitative data was collected during these conversations. Statement scorings were generally conducted anonymously, except for the focus group discussions with community members, where this was not considered necessary.
Participants were responsive and found the process and instructions clear to them that what they considered helped share their experience. They found the whole method and process of interviewing and focus group development (especially the drawing and mirror game) interesting. The support of partner organisations was very much appreciated. Assistance of community members was very good and they had a positive attitude to GPP activities.
For the assessment of organisational capabilities and partners’ contribution to civil society developments, the tools required by the Dutch Moa were applied (5C and Civicus CSI). The existing indicators were respected, but participatory group exercises were developed to promote exchange and learning among the participants.
The CSC has been involved throughout the process of MTR, and especially at the start (as explained above) and towards the end of the MTR. Evaluation summits were conducted with the CSC (representatives). During this meeting the in-country data collection team (national researcher, supported by the RC) presented their initial findings and conclusions, and shared preliminary lessons learned. CSC members were encouraged to share their opinions and further inputs.
In general, there was a consensus that MTR survey participants were extremely enthusiastic and active. However, their level of participation differed according to community and their age group. Girls from the 10-13 years and 14-17 years group were the most active. The latter needed the highest probing. All Girls (10 - 17 years) & Young Women (18-24 years old) gave a comparatively realistic account of the surroundings and also in terms of aims and objectives. Also the 24+-year-old community members (men and women) participated very actively and gave many examples during the FGD.
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2.5 RECONSTRUCTION OF BASELINE AND MTR MEASUREMENTS A non-experimental design using (reconstructed) repeated measures is used for evaluating the GPP. Baseline indicator values were reconstructed for all outcomes and indicators in box 1 and 2 (see figure 1 above). For box 3 and 4, existing baseline information was used to assess progress on partner capacity and civil society development.In addition, secondary information was used as a basis for comparison.
The reconstruction of baseline information was conducted by asking the informants to, next to their scoring of the actual situation (2013), also reflect upon their situation at the start of the GPP. As a result, indicators in box 1-2 were scored twice (one reconstructed baseline score and a MTR score). This scoring was followed by a group discussion, explaining the findings (either positive, negative, or no changes between MTR and the start of the GPP).
By 2015, this design can be replicated, measuring the same indicators for final evaluation (T3).
2.6 CHALLENGES AND LIMITATIONS There were some concerns with regard to MTR study plan. CSC members expressed that some of the questions in the checklist were not relevant to the local context and others were not phrased well. Their recommendation was that all tools should be translated into the local language and be pre-tested. Due to delay in recruiting national researcher, amidst time constraint to ensure all country evaluation go parallel and meet the set timeline, it was not possible to produce the entire tool in local language. However, national researchers translated these tools during the respective process/events as deemed necessary.
Moreover, at the beginning CSC members were confused about the way the sampling was done and did not fully understand how districts and communities were selected. However, after presenting the sampling method in the CSC kick off meeting these doubts were eliminated.
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FINDINGS RELATED TO THE MONITORING PROTOCOL (BASELINE/MTR)
3.1 FINDINGS RELATED TO MDG COMPONENT (BOX 1 AND 2) Despite the significant decrease in the perceived prevalence of all categories of violence for both teenage girls and young women between BL and MTR it still exists to some extent. Girls and young women of all ages perceive that violence still is a part of their life.Many types of violence are related to the dowry. On a positive note, the percentage of teenage girls and YW that feel able to say no to sexual activity and know how to act when in need of protection,has increased significantly since the GPP started.
Except the teenage girls all of the respondents disapprove beating children. While the percentage of girls who agree that children may be beaten by adults is still quite high YW, B&YM, female and even male community members, this percentage is considerably lower. However, their disapproval is conditional. In all age and gender groups respondents indicated that it is ok to hit children when they are disobedient to adultsor do not want to study.
Regarding, men beating their wives or girlfriends, male and female community members are more reluctant to allow this; whereas YM (16-24 years) think that their peers are more open to this than to adults beating kids. On the other hand, more YM than male and female community members would report cases of violence to G&YW.
At the institutional level, professional panel members indicated that at the time of the BL government was more supportive than now with policies, legislation and, especially, services regarding protection of G&YW against violence. The girls’ panels on the other hand were more positive about governmental service provision today.
In relation to education, a very high percentage of G&YW agree that girls should be able to continue their education after childbirth or marriage, which is an important indicator as child marriage is quite common in the country.
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3.1.1 OUTCOME RESULT: BETTER PROTECTION AGAINST VIOLENCE FOR G&YW Specific outcomes on protection at the individual dimension Specific outcome: Perceived prevalence of violence against you or girls that you know Despite the significant decrease in the perceived prevalence of all categories of violence for both teenage girls and young women between BL and MTR it still exists to some extent. Girls and young women of all ages perceive that violence still is a part of their life. In these two age groups (14-17 and 18-24) the perceived prevalence is lowest in the case of physical violence. It is noteworthy that teenage girls perceive high prevalence of economic violence than YW contrary to a general assumptionthat young women would see economic violence not the teenage girlsas they go to school rather than engaged in economic activity like young women.
In the case of girls from 10 – 13 years, all types of violence are perceived to happen quite often, with the highest levels for emotional violence.
Indicators 1 & 2 - Perceived prevalence of violence against you or girls that you know 4 10-13 MTR (N=40) 14-17 BL (N=180) 14-17 MTR (N=180) 18-24 BL (N=180) 18-24 MTR (N=180)
3.5 3 2.5 2 1.5 1 Economic Violence
Physicial Violence
Emotional Violence
Sexual Violence
In all interviews and focus groups the girls and young women mentioned examples of violence related to the dowry. Widespread incidence of child marriage is one of the most general forms of VAW/G itself. On the top of that girls and women see dowry related violence. They consider dowry system as a major tool of economic oppression from a young age on and it remains so, even after marriage. The fact that it has become an “accepted custom” and that people have started calling it a “gift” doesn’t minimise thetypes of violence it can lead to, which can even go as far as physical torture or wives being murdered. Some of the respondents even indicated that the dowry amount has increased in the last 19
two years, making it more serious today than during BL measurement. A young woman said that her sister paid 80 thousand Taka dowry, she paid one hundred thousand Taka and her younger sister had to pay 400 thousand taka.
In the case of economic violence, apart from problems related to the dowry, unequal distribution of property rights in generalis often mentioned as an example, as daughters do not get a “fair share” of their father’s property in relation to sons. Overall, teenage girls gave various examples of families that focus on the sons and don’t invest in their daughter’s education or development in general.
Other examples of economic violence often relate to the unequal payment of wages between women and men (which can even be as little as 50% for women in comparison to the salaries of men) and their families or husband can even confiscate what they earn. Also, daughters get less pocket money than sons. All these examples generate an economic dependency for G&YW of their families or spouses. It is important to mention however that during the entire data collection, only one respondent spontaneously mentioned ‘wage discrimination’ as a form of violence. All others came up with it only after it being given as an example for economic violence by the MTR team. They may not have considered wage discrimination as a type of violence as it is established as a social norm in Bangladeshi communities.
In the case of physical violence examples that are very often (if not always) mentioned in all FGD are: acid throwing, dowry induced physical torture, wife battering, and beating by (inlaw) family members in general (specifically parents and husbands, sometimes under influence of drugs). To a lesser extent examples are given of teachers beating girls, and there is even an example of physical punishment of women after a village committee verdict.
Some respondents say that no changes have been perceivedbetween BL and MTR period, however, others mentioned (and this is reflected by the statistical data in graph 4) that “day by day physical tortures” as well as teachers beating girls and child labour, have been reduced.This includes physical violence related to dowry, asexpressed by a teenage girl: “Previously, husbands tried to get the dowry by any means. So, they used to batter wives severely until they get dowry. But now-a-days, legal action against dowry and wife battering has created some alarm within them”.
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Regarding emotional violencemany references are made to mental pressure exercised by inlaws (related to dowry), giving preferential treatment to sons over daughters (with schooling, food, clothing and attention in general), mobility restrictions for girls because of possible harassment of boys like stalking and eve teasing (the making of unwanted sexual remarks or advances by a man to a woman in a public place7). YW respondents indicated that “boys stalk girls on the streets, tease them, use vulgar terms, follow them, ask for their mobile phone numbers and abuse them through mobile phones. When these stalkers find that the girls are not responding, the former threats the latter to assault their parents in public.” According to the respondents these types of harassment forced the girls not to use cell phones and “often” families misunderstand the girls and blame them for this teasing. Some community and family members even taunt the girls and young women who participate in GPP activities, specifically Karate training, by saying that it is “not an appropriate activity for a girl”and asking them a lot of questions.
However, in the perception of the girls (14-17 years) the prevalence of emotional violence was worse before the GPP started regarding eve teasing, girls getting “life threatening messages from boys if they do not respond to their ill proposals” and the rate of early marriages was also high. Respondents indicated that “parents are now more aware and therefore they try to listen to the opinions of their daughter”.A young woman indicated that “InDeoparathe rate of child marriage was very high, but now-a-days, the Christian community does not get their child married”. Dowry related violence against women on the other hand is perceived unchanged. Moreover, YW indicated that previously information and communication technology (ICT) tools were a distant option; unlike its easy availability today and as a result cyber crimes are becoming a widespread phenomenon. Pornographic materials have become easily accessible to boys of any age as they can be watched on any multi mediadevices.
The highest average perceived prevalence of all types of violence and age groups at the time of MTR is emotional violence experienced by young girls (10-13 years). At their age these include alreadyeve-teasing, boys forcibly wanting to show vulgar photos or taking photos of them and posting it on the net, stalking, unwanted proposals of love and even child marriagewith related mental tortures of in-laws for the girl to bring the dowry. Also
7
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/eve-teasing
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mentioned are:preference for sons over daughter which can lead to taking daughters out of school or even to giving girl children away.
Overall, during the interaction with the G&YW they well expressed and easily communicated the issues of emotional, economic and physical violence, but limited issues related to sexual violence. Cultural stigma influenced their willingness in sharing experiences on sexual abuse or harassment. Those examples given of sexual violence often refer to sexual harassment, abuse or even rape in public places (transport, fairs or ‘puja’, religious ceremonies) but also forced sex in (child) marriagesand sexual harassment of male (in-law) family members(specifically abuse from husbands of the girls’ elder sister) as well as forced prostitution are mentioned.
Although also present inside the family, many girls identified sexual harassment (like inappropriate body touching, stalking, staring, eve teasing etcetera) at a crowded place such as a bus stand, fair, or inside public transport. Similarly, school areas are identified as most eve-teasing prone area for the girls.On the other hand girls get more often sexually harassed by middle-aged men than boys under 24.
SomeG&YW indicated that before the GPP started “there was a seasonal pattern observed on the incidents of rape: generally in the months of April-May-June, when the maze and jute are at their fullest, the incidents of rape increases, because guys use maze and jute fields as place of rape” and “incidents of sexual violence was quite high”, according to the YW in one of the FGD because people did not know about HIV, but it was also mentioned that “nowadays girls protest”. On a more negative note, according to the G&YW, sexual violence through ICT (e.g. posting girl’s photos on porn sites, disturbances over the mobile phone or social media) was rare before than it is now and some indicated that sexual harassment or exploitation is still a common issue and “almost an accepted norm in the society”.
In the matrix below examples of violence that happen today to G&YW according to them are given. In annex I there are some literal quotes regarding these examples of violence as formulated by G&YW.
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Matrix: Present-day examples of types of violence for each of the four categories according to G&YW Girls 14-17 years
YW 18-24 years
Economic violence
Dowry Unequal distribution of property rights Limiting education opportunities for daughters Unequal wages Economic dependency Force women to work No right to income Child Labour Discrimination in the work place Traditional gender division of labour Sexual exploitation
Dowry Unequal distribution of property rights Limiting education opportunities for daughters Wage discrimination No right to income Economic exploitation Economic dependency Women with a business are being cheated Traditional gender division of labour
Physical violence
Acid throwing Murder Dowry induced
Physical torture by husband and in-laws based on dowry,
Most common forms of violence according to the CSC Dowry Child labour Denying assets to the daughter No Control over resources Wage Discrimination In laws family disowns widow from husband assets after his death Daughters’ stipend used for families daily expenses Husband’s do not support financially to fulfil wives daily needs Boys are thought to be future earners of the family, therefore families invest financially on the boys more than the girls Girls’ are forced to surrender their earnings to their families and husbands. Daughters are rarely offered pocket money. If they are getting it then obviously it is less than their brothers. Wives are not economically valued for their hard works at homes Dowry induced physical torture Acid throwing
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Girls 14-17 years
Emotional
physical torture (by husband and in-laws) Wife battering (mainly by husband but also mother-inlaw) Domestic violence Torture in the workplace Child marriage (affects the reproductive health and girls that oppose get beaten) Child battering by parents, teacher, and brother Physical torture of maid servants by her “master” Wives deprived of food Physical punishment of women based on village committee verdict Abduction Fatwa
Family negligence
YW 18-24 years
unskilled cooking or giving birth to a baby girl Battering or even burning of wives Acid throwing Murder, often made look like suicide Real suicide induced by torture Domestic violence (against daughters, wives and sisters) Child marriage and pregnancy (affects the physical health of the girl) Physical torture of domestic servant Ear snatching or slap on hands by teacher Too much physical labour at home for girls Fatwa
Scolding
Most common forms of violence according to the CSC In laws beat their daughter-in-law Girls working as domestic helps are battered severely Child marriage Child bride get beaten when they cannot cook properly or fails to please their in laws with their household work skill Young mothers get physically ill after giving birth at an early age Wife battering (drug addict husbands) Wives are also beaten for giving birth to girl child Sometimes battering by teachers is eminent Children often get beaten when husband and wife fight Husbands usually beat their wives and daughters Often the husband kills his wife by gagging her with a pillow and then pours poison to make it look like suicide Sometimes girls are so helpless and speechless regarding post marital torture from their in laws that they commit suicide Dowry induced mental
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violence
Girls 14-17 years
YW 18-24 years
Preferring sons over daughters (with schooling, food, clothing, attention) Scolding by parents, teacher No freedom of movement and speech Mental pressure or punishment at inlaws’ house, school, family Threats or blackmailing by husbands, in-laws or male family members (for dowry or property) Eve teasing or stalking Vulgar terms used by teachers, boys / men on the street Love or marriage proposals made by boys Special instructions and restrictions for girls in fear of stalking by boys Discrimination by family Gender inequality in family and society, no decision making power for girls (Threat of) child marriage Quarrelling Name calling,
Eve teasing Vulgar terms used by teachers, neighbours, boys / men on the street Harshly push girls in crowded bus Restrained freedom of speech / opinion and movement (less after dawn for daughters and wives) (child) marriage forced by family or community Dowry induced mental torture from in-laws Family negligence Priority of sons over daughters (with schooling, food, clothing) Wives get divorced for giving birth to girl child Harassing via messages sent to mobile phones Verbal assaults by mother-in-law In laws do not want to let the wife continue her education Parents, husband or community members have little confidence in G/YW; suspect they will
Most common forms of violence according to the CSC torture Sons get to eat better food at homes Wives get divorced for giving birth to girl child Girls are denied better educational facilities and better clothing Parents think that daughters will get married, therefore they need to learn household chores rather than going to school Girls who stays outside for long become ‘ruined’ to the parents and community Opinions of boys get priority in the family After cooking meal, wives are not allowed to have the first course of the meal. It is considered a curse Misuse of social media sending sms, writing in wall of face book many kinds of vulgar words Girls get annoyed by unknown boys over cell phones. Child marriage Local people force the family of the girl to early marriage Middle class families restrict the education of their daughters Sometimes they assume the willingness to study
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Girls 14-17 years
Sexual violence
humiliation Life threatening messages from boys Harassing via messages sent to mobile phones Husband taking 2nd wife without seeking consent from 1st wife Threat of abduction or other types of violence Girls are denied sports
Elders (male family members) forcibly kissing or touching sexual body parts of girls Unwanted body touching Eve teasing Rape (sometimes gang rape) Sexual harassment by teacher, relatives, boys and men in public transport or places
YW 18-24 years
develop love affair A girls who embellishes herself and goes out is considered “ruined” Spreading false rumours about girls Humiliation in society No decision making power in the family
Cyber crime Sending vulgar text messages over the phone (Gang) rape Marital rape Rape of domestic servants Sexual harassment in school, private tuition, public transport, crowded area Sexual abuse by close relatives (e.g.
Most common forms of violence according to the CSC as if the girl is having an affair Fatwa Psychological torture because of giving birth of girl child In laws do not want to let the wife continue her education after getting married Mother in laws bad mouths Girls who dress up and go outside of the home are considered 'ruined' Men sing vulgar songs, whistle, say "look at the sexy piece passing by" Harshly push girls in the crowded bus They are forced to work for the living Sometimes family induce mental pressure to earn bread and butter Trafficking Boys tend to sit very close to a girl unnecessarily in bus or other public transport They send vulgar text messages, disturb over phone, missed calls etc. Boys take girls’ photo while she is walking on the road and posts that on porn sites Sometimes the walls of the schools are tainted with the vulgar
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Girls 14-17 years
Sexual abuse on the street Women and child trafficking Forced sex after marriage; marital rape Use vulgar terms referring to a girl’s body Draw girls’ name or sexually explicit image on (toilet) walls Stalking Vulgar text messages over mobile phone Child marriage Misuse or threatening to use girls’ photo on porn sites Forced prostitution / Sexual exploitation of women in need of money
YW 18-24 years
husband of sister, male in-laws), teachers (in the disguise of affection) Suicide by girls due to marriage proposal Snatching cloths or hands Winking, whistling Misuse of girls’ photos on internet to humiliate her dignity Stalking Eve teasing Uttering vulgar words to girls about her body Propose sex or any other sexual offer Trafficking of Women and Children Abduction, selling girls and women to brothel Extramarital affair by men and then leaving the 2nd girl Vulgar comments on school walls
Most common forms of violence according to the CSC comments Boys stalk girls at streets, tease them, follow them on roads, try to touch girls in cars, buses and in crowds; Use vulgar terms like ‘Sexy Shila’
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Specific outcome: Non-acceptance of violence against G&YW The percentage of teenage girls and YW that feel able to say no to sexual activity (indicator 3) has increased significantly since the GPP started. Whereas at BL times only 24% and 36% respectively felt they were able to say no to sexual activity, this has increased to almost 100% today.
The percentage of girls (those of 10-13 and 14-17 years) who agree that children may be beaten by adults (indicator 4) is still quite high today (45% and 53% respectively). In the case of YW this percentage is considerably lower (19%).
In all age groups respondents indicated that it is ok to hit children when they are disobedient to their parents, teacher or elders in general; when they do something bad or do not want to study. In one of the FGD with teenage girls they even indicated that too
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much affection derails children. In others they responded: “If children cross the limit of being disrespectful and inattentive, if they eve tease or smoke cigarettes, if they skip school and if they associate with bad colleagues, then they have to be taught a lesson by beating. […] Children become afraid of this abuse and they will not do the same mistake again.” And: “If children refuse to listen to the elders after frequent counselling, beating is the only option to discipline them.” In one of the FGD with YW they referred to real crimes as a reason to beat children: “Children have to be punished by battering if they commit serious crimes like theft or fighting with other children”.
Beating also happens between siblings and not only from boys to girls. One girl between 1013 years mentioned that she beats her younger brother when se gets very angry about his attitude.
Specific outcome: Access of G&YW to quality (child) protection systems The percentage of G&YW that know how to act when in need of protection against violence (indicator 5) increasesas the age of respondents increases (80% of girls 10-13 years, 88% of teenage girls and 91% of YW responded positively on the question). Both in the case of teenage girls and YW this percentage also increased considerably and significantly between BL and MTR periods (the BL question was not asked to the younger girls). It is notable that for the BL question a high percentage of teenage girls answered “don’t know”, which is possibly due to the way the question was formulated (with a double denial).
Teenage girls and YW attending FGDs mentioned they would first try to talk to the person who has caused the violence and will “counsel the person” and “politely make him
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understand why he should not do it�. Other teenage girls indicated they would first involve their parents and on a second instance their teacher. Both teenage girls and YW mentioned to inform their guardians or the local government representative of the village and, especially if the case worsens, they will go to formal officers from the police, CPG, Union Parishad Chairman, UpazilaNirbahi Officer (UNO, chief executive of a sub-district), seek legal support in general, and medical support if necessary. In most of the FGDs they also indicated they will discuss the matter with representatives of GPP partner organisations (like ACD, SUPK) and at the G&YW Forum. Only in one FGD the teenage girls who know karate (taught by GPP) said that they would use their karate skill to protect themselves from violence.
Only 57% of teenage girls and a bit more than three-quarters of young girls (10-13 years) and women (18-24 years) indicated they know which protection services are available (indicator 6). Also regarding the use of these services only 60% of young girls and a bit more than half of teenage girls and YW indicated they know G&YW who accessed formal protection services after having experienced violence. Those protection services mentioned by teenage girls and YW are: medical service at the hospital, (legal service at the) police station, the UNO, and GPP services from SUPK, PLAN, the ACD Shelter Home or legal service at BNWLA. Teenage girls also mentioned the Child Protection Groups and hot line service, where YW mentioned micro credit and livelihood training from ACD as well as the BRAC programme to support victims of violence (legally), most of which are services that are available specifically for their age groups.
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Specific outcomes on protection at the socio-cultural dimension Specific outcome: Communities recognise violence against G&YW as unacceptable Despite the decrease in community perception about men beating women the respondents have a feeling that thepatriarchal attitude is mainly responsible for people to believe that men deserve to beat his wife/girlfriend. Nonetheless, the 24+-year-old men & women were full of examples as to how the GPP has changed their views on girls’ rights. Adolescent boys & young men on the other hand had mixed views in terms of violence: some YM were under the impression that wife battering is justified when the husband is not in a good mood and in some cases B&YM give women’s deception as a reason of violence against women (Sariatpur). Boys even said that nowadays men are also victims of violence by their wives physically and emotionally, but no one takes into account this issue.
Today a quarter of YM (16-24 years) and women above 24 years think that their peers agree that children may be beaten by their parents and / or teachers (indicator 8). In the case of men above 24 years this goes up to 35%. This is a considerable reduction from BL period when it was between 58% and 88% according to the respondents. As a reason not to beat children respondents answered: “Battering is very harmful for children’s physical and psychological development” and “create distance in parents – children relationships” as they “become upset, depressed, humiliated and irresolute”. Only in one FGD they mentioned that beating children is against the Child Protection Policy. On the other hand some indicated that children should be beaten when they are disrespectful, do not study or bring dishonour to the family in any way, because otherwise they become “reckless”. Regarding the positive change between BL and MTR periods they said: “People did not give much attention to child beating as this has been a practice in society for a long time”, in other words: “It was an accepted social norm”. However, “Now people have the knowledge that children can not be disciplined by beating” and rather “Parents should listen to their children from their very childhood on. If they give their children more time, the children will listen to them, so they won't have to beat their children anymore”.
In the case of men beating their wives or girlfriends (indicator 10) these percentages are lower for community men and women above 24 years (15%), but double their amount for YM, of which a 30% think that their peers would agree that this is correct behaviour. Also here respondents think that there has been a positive change as before the programme started still three-quarters of YM and women thought that according to their peers a man is
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allowed to beat his partner. They also explained “earlier wives were beaten even if they hadn’t done anything wrong”; it was a socially accepted norm, which was also influenced by in-laws. Surprisingly only one-third of men above 24 thought like this, indicating that “Patriarchal attitudes were very common in the community and women are very helpless and dependent on men”. Moreover, “Poverty, illiteracy and unconsciousness lead men to violence against women”.
In all FGD with YM they gave examples of situations in which men are allowed to hit their wives: “If a wife demands beyond a husband’s ability, is disobedient, not careful to the family, and mentally tortures the husband, then the husband can beat his wife”. A married YM even said that wives “have to be battered at one point of conjugal life, because day by day they become more irritating and nagging”. In two of the four FGD with YM they did question the practice of husbands beating their wives when they have done something wrong, indicating: “the relationship between husband and wife can not have this kind of attitude towards each other” and “Women are human too, no one has given any right to men to beat any other human being”.
Male and female community members of above 24 years old are overall more negative than YM regarding men hitting their wives and responded: “A husband has no right to beat his wife”. The women from Ward 6 even said that “consciousness has been increased in society that violence against women is illegal and punishable” and the men indeed said: “anyone can make a mistake, man or woman, so it’s not right to beat anyone”. Nevertheless, in one FGD with men they did say beating wives is allowed “if a wife does not do the household work properly, goes outside without permission of her husband, does any work that her
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husband does not like and if the husband is drunk and he has no sense” and also in one FGD with women above 24 they justified this type of behaviour saying: “Husbands give shelter and food so they have the right to punish if wives make any mistake” and “Husbands will divorce if the wife protests them and they will marry for a second time”. This opinion, which was given in Ward 5 for BL and MTR periods, was mentioned by women in Ward 6 as the traditional view, which has changed today (see above).
Regarding the denouncement of violence against G&YW only 63% of community men and women but 80% of YM think that their peers would agree that these situations -either happening inside or outside the home-, should be reported always (indicator 9). Before the GPP these percentages were much lower in the case of women (15%) and YM (10%) but already at 50% for men above 24 years, although they did indicate that “previously the men did not have a clear idea of violence and did not know what to report and what not”. Still, today there is a confusion between men of all ages regarding the types of violence that should be reported; in FGDs with young and adult men they were specifically questioning if scolding and humiliation by family members should be reported or not.
Women above 24 years indicated that “A small act of violence can cost the life of a girl, therefore, every violence should be properly reported”. However, “women do not want to report violence because the situation becomes worse; men become more violent. [Moreover,] women do not want to report violence in sake of the family honour; if women report violence the society blames the women and women will loose their family”.
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This was confirmed by men saying: “Reporting of violence makes the situation uncontrolled and worse: men never accept reporting against them and become more violent; in most cases men will never accept the woman who complained against him in their family again”. There were also some men with more positive reactions like: “Violence must be reported because if one girl reports a violence, and if proper action is taken towards the oppressor, then this will protect many other girls from that violence”. But, overall the opinion of men is that the family should try to solve the issue and only as a last resort the violence should be reported.
The same was expressed by B&YM: “problems are very common in every family so they should be solved within the family; the reporting system is very hazardous and society does not take this positively and family honour will also be hampered”. Nevertheless, they did say that the community council could be informed as well as the police, if the incident is severe. On another positive note B&YM said: “Reporting of violence will decrease the tendency of violence among men; if anyone gets the highest punishment other persons will be aware and desist himself from committing any violence. If people hush up the incident of violence and do not report it then the situation will turn to worst”.
Specific outcomes on protection at the institutional level Specific outcome: Government acts to ensure the rights of G&YW to protection against violence Girls’ panel members The opinions in the two girls’ panels regarding support given by the government to protection of G&YW through policies and legislation (indicator 12) were totally opposite,and it is likely that this can be explained as a result of differences between regions. In the case of Tulashar, respondents from the Girls’ panel perceive a positive support from government through laws as they saw that GPP worked very actively and got some favourable justice through these laws. There is a mobile court active in the area and many boys got punishment for eve teasing. If they want to file a complaint against any violence they inform the GPP representative, who files the complaint in the police station, after which they can get a response from the Police.
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All girls from the panel in Auliapur on the other hand, responded that government is very unsupportive although they did mention the Prevention of Oppression Against Women and Children Act and the Child Marriage Restrain Act. Despite having a marriage registrar in place that could play a significant role in child marriage prevention, the child marriage still continues. They expressed that they want to involve the lawmakers and higher administrative authority in their awareness raising activities.
Regarding the support given by government services the girls from Auliapur are a bit more positive and three quarters of all respondents perceive these services as supportive. At the time of the BL only the girls in Aulliapur were positive regarding this, which is explained by the fact that girls of Tulashar took a neutral position as they didn't know about the type of support the government was giving before GPP started; they learned about this during GPP activities which led to a variety of opinions (some perceive the service provision as supportive, others as unsupportive). As type of services, they specifically mentioned the hotline service and one-stop crisis centre. In Auliapur they also mentioned the training provided by the Women Department.
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Professional panel members (all of whom are women and two of them CSC members) indicated that at the time of the BL government was more supportive than now with policies, legislation and, especially, services regarding protection of G&YW against violence. Also during the evaluation summit the CSC members indicated that some out-dated laws (Vagrancy Act 1943, Dowry Prohibition Act 1980) have created a problem and although government policies are there, their implementation is far weaker. As a consequence, the violation of such policies is common. For example, in Khansama Upazila of Dinajpur, because of strong GPP activities, child marriage is very rare. However, people take their girl child to the adjacent district (Nilphamari) and get them married there. Moreover, corruption at Local Government Institutes (LGIs) 8 and other government agencies makes it difficult to determine the right age of a girl.
Overall, there is a lack of criminal prosecution by the law enforcing authorities. One of the reasons for weak services is the absence of coordination between law enforcement, medical and legal support providing agencies, which handle the victims of violence. Moreover, access to information about the available protection services in the community or at national level, is found to be quite low.
On another note, tenure of punishment for child marriage and dowry or dowry induced mental / physical stress is quite low to restrain from violence. On the contrary, lengthy
8
The “Union”, also called “community” by GPP Bangladesh, the smallest unit of the LGIs.
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judicial processes discourage victims and their families to seek legal support in time. Consequently, violence related cases are reported very low. The Multi-Sectorial Programme and PFP Report 2012 estimates that only 2% of violence gets reported.
3.1.2 OUTCOME
RESULT:
ENHANCED
(POST)PRIMARY
EDUCATION
OPPORTUNITIES FOR G&YW Officially the GPP in Bangladesh does not work on education. However, certain protection activities are implemented at schools and education is considered to be a key factor in giving tools to G&YW to protect themselves. Therefore, also the specific outcome on educational participation at the individual dimension was included in the recollection and analysis of data.
Specific outcome on educational participation at the individual dimension Specific outcome: G&YW value education Only the specific outcome on educational participation at the individual dimension was included in the research. Regarding the base line question for this indicator number 42, a high % answered “don’t know” which is possibly due to the way the question was formulated. Overall, it caught the evaluators attention that although girls are found to have considerable knowledge on the effects of child marriage and importance of education in a girl’s life, many times the respondents did not show a very supportive attitude towards a married girl or young mother going to school. Young girls (10-13 years), mentioned: “It is a shame for a girl to come to school if she is married or has child. How can a girl study and work at home simultaneously? She will make her in-laws unhappy” and “A girl must prioritise her husband, children and household over schooling after she gets married.” Some teenage girls said: “If a girls goes to school after getting married, other girls will humiliate her, its very odd a married girl coming to school”. However, in the end, a high percentage of respondents agreed that girls should be able to continue their education after childbirth or marriage (88% of girls 10-13 years, 94% of adolescent girls and almost all YW -99%).
In Bangladesh, UNICEF, under the Let Us Learn initiative uses innovative approaches to address barriers to education for the most excluded children, enrolling 3,917 five-year-olds
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(60% girls) in school readiness programmes, including 153 disabled children from the most disadvantaged region of rural Bangladesh.9
3.2 FINDINGS RELATED TO CAPABILITIES OF PARTNER ORGANISATIONS (BOX 3) GPP aimed to increase the capacity of partner organisations in five key competency areas so as to ensure better results delivery at the individual, community, institutional and civil society level that further would contribute to empower girls and young women.
The objective of 5C exercise is to establish the strengths and weaknesses of the partner organisation, to analyse differences with the baseline and, although outside of the scope of this evaluation, to prioritise needs for capacity building. Indicator 42 - Perceived % respondents who agree that girls should be able to continue their education after childbirth/marriage 100% Baseline
75%
MTR 50% 25% 0% 10-13 (N=40)
14-17 (N=180)
18-24 (N=180)
However, it is worth mentioning that some of the members representing partner organisations during the 5C exercise were not confident in comparing the 5C results between the baselineand MTR as simply because of the differences in the methodologies of these two exercises. Despite this they appreciated the participatory approach adapted in 5C exercise during MTR for giving ample opportunity for the team to reflect on the organisational status and identify the areas for improvement objectively. On the other hand during BL partners received the 5C questionnaire by email and filled it out, without guidance from researchers and probably without much internal consultation. As different scale of measurement was used in BL study the targets set for 2013 and 2015 show values of above 4, which in case of MTR is the maximum score. The fact that the 5C process was conducted
9
www.un.org/millenniumgoals/pdf/Goal_2_fs.pdf
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differently has lead to a missed opportunity of sound target setting. The information for BL is given in the tables with the MTR scoresbelow and in annex G.
3.2.1 PARTNER 1: ASSOCIATION FOR COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT (ACD) The Association for Community Development (ACD) has been working in the country since 1989, with a vision of establishing an equity-based democratic and sustainable society. ACD is a large partner with 160 staff (99 male, 61 female).ACD joined the GPP in July 2011 at five upazilas in the Rajshahi District.Their activities are done at four levels. The main activities of GPP at Institution Level are to organise Child protection and Gender training for Union Parishad, CPG and upazila level government officials; to organise CPG formation and make it functional; to organise advocacy workshop at upazila level. At CSO Level ACD organises Child protection, advocacy and local level lobbying and Gender training for CSO representatives; they also organise CSO network coordination meeting at Upazila level; sensitisation workshop for journalists on gender and child protection and provide awards to journalists for their best reporting. At Individual Level, they organise self defence training (karate) for girls and young women; provide training for individuals (girls and young women) on child protection, child rights and communication; livelihood training support for girls and young women and self-employment support for girls and young women. Finally at Socio Cultural Level, ACD organises TFD shows in the community on violence and child protection, and child marriage and birth registration; child rights and child protection training, and gender training for local elites, CBOs and other relevant groups; girls and young women forum formation and operation meeting and annual convention at Upazila level.
Table 17a: 5 C scores for Partner ACD Average score at MTR Average score at baseline Capabilities 1= awareness, 2=exploration, 3=transition, 4=full implementation Capability to commit and act 3.78 4.0 Capability to achieve 3.63 4.0 Capability to relate 3.72 4.0 Capability to adapt and renew 3.64 4.0 Capability to achieve coherence 3.86 4.0
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Series1; Commit & act; 3,78 Series1; Diversity & consistency; 3,86
Series1; Deliver objectives; 3,63
Series1; Adapt & renew; 3,64
The Capability to Commit and Act
Series1; Relate ; 3,72
Score: 3.78
ACD has been working in the field of human rights for the past 24 years. They have a fiveyear Strategic Plan for the organisation, which is developed based on discussions between staff members and management. The participants also mentioned that they have a Human Resource Policy for the employees, and staff gets appropriate employment contracts. The participants also noted that they follow a standard recruitment process by identifying vacancy and evaluating need, developing a position description and recruitment plan, posting positions and reviewing applicants and conducting interviews after developing a short list. So the general notion among the participants was that the right people are in the right positions within ACD.
On another note, ACD has income from various sources but participants believe it’s not up to the mark. In 2013, ACD has taken on some income generating projects but output is yet to be received. The main source of income is donors that fund projects. However, ACD maintainsan effective financial resource mobilisation through keeping the organisational budget in line with the budgets agreed on with the donors, and they ensure that the bills and invoices are stored properly and get audited by both internal and external auditors. They also have a Financial Policy in place with detailed instructions on annual budgets and spending limits, cash transactions, and cheques among others. In that way, the staff abides by clear rules and procedures to work cost-effectively.
With an average score of 3.9, the 5C participants of ACD demonstrated that the organisation has a leadership that is supportive to the strategic focus of the organisation and acts
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accordingly. All ten participants agreed that management works as a ‘team’ – they have regular staff meetings to exchange ideas, successes and lessons. The programmes are carried out with the leadership of a Programme Coordinator, who leads the implementation process by supervising the Project Coordinators. Technical and financial staffs support the decisions that are taken by the leadership. In addition to regular ‘Monthly Manager Meetings’, attended by the project chiefs and Area Managers, they have monthly staff meetings for each of their programmes.
The vision statement of ACD states that ACD is gender sensitive and the goal statement says that the organisation wishes to “achieve the rights of people, especially the disadvantaged and vulnerable women, adolescent and children at grassroots levels through improving their socio-economic, political and cultural status, ensuring social justice and good governance.” Based on this, 5C participants said that ACD’s mandate is to work for the development of young women and girls. However, participants did not think that the organisation has the right proportion men–women in the team appropriate for the actions the organisation undertakes. As a reason, they identified the geographical location of the project areas as the single most important factor discouraging women to take up the job with the ACD technical team. For example, for implementing GPP in five sub-districts of Rajshahi, ACD recruited 3 men and 2 women. Within 2 months of GPP inception, the women project staff left their positions and ACD had to recruit male employees in the vacant positions.
The average scores for the 5 indicators of ACD’s capability to commit and act ranges between 3.4 to 3.95, with the pointer “stable income from various sources,” receiving the lowest score (2.7). Six out of ten participants thought that ACD has just started exploring for stable income opportunities. But in terms of having appropriate human resource policy, all ten participants scored 4, implying that not only ACD has a human resource policy with appropriate employment contracts and development plans for staff, but the employees are well aware of its existence and effectiveness.
The Capability to Achieve
Score: 3.63
Half of the participants considered that relevant supplies and adequate equipment are available in ACD at all time while the rest of the staffs were under the impression that the infrastructure still has lot of room for improvement. Forty percent of the participants think that the building and its equipment are sufficient and relevant for the organisation to
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deliver. Five out of ten participants do not think that ACD has the perfect number of staff available to deliver organisational outputs. They think that they have a crisis of female staff, which has to be addressed in a strategic way.
The participants mentioned having an annual plan of the organisation with measureable objectives and targeted indicators. They set the indicators depending on the discussion between management and project staff. They also record gender specific data, segregated according to project area and income status. Every fiscal year, an external financial audit is done by certified and well-known auditors.
ACD staffs consider that their organisation has appropriate knowledge of gender specific approaches to address needs of beneficiaries and has access to knowledge resources. All staff members, from management to support staff, isaware of gender issues, rights of women and girls as well as the procedures to seek help if needed. Their work is done in full confidentiality. Moreover, ACD is part of some international gender based coalitions with whom they share their gender approaches. They use national data produced by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) and other published as well as unpublished reports produced by international organisations. However, they also mentioned that these data couldn’t be translated into appropriate actions for target groups all the time, mostly because of ACD’s dependency on donor priorities. The participants, however, think that the services ACD delivers, contribute to gender equality immensely. ACD takes their gender approach very seriously, which is why they invest in orienting its entire staff on the gender issues as soon as they are recruited.
In summary, ACD staff has shown that their organisation has exercised plenty with the successful and effective delivery of development objectives and is heading to full-fledged implementation. However, this capability has received the lowest score of all five mostly because some participants question the availability of infrastructure and composition of the staff.
The Capability to Relate
Score: 3.72
ACD staff seems to have good working relations with relevant key players like government, non-government and private entities. Seven out of ten participants said that the organisation has fully accomplished (score 4.0) establishing strong coordination with all
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government, national and international organisations. They also mentioned that they have sought help of other international organisations and alliances to develop different organisational policies for ACD. In many of their social and project events, as well as in trainings and workshops, experts of other organisations have actively participated and this process has been going on from the inception of ACD.
Participants said that ACD believes in downward accountability; decisions are materialised through Weekly Area Level Meeting, Monthly Managers Meeting and an Annual Planning and Review Workshop to collect plans, lesson learned, challenges and recommendations. However, participants thought these need to be increased. Before starting a project, ACD conducts a baseline or situation analysis.
Participants have provided good scores while describing that the organisation’s leadership and staff are incorruptible, according to its stakeholders. They think that all their information is transparent. ACD has a good reputation in the community and everyone knows that they maintain certain professional ethics in their activities. The stakeholders are allowed to question ACD’s activities at any time through mobile phone or email. ACD not only acts on behalf of its target group; they also actively provide their support when needed to governmental agencies (e.g. continuous training, capacity building and awareness raising activities for the Ministry of Women and Children Affairs, Ministry of Home Affairs and others).
ACD effectively maintains relations with other likeminded organisations working for child rights and gender equality by engaging them in forum meetings, networks and advocacy activities.
The Capability to Adapt and Renew
Score: 3.64
ACD staff thinks that their management has a clear view on key priorities internationally and particularly in country. The on-going projects of ACD are designed in such a way that they address national and international priority. This is a balancing act to keep the fund flow and maintain development initiatives at the same time. They believe that through the regular meetings and field experience, ACD receives information on opportunities and threats provided by the changing context and they try to adapt to these. ACD also respects all local level recommendations.
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Seven out of ten participants think that ACD is in full implementation stage when it comes to the hierarchy allowing critical input from staff in decision-making. They think, not only ACD encourages and rewards learning and exchange, but it also leaves room for different views from staff. It involves both vertical and horizontal decision-making for inclusiveness.
ACD staff allocates time for review and exchange during project staff meetings. Their experiences and lessons learned are documented, but they cannot always use these experiences. Most of the time, if budget allows,ACD tries to implement a pilot phase before scaling it up to a long-term intervention.
Although learning is used for greater effectiveness in operations for gender equality, participants thought that they have several limitations in using PM&E information for improving strategies to increase gender equality. One of the core reasons is that being heavily dependent on donor funded projects ACD follows the standard PM&E process that the donors decide on. There is little opportunity to use a project’s information in other context.
The Capability to Achieve Coherence
Score: 3.86
This capability to balance diversity and consistency received the highest score. ACD has a clear mandate, vision and strategy that are known by staff and used by its management in decision-making. ACD is in a full implementation stage regarding its management supporting the staff towards achieving strategies (all ten participants marked 4). Almost all the participants (nine out of ten) considered that the organisation has a well-defined set of operating principles and uses these in its operations. They said that all procedures and systems are well described in manuals or guidelines and staff whole-heartedly supports principles and values of the organisation. They also agreed that the strategic plan and annual work plans show regular adaptations based on new contexts, changed priorities in the government and international society and field experiences. These changes are discussed and communicated with staff during project meetings.
Prioritisation of improvement points: The annual strategic planning meeting seriously takes into account that work plans, strategy, vision and mission remain in line with each other. Strategic priorities (not the mission) of ACD are updated based on the experiences in operations.
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Although, all participants considered that ACD has fully implemented the requirement of a gender policy and has made sure that all staff is aware of the gender policy in their organisation, theydo think that introducing specific gender planning tools to ensure gender mainstreaming during the whole planning and implementation process needs to be improved (score 3.3).
3.2.2 PARTNER 2: SUPK Samaj Unnayan Prashikshan Kendra (SUPK) is a medium organisation of 45 staff members (18 male and 27 female) that exists for already 34 years. The organisation is implementing activities in the following sectors:Gender and social justice; Non Formal Primary Education; Prevention and protection of children and women from violence, abuse and exploitation; Water and sanitation; Child and Maternal Health (Expanded Programme on Immunisation or EPI).
SUPKis the only local partner implementing GPP activities in Dinajpur, which they started in August 2011. They are covering 27 unions under four sub-districts (upazilas) for GPP. Their activities are done at four levels. First, at the institution level, SUPK maintains strong liaison with Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Ministry of Social Welfare, Ministry of Women and Children Affairs, Ministry of Youth and Sports and Ministry of Primary and Mass Education. In addition, they involve Union Parishad (the smallest rural administrative and local government units in Bangladesh), UpazilaParishad, District Administration and law enforcement agency with GPP activities through advocacy meetings and sensitisation workshops. They conduct two advocacy workshops at district and upazila level in an annum. In addition, they hold an annual convention each year where all the beneficiaries remain present alongside local government representatives and district administration and they share their learning, challenges and successes with wider audience. Journalists who have shown extraordinary expertise in writing about protection issues are awarded in this convention. Secondly, at CSO level, SUPK conduct network building advocacy, capacity building activities targeted at the staffs of likeminded CSOs focusing on child right, child protection and gender. Thirdly, SUPK works at the community level through ‘Theatre for Development’ activities. Finally at individual level, SUPK performs livelihood/skill based training, build linkages with income generating activities, provide life skill training, Karate training. They have facilitated the formation of Girls Forum at each of their project unions.
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In the below table the 5C scores from MTR and BL are shown. The MTR 5C scores given by SUPK staff seem to be done with more self-reflection, as it is one of the only 2 PNGOs that were evaluated in the MTR, which show scores below 3.
Table 17b: 5 C scores for Partner SUPK Capabilities implementation Capability to commit and act Capability to achieve Capability to relate Capability to adapt and renew Capability to achieve coherence
Average score at MTR Average score at baseline 1= awareness, 2=exploration, 3=transition, 4=full 2.69
3.24
2.53 3.42 2.31
3.14 3.36 3.08
3.01
3.28
Series1; Commit & act; 2,69
Series1; Diversity & consistency; 3,01
Series1; Deliver objectives; 2,53
Series1; Adapt & renew; 2,31
The Capability to Commit and Act
Series1; Relate ; 3,42
Score: 2.69
SUPK has been working in the field of social development for the past 34 years. Even after this long journey, they are still exploring to devise a standard strategic plan with clear vision and mission for the organisation, which they want to develop by discussion between staff members and management. Half of the staff said that they hardly get involved in decisionmaking and are not well aware of decisions taken regarding annual/five years plans. The participants also mentioned that they are trying to develop a Human Resource Policy for the 46
employees. For this, they have already sought technical expertise from different organisations nationally. The general notion among the participants was that SUPK still lack the right people in the right positions. Even though the technical staff is experienced and skilled, there is a void of expertise in capacity building, training, documentation, human resource development and financial resource management. Dinajpur, being a hard to reach district of Bangladesh, seldom attracts highly experienced human resource. SUPK is trying to minimise the shortcoming through capacity building activities of existing staff and recruiting local skilled candidates.
Moreover, leadership is concentrated at the top, and the current executive director appears to be the organisation’s key person. This has certainly enhanced SUPK’s capacity, but at this point there is no apparent second in command, no one who could easily step in and take over. However, there is also substantial evidence that SUPK has consistently strengthened its capacity to act and commit. It appears to be a participatory organisation that is in regular contact with its constituency, and has steadily increased its outreach to all Dinajpur regions.
SUPK staff ranked the ‘stable income’ pointer the lowest with only a 1.4 score on average. They explained that not having a general fund is an impediment for SUPK to sustain their ongoing activities. The organisation has procedures in place to work cost-effectively. They are in the ‘transition’ stage in maintaining effective financial resource mobilisation. SUPK has had a relatively stable staffing structure and an evolving financial and management capacity. They practice keeping the organisational budget in line with the budget agreed on with the donors and try to ensure that the bills and invoices are stored properly and get audited by both internal and external auditors.
Not many of the staffs consider that SUPK’s leadership is supportive to the strategic focus of the organisation and acts accordingly. With a score of 3.3, SUPK staff fairly agreed that the management team does work as a ‘team’. The programmes are carried out with the leadership of a Project Coordinator; technical and financial staffs support the decisions that are taken by the PC. Field officers receive feedback from the central office during monthly meetings.
The goal statement of SUPK is “to release neglected, oppressed and uprooted people including children and women of the society from humanitarian and socio-economic
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discrepancies.” This clearly indicates that SUPK thrives to be a gender sensitive organisation. Gender sensitivity as well as equality and non-discrimination in general, are two of the nine values of SUPK. Although the staff communicated that all their project priorities are based primarily on a gender agenda, participants did not think that the organisation has yet fully achieved the right proportion men–women in the team for the actions the organisation undertakes. As a reason, they identified the geographical location of the project areas as the single most important factor discouraging women to take up the job with SUPK technical team. In the core team though, the number of female employees is higher than the male employees. For GPP, they have successfully recruited equal numbers of male and female employees – 2 women and 2 men as Technical Officers at four project upazilas.
The average score of 2.69for the capability to commit and actnecessitates immediate response, specifically to the absence of a concerted human resource development and training approach to recruiting, training and retaining the workforce in SUPK. GPP may also need to look into providing technical expertise and knowhow to assist them in improving their programmes and services. To ensure that other staff and constituents share the management’s understanding and commitment for the organisation to be sustained, SUPK leadership requires fostering the involvement and participation of SUPK’s stakeholders and the community.
The Capability to Achieve
Score: 2.53
SUPK’s track record demonstrates that is has been able to secure substantial resources from several relevant donors. It has also gradually managed to create more core staff positions over time, though many of these have been associated with specific projects. SUPK’s dependency on external funding makes it vulnerable. Its basis and sustainability remain weak because it depends on the willingness and ability of donors to continue funding.
Half of the participants considered that relevant supplies and adequate equipment are generally available in SUPK at all time while the rest of the staff was under the impression that the infrastructure still has lot of room for improvement. All but one participant thinks that the building and its equipment are insufficient and not adequately relevant for the organisation to deliver. Six out of eight participants do not think that SUPK has the perfect number of staff available to deliver organisational outputs. They think that they have a crisis of both male and female staff, which has to be addressed in a strategic way. Staff agreed
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that SUPK has to work on identifying the number of employees and the type of employee skill-sets required to meet the organisation’s goals, strategic objectives and delivery requirements.
Five out of eight SUPK staff members mentioned that the organisation is trying to develop annual plans that will have measureable objectives (with indicators). They also noted that recording of gender specific data is not done at all time but on the requirement associated with specific projects.
SUPK staff considers that their organisation has appropriate knowledge of gender specific approaches to address needs of beneficiaries, nevertheless, especially the field level staff, still lacks access to national/international statistical data. Apparently a great deal of their knowledge remains in the minds of people in the form of intuitive knowledge. All staff is reasonably aware of gender issues, rights of women and girls as well as the procedures to seek help if needed. Their work is done in full confidentiality. SUPK takes their gender approach very seriously, which is why they invest in orienting its entire staff on the gender issues as soon as they are recruited.
Thus, when it comes to capability to deliver on development objectives, SUPK staff has communicated that there is huge potential for realising the development objectives, but as yet not as much has been achieved as one would. Staff thinks that SUPK is going towards a transition stage from exploration. Funding constraints were considered to be a major factor inhibiting the achievement of development objectives. Strong and motivating leadership that work closely with communities and networks at national level is deemed necessary for SUPK.
The Capability to Relate
Score: 3.42
According to the participants this is the strongest of SUPK’s capacities. SUPK staff builds and maintains networks with external actors, including governmental structures, private sector parties, CSOs and in the end their constituencies. All the 5C participants said that the organisation has fully accomplished (score 4.0) establishing strong coordination with all government, national and international organisations. SUPK staff cited that relationships with international organisations are always considered important, especially with regard to the acquisition of funding. They also mentioned that they have sought help of other national
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organisations and alliances to develop different organisational policies for SUPK. In many of their social and project events, as well as in trainings and workshops, experts of other organisations (national and international) have actively participated. The work that SUPK has done to raise awareness among local government (union parishad), in collaboration with community people, and that they have included VAW activities in the annual budget of LG, is evidence of the capability to relate and establish supportive relationships.
According to the participants, the integrity of SUPK’s leadership and staff is unquestioned by stakeholders. SUPK has a good reputation in the community and everyone knows that they maintain certain professional ethics in their activities. With the aim of engaging stakeholders and enabling them to participate in constructive dialogue and decision-making for improved coordination and collaboration in Dinajpur, SUPK shares their core values with different levels of stakeholders and considers that their values are well communicated with them. SUPK also encourages authentic, honest, and respectful dialogue to create an environment in which disagreements and conflict become a valuable source of learning in their catchment areas.
SUPK is aware of the importance of coalitions. It cooperates with stakeholders at the district and national levels. It is a member of regional and global bodies, and it seeks cooperation from like-minded international organisations. SUPK, thus, has a great deal of social and political legitimacy and leverage, and is considered an important actor to be reckoned withinthe Dinajpur district.
SUPK participates in debates on themes related to its mission and contributes to local development. It is a member of a number of national, upazila and district-level platforms and participates through these channels in policy-making processes and their implementation. But the organisation questions to what extent these contributions have led to real changes in policies.
Relations with the relevant ministries have always been good and instrumental in getting things done, but since national election is due on December 2013, they are anticipating less cooperation at the political level.
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The Capability to Adapt and Renew
Score: 2.31
SUPK staff has given the lowest average score in the capability to adapt and renew. They think that management is trying to keep a clear view on key priorities internationally and particularly in-country, however, opportunities and threats, based on changing context are not effectively identified and used. SUPK management has shown few signs of having adapted new and updated ways of working to deliver quality services under the new reality. SUPK staff reported that in the past, little or no innovations have been shown by the leadership to influence policies and act as a thought leader in increasingly wide circles.
Even though SUPK management has an understanding of shifting contexts and relevant trends, they can rarely leave room for diversity, flexibility and creativity, owing to the fact that SUPK is heavily dependent on donor funds. Staff also thinks that SUPK management does not very often encourage and reward learning and exchange. SUPK does not systematically audit the staffs’ progress and learning processes. SUPK staff thinks that they allocate little time for review and exchange. Their experiences and lessons learned are documented, but they cannot always use these experiences.
Nevertheless, SUPK has started developing strategic plans and a Human Resource Policy, which presented an opportunity for SUPK to adapt and renew. SUPK tends to perpetually mourn the state of diminishing resources from the donors and their perceived powerlessness to deal with the situation. They did not show awareness of opportunities in their environment or of how to seize opportunities to improve on service delivery.
SUPK participants considered that they have a number of restrictions in using PM&E information to improve strategies to increase gender equality. One of the core reasons is that being heavily dependent on donor funded project SUPK follows the standard PM&E process that donors decide. There is little opportunity to use a project’s information in another context.
Overall, after two years of GPP intervention, SUPK needs to give more attention to planning and evaluating learning systematically. Learning for individuals, teams and the organisation needs to be strengthened and links needs to be established between these different levels of learning.
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The Capability to Achieve Coherence
Score: 3.01
Staff agreed that overall the SUPK management supports staff towards achieving strategies. Participants also communicated their support towards principles and values of the organisation.
Participants also reported that so far, SUPK has demonstrated consistency in establishing what it stands for and coherence in how it has organised itself as an organisation. SUPK staff is consistent in the way they define operations, based on vision and strategy.
SUPK’s theory of change, the commitment of individuals, CSOs and CBOs, and their ability to deal with issues such as fear and violence has facilitated changes in the capability of achieving coherence. SUPK has a well-defined governance structure; the Board decides on policies, the Executive Director and heads of projects decide on the strategies. The staff thinks that more work needs to be done here to ensure that SUPK remains committed to achieving coherence, balancing stability, and instigating change.
In conclusion, the capability to achieve coherence could improve. The authorities need to better coordinate the seemingly disparate ways development partners want to work with them to achieve a cohesive strategy.
Staff indicated several reasons for the continuous capacity gap in SUPK. For example limited availability of professionally-qualified personnel to hire in Dinajpur; limited budget lines available to them, which deters them from hiring qualified personnel; lack of institutional advice to improve performance internally, such as financial administration, planning and monitoring procedures.
SUPK has managed to grow and develop because of its own strengths and vision. GPP’s role, however, which consists of providing not only technical and financial support but also ideas for further development, has had a significant impact on this capacity development process.
Prioritisation of improvement points: SUPK needs to identify innovative ways to strengthen their capacity with the limited resources available, demonstrate leadership, and work more closely with other GPP partners to advocate and represent their sector’s needs in external forums.
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Exchanging information about experiences and the lessons learned is crucial to this type of collaboration. During the workshop, SUPK clearly expressed their willingness to learn, asked questions and made suggestions for solutions. Lessons should be drawn during staff meetings on how to improve procedures. Although the systems and procedures are clearly outlined, they are not always followed in practice. Although SUPK considers knowledge and its acquisition crucial, the organisation does not seem to take sufficient advantage of their partnerships in acquiring knowledge. Some reasons why the organisation does not learn sufficiently from its experiences are other priorities and time pressure. Plan International Bangladesh has to bring aforementioned capacity building areas into the scope of their partnership with SUPK and provide technical backstopping as appropriate with a clear plan of action.
3.2.3 PARTNER 3: SHARIATPUR DEVELOPMENT SOCIETY (SDS) SDS was founded in 1991 and is involved in campaigns against domestic violence, Women & Child Rights, Institution Building, Credit support, Non Formal Education, Training, Disaster Management & Response, agriculture & food security, Health & Sanitation, Advocacy for Basic Services, land advocacy, advocacy on pro poor issues, Legal Support, and HIV/AIDS, amongst others. It’s a large organisation with 497 employees (188 women and 309 men).
In the below table the 5C scores from MTR and BL are shown. As was the case for SUPK, the MTR 5C scores given by SDS staff seem to be done with more self-reflection, as these are the only 2 PNGOs that were evaluated in the MTR, which show scores below 3 (both in BL and MTR).
Table 17d: 5 C scores for Partner SDS Average score at MTR Average score at baseline Capabilities 1= awareness, 2=exploration, 3=transition, 4=full implementation Capability to commit and 3.04 3.4 act Capability to achieve 2.95 3.7 Capability to relate 3.13 3.4 Capability to adapt and 2.90 2.9 renew Capability to achieve 3.07 2.8 coherence
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The Capability to Commit and Act Score: 3.04 SDS staff participating in the 5C workshop indicated that the capability to commit and act could be improved as at present the strategic plan is not well formulated and a “fund crisis” exists. Their financial resource availability is not stable. Only their microcredit programme is in a secured position; the other programmes lack budget and have to cope with instability of financial resources. With the limited resources that they have, they always try to work in cost effective way to achieve a maximum output at grassroots level.
About other pointers indicated for this capability they are more positive. The whole staff is involved in decision-making or well informed on the decisions that are taken by the authority. They can express their opinion if they have any disagreement. Every month they have a staff meeting and additional meetings are arranged when necessary. In their opinion the right people are in the right place; all employees are highly qualified. However, there is a problem with retaining personnel due to the fact that the organisation is located in what they call “backward” place far away from the capital. Nevertheless, they claim to have a committed team, which has created a positive image of GPP in this area through their dedicated work. Regardless of their professional position they work as a team in any emergency situation for the sake of their organisation.
The organisation’s mission is rights based and works for disadvantaged groups at grassroots level. Their policy, strategy, staffing, and recruitment system are all gender sensitive. When recruiting they always give priority to women (also in managerial positions) but the problem is that most of them don’t want to work in the area, therefore only 38% of the staff are women (mostly native) and female representation at managerial level is very low.
The Capability to Achieve
Score: 2.95
SDS has adequate supplies, equipment and office space to be able to function well and owns vehicles for their fieldwork and local communication. However, their office building should be modernised and finalised. The staff is experienced and knowledgeable in their own sector but SDS lacks professionals in fundraising (including proposal writing), research and IT. SDS develops an annual plan for each fiscal year and acts according to this. For monitoring and evaluation of their activities they have monthly meetings, which help to understand the progress on GPP activities. However, the PM&E system is not well structured nor IT based. The notion of sharing and exchanging (inter)national data with others is absent. The
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organisation has knowledge of gender specific approaches to address needs of beneficiaries. All staff knows about gender issues, women’s rights issues and give high priority to women in all cases. If any incident happens to any beneficiary or any employee they maintain confidentiality of information and take necessary steps as soon as possible. Even though all staff is gender aware to some extent, they do realise that they need more knowledge on the matter to improve their service delivery. SDS has created a good impression in this locality and people believe that SDS is working for women to change their vulnerable situation in the society.
The Capability to Relate
Score: 3.13
Through GPP activities SDS has captured the attention of local people, social groups, local authority, institutions etc. and raised awareness about violence issue. It has established a network, volunteer group and committee to work to achieve GPP goals. Local influential individuals and groups are incorporated as CBO and CPG member. Local social and educational institutions are also engaged with GPP activities.
SDS has good working
relations with local government, government officials, the legal enforcement agency, National Women Lawyers Association, journalists and other stakeholders. The Local Chairman, Teacher, religious leader (Imam), Health worker and Social worker all are directly or indirectly involved and contribute to their level best. SDS has achieved a leading position and because of their large involvement with the stakeholders it has gained acceptance in the community. All staff members follow the organisation’s code of conduct. SDS’s planning, running projects, budget, annual report and core values are all published on their website to ensure transparency towards their stakeholders. The organisation is downward accountable: all personnel, from managers to fieldworkers, know about the project planning and budget.
The organisation has formed coalitions with other common minded organisations, which are working on the same issues. They always do contextual research or pilot studies to assess the needs and probable difficulties, in order to ensure the projects success and omit the risks.
The Capability to Adapt and Renew
Score: 2.90
Management keeps up to date on burning national and international issues and acts accordingly. They analyse key prioritised issues, focus on changing circumstance and identify opportunities, threats and implications for the organisation’s work. There is a discrepancy in
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the participant’s opinions regarding diversity as on the one hand side they say management does not give much space for staff expressing different views, and on the other hand side they say staff can participate in decision-making processes and management listens to their opinion before taking decisions. Also, any employee can directly contact their highest authority if necessary.
The participants admitted that they are not well documented regarding project previous learning experiences. A well-documented system for review and exchange is lacking but at any opportunity (e.g. meetings and trainings) staff dedicates time to review and exchange experiences and information. They use prior experience, learned lessons and take initiative keeping those factors in mind for the next project but not in a documented way. Any crucial new intervention starts with a pilot phase or experimental phase. Outcomes and recommendations are then used for the main intervention’s successful implementation. Learning is used for greater effectiveness in operations for gender equality. PM&E information is used to improve strategies to increase gender equality. Women’s security issue is given priority and necessary steps are taken to ensure security (e.g. working in teams).
Although the capability to adapt and renew got the lowest score (2.90), the staff is aware of their shortcomings and acknowledge there is scope for improvement.
The Capability to Achieve Coherence
Score: 3.07
SDS has a clear mandate, vision and strategy, which are published on their webpage. All staff members have internalised these and management takes decisions accordingly. A general body and executive committee monitors overall projects activities, gives their own opinion if necessary. Management isvery supportive to their staff to achieve its strategies. Staff can directly communicate with the executive director for any important issue. Procedures and systems are well described in manuals or guidelines for staff members. Internal and external audits are done regularly. SDS has a weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly reporting system for continuous monitoring of the organisation. Leadership is committed to achieving coherence, balancing stability and change through regular adaptation of the annual plan. Adaptations aredone based on the experiences in operations, current project demand, target group’s need as well as donor’s instruction. Theseadaptations are approved after discussing and communicating with management and related staff. SDS has a gender policy,
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which guides the organisation in management and implementation. All the staff members are well aware about the gender policy and follow this policy strictly. Female employees get 6 months maternal leave, women have equal rights to express her opinion, female staff’s security is ensured by the organisation, there is a women forum for female employees to share problems and experiences, and, most notable, male employees get paternity leave to take care and help his wife in the pregnancy and post pregnancy period. On project level, the organisation tries to introduce specific gender tools to ensure gender mainstreaming during the whole project planning and implementation process. They are working towards gender equality, but need more time to achieve this goal, therefore the average score given to this capability is still around 3 (3.07 to be exact), which is already a slight improvement compared to baseline (2.8).
Prioritisation of improvement points: Staff participating in the 5C workshop identified and prioritised the following issues that the organisation needs to improve:
Development of the office building
Improve strategic plan and recruit a fundraiser to handle and secure funds
Improve PM&E system to an IT based system
Make projects and other organisational activities web based
Improve IT department
Recruit a strong research team
Make the gender policy more practical and sensitise staff about the gender policy
Give more training for capacity building
Develop personal skills like English speaking and writing, vast knowledge on gender issue and its practical implementation, IT skills etc.
Recruit a more efficient trainer or facilitator
Improve the documentation system and make it up to date and usable for staff from different departments
Increase number of experienced staff for more positive outcomes.
3.2.4 PARTNER 4: BNWLA BNWLA (Bangladesh National Women Lawyer’s Association) is a non-profit, non-political organisation established in 1979 through committed efforts of some of the prominent women lawyers’ in Bangladesh and subsequently registered as a legal body in 1981 under 57
the Societies Registration Act 1860 (Act XXI of 1860). BNWLA works on prevention, protection, rehabilitation and reintegration and has networks on five prioritised areas: 1) Violence against Women; 2) Domestic Violence; 3) Human Trafficking (Protection & Prevention); 4) Child Rights; and 5) Domestic Workers and Garments Workers Rights. A selected 48 districts, 110 upazila / city corporations and 314 unions of Bangladesh are covered by these networks.
BNWLA is a large organisation with 374 people in staff (from different disciplines including sociology, economy, law, environment, project development, management, M&E, finance human rights) and 1200 women lawyers as members.
In the table the average scores from BNWLA for each of the five capabilities at the time of MTR and BL are given. Comparing the MTR scores with those from 2011 it seems the organisation has weakened, but participants in the 5C workshop mentioned that the baseline data collected was not correct and contained a lot of misinformation. Overall they think the organisation has improved on their capacities. For this reason, and because of the differences in the methodologies used during MTR and BL (BNWLA indicated that in 2011 they were asked to rate themselves and did not have an adequate explanation, let alone facilitation, on how to do this) no comparison with the BL data will be made in this report.
Table 17d: 5 C scores for Partner BNWLA Average score at MTR Average score at baseline Capabilities 1= awareness, 2=exploration, 3=transition, 4=full implementation Capability to commit and 3.63 3.9 act Capability to achieve 3.76 4.0 Capability to relate 3.82 4.0 Capability to adapt and 3.71 4.0 renew Capability to achieve 3.88 4.0 coherence
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Series1; Commit & act; 3,63
Series1; Diversity & consistency; 3,88
Series1; Deliver objectives; 3,76
Series1; Adapt & renew; 3,71
3.1.
Series1; Relate ; 3,82
The Capability to Commit and Act
Score: 3.63
BNWLA has developed a good strategic plan for the organisation, which has been key for the fact that the GPP is running very well. The organisation works based on team spirit and participants of the 5C have given high scores for the effectiveness, inspiration and action orientation of their leadership. BNWLA staff is also aware of the gender strategy. The only point for improvement is the generation of a stable income from various sources. This is the only pointer that received a score below 3, and far below (2.3). Especially in creating secure financing there is room for improvement.
3.2.
The Capability to Achieve
Score: 3.76
BNWLA has sufficient infrastructure to be able to deliver its core tasks and their human resources are adequate and fairly stable. Most of the staff has good gender knowledge and can contribute to giving gender education to the community.
3.3.
The Capability to Relate
Score: 3.82
BNWLA has very good relations with stakeholders and works very closely with government. The organisation has good credibility in the eyes of relevant stakeholders.
3.4.
The Capability to Adapt and Renew
Score: 3.71
Staff and management are capable to deal with opportunity and threats. According to the staff there is cultural diversity in BNWLA. The capability of the organisation to adapt and self renew is considered quite high.
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3.5.
The Capability to Achieve Coherence
Score: 3.88
BNWLA has a clear mandate, vision, mission and goal. These are all communicated on their website. There is an executive committee who has final responsibility but democratic norms and rules are followed in the organisation. Though being a member-based organisations is considered a strength, there is need to improve the composition of its members. The organisation is capable of balancing diversity and coherence, and has a strong leadership.
Prioritisation of improvement points:
There is need for leadership training.
There is need for technical support.
Member based organisations need to strengthen the members.
There is a need for support from the donor agencies for achieving sustainability.
In GPP, there was a provision for legal services, but it has been omitted by Plan. The participants recommend including it.
The baseline data collected by AC Neilson was not correct.
The activities are the same for urban and rural, which is not practical; they should be contextualised more.
3.2.5 PARTNER 5: APARAJEYO BANGLADESH (AB) Aparajeyo Bangladesh (AB) is a large organisation with 550 people in staff of which 55% are women. The have been working since 1995 to establish and uphold children rights in the country. The organisation addresses the socially and economically disadvantaged children and youth.
Table 17e: 5 C scores for Partner Aparajeyo Bangladesh Average score at MTR Average score at baseline Capabilities 1= awareness, 2=exploration, 3=transition, 4=full implementation Capability to commit and 3.63 4.0 act Capability to achieve 3.57 4.0 Capability to relate 3.78 4.0 Capability to adapt and 3.65 4.0 renew Capability to achieve 3.82 4.0 coherence
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Series1; Commit & act; 3,63
Series1; Diversity & consistency; 3,82
Series1; Deliver objectives; 3,57
Series1; Relate ; 3,78
Series1; Adapt & renew; 3,65
3.1.
The Capability to Commit and Act
Score: 3.63
In the workshop staff shared that the organisation has a strategic plan. They take decisions collectively. Staff is involved to develop the plan and strategy for the organisation. According to the staff, there is democracy within the organisation; their management always works as a team with other staff members. Staff is aware of the gender policy. The composition of the personnel is gender balanced. What can be improved is the stability of income, sources are not sufficiently diversified. However, apart from donor funding, AB does run four projects funded by government.
3.2.
The Capability to Achieve
Score: 3.57
AB does not have its own building, but rents a house for doing their work. There is however no space to shelter victims. Staff indicated that improvements on the building and facilities would emotionally empower the girls, as they will see that they are well taken care of. However, today, not many donors invest in this kind of infrastructure.
On a positive note, AB has sufficient equipment in their office and skilled manpower is involved in the programme. Staff is limited in number, but the organisation has capable M&E personnel, which contributes greatly to their programmes’ effectiveness. AB has a very strong external financial audit system. The organisation is very transparent in all activities and accounts. Rights based approaches and gender sensitivity are major principles in the organisation’s operations.
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3.3.
The Capability to Relate
Score: 3.78
AB has good (working) relations with key stakeholders. The organisation is downward accountable and dialogue with other organisations that work in the same themes is regularly embarked upon.
3.4.
The Capability to Adapt and Renew
Score: 3.65
The leadership of AB is very dynamic. They keep themselves up to date on national and international issues and act accordingly. The chair has visited many countries and has adopted many new issues in the organisation. Lively discussions are held with the staff to analyse and compare performance in their programme.
3.5.
The Capability to Achieve Coherence
Score: 3.82
The organisation has a very supportive management team, which helps staff to develop their work effectively. Plans are adapted regularly. Changes are discussed with the staff. AB has developed a gender and child policy.
Prioritised points for improvement:
Technical support including sufficient staff and equipment need to be available for GPP implementation
AB is working with survivors. Because of that they need their own building for those victims who need shelters
Training to the community people on gender is needed
Income sources have to be diversified and stabilised
3.2.6 PARTNER 6: PLAN INTERNATIONAL BANGLADESH Plan started operating in Bangladesh since 1994 and works today in 22 districts. Programme units are located in Nilphamari, Lalmonirhat, Dinajpur, Gazipur and Dhaka metropolitan area; the country office in located in Dhaka.
Currently Plan International Bangladesh is implementing projects based on four programmes areas:Quality Primary Education, Community-Managed Health Care, Protection of Vulnerable Children, andDisaster Risk Management. Plan International Bangladesh (PIB) has two types of staff: contractual and regular. At present, the total number of staff in PIB is 293.
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Table 17f: 5 C scores for Plan International Bangladesh Average score at MTR Average score at baseline Capabilities 1= awareness, 2=exploration, 3=transition, 4=full implementation Capability to commit and act 3.71 Not available Capability to achieve 3.34 Not available Capability to relate 3.63 Not available Capability to adapt and 3.30 Not available renew Capability to achieve 3.62 Not available coherence Note: in 2011 there was no 5C done with Plan International Bangladesh
Series1; Commit & act; 3,71
Series1; Diversity & consistency; 3,62
Series1; Deliver objectives; 3,34
Series1; Relate ; 3,63
Series1; Adapt & renew; 3,30
3.1.
The Capability to Commit and Act
Score: 3.71
The participants stated that the organisation has a strategic plan. Policy makers involve most of the staffs in the strategic planning. Staff is committed to their work. There is a good coordination between available human resources. The lowest average score in this capability was given to the proportion of men and women in the organisation, as women only represent 30% of the human resources. Moreover, there is a need to give gender training to the staff.
3.2.
The Capability to Achieve
Score: 3.34
Staff of PIB is experiencing a work and responsibility overload. There is a necessity to contract more personnel. Moreover, PIB does not have its own building. Plan International
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Bangladesh is however very strong in managing gender data and on external financial auditing. Nevertheless, knowledge on gender among staff needs to be improved.
3.3.
The Capability to Relate
Score: 3.63
Plan has very good working relations with stakeholder, especially with the government. Actually, one of the strongest capacities of Plan is its cooperation with the government. They also have a good code of conduct, which staff and management follow in every step of their work. Plan International Bangladesh works collectively with all partner organisations.
3.4.
The Capability to Adapt and Renew
Score: 3.30
Plan International Bangladesh has included religious minorities as well as women and other groups to reflect the diversity in society. Staff gives input for policy making from time to time. Plan policy makers take suggestions from staff into account. Management listens to complaints from staff and gives feed back to them. Plan has developed a gender strategy, which it is implementing with partner organisations.
3.5.
The Capability to Achieve Coherence
Score: 3.62
Plan International Bangladesh has a good mandate to support staff. Relations between management and staff are good. Staff always follows the procedures. Plan has a clear gender policy, which has been implemented in the organisation. Plan staff is gender aware but needs training to fully implement the gender policy at the community level. Plan International Bangladesh always updates their plans and policies from time to time and shares it with partners and staff.
Prioritisation of improvement points: 
Gender training for Plan and partner staff is needed.

The gender balance in PIB staff needs to be improved (female staff should be brought up to 50%).

The number of staff members needs to be augmented.
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3.3 FINDINGS RELATED TO CIVIL SOCIETY (BOX 4) 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. Additionally the exercise looks for collective strengths and weaknesses of the GPP partners.
Plan International Bangladesh (PIB) has been implementing Girl Power Project (GPP) in eight districts. One of the objectives of the GPP is to build and strengthen the capacity of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) for ensuring girls’ rights and gender equality.
In Bangladesh, several Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) including NGOs have been working in promoting child rights and prevention of girls and young women from gender based violence. Different initiatives among like minded CSOs in different districts have been taken for promoting child rights and protection specially protection of girls and young women from gender based violence.
CSOs forming the network and alliance in sub-district, district and national level are contributing towards changes on gender equality. Different network/alliance of CSOs have created a common platform to make a conducive environment for girls & young women in the society. CSOs also create pressure to relevant government persons and institutes to extend their support to the vulnerable groups.
No formal district panels have been set up in Bangladesh. Therefore, representatives from civil society, government office and partner organisations were invited to the two Civicus Workshops that the MTR team held in this country.
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Table 18: Average CIVICUS score at district and country level Dimension
Result areas CIVICUS
1. Civic engagement
1.1 Diversity of socially based engagement. 1.2 Diversity of political engagement 2.1 Organisational level of society 2.2 Peer to peer communication 2.3 Financial and human resources 3.1 Internal governance 3.2 Transparency 4.1 Responsiveness 4.2 Social impact 4.3 Policy impact 5.1 Socio-economic, sociopolitical and socio- cultural context.
2.Level of organisation
3. Practice of values 4.Perception of impact 5. Environment Total
Average scores on scale 1-10 District 1: District 2: Total Dhaka Rajshahi 8.5 7.4 7.9 8.6
7.9
8.3
7.1
8.5
7.8
8.1
8.1
8.1
8.1
8.6
8.4
8.0 8.8 8.0 8.5 8.6 8.1
8.0 8.5 8.0 8.5 7.8 8.0
8.0 8.6 8.0 8.5 8.2 8.1
8.2
8.1
8.2
3.3.1 CIVIVUS CSI FINDINGS RAJSHAHI In Rajshahi, ACD has been sensitising and capacitating the CS members to represent issues related to vulnerable and marginalised girls and young women. They have formed five CSO networks at five working Upzilas of Rajshahi.
The workshop was held with a balanced mix of participants such as local government representatives, organisational head, law enforcement personnel, G&YW representative, youth club member and parents of G&YW. Five of the participants were women and three men. These participants have been working with ACD even before they initiated GPP activities.
Some of the participants believed that the exercise should have been in Bangla, since the majority of them cannot relate to it in English.
Civic engagement The average score for diversity of both socially based engagement and political engagement is 7.6 which the participants of the workshop rounded up to 8 unanimously as they were of 66
the view that partner organisation ACD involves girls and young women in the analysis and planning, monitoring and evaluation processes to an extensive degree, through civic engagement meetings. Marginalised girls and young women, mostly poor and indigenous groups, are also involved equally. CSOs working with ACD are also principally embodied by girls and young women, either as organisation head or as rights activist.
One of the CS members present at the workshop was an active member of the Child Protection Group (CPG) and has been taking part in the meetings held at local government (Union Parishad) as part of ACD’s CS involvement in the local government decision-making. She explained that the Chairman of Union Parishad leads the process of CPG, which comprise of vulnerable G&YW from the catchment area.
All participants who attended the CIVICUS workshop agreed that G&YW have been increasingly participating public demonstrations like human chain, international day observation and seminars in recent past years.
However, a debate did arise between the male and the female members of the workshop regarding the degree of decision-making authority of G&YW in the networks and forums. One of the women entrepreneurs argued that even though the physical participation of G&YW is ensured in the forums and CS Networks, the major decisions taken are heavily influenced by male members of the network. Notwithstanding the participant also took into account that even under this circumstance, ACD’s effort to engage G&YW in decision-making and the way they have involved G&YW, is an exceptional attempt for Rajshahi.
Level of Organisation The average score for the level of organisation is 8.4 but participants came into a consensus that this should be rounded down to an 8 as ACD and alliances are well organised in networks at Upazila level, but they were a little uncertain if CSC involves girls and young women, or their CBOs, in the monitoring and evaluation or in analysis or planning process, because, CS networks have limited opportunity to interact with CSC, who meets and plans at national level.
They, however, knew that ACD from Rajshahi collaborates in the Country Steering Committee with other GPP partners. ACD has devised and implemented several public
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demonstrations, campaigns and other activities jointly with Civil Society Organisations of Rajshahi. At every meeting with CS networks, ACD discusses donor priorities, their comments, budget allocation for the quarter and future activities. Thus, they gave peer-topeer communication a higher score of 9 in the end.
Financial and human resources received an undisputed final score of 9 as well as participants believe there has been an effective financial and human resource mobilisation.
Practice of Values The participants were in agreement that ACD and the CSOs they support have girls or young women involved as leaders in most of the cases; policies in place to ensure gender equity;and select leaders through democratic elections in every instance. Thus, internal governance has received a score of 8.
Participants gave a slightly higher score to the transparency of financial information stating that their respective organisations make their financial accounts publicly available through CS meetings and in some cases through their websites. They also have annual reports and a full audit report of the organisation uploaded on their websites. Participants could not think of any example where anyone of thestaff has shown disrespect to the internal procedures.
Perception of Impact The participants did not consider that the PNGOs and CSOs have been successful in influencing all the policies of the (local) government. However, they granted this component a high score i.e. 8 because they considered it exceptional (with above 50% success rate) while comparing to all of the CSO’s movements that aimed at influencing the local government policies. They qualified the CS Networks of GPP as such as they did accomplish to persuade the LG body to take protection issues into account seriously, as a result of which a Local Government Representative chairs the CPGs. Private sector development still has a lot of room for improvement according to ACD and CSOs.
There was a unanimous opinion that ACD does provide services that respond to one or more basic social needs of their target group. Therefore the group decided to round up the average score of 8.5 to 9. This can be considered a too high score, as on the other hand, participants were under the impression that government agencies need to be more friendly
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and flexible to support CSO efforts, they also appreciated the encouraging support that Upazila Nirbahi Officers (UNO) and local government members have shown to this programme. Early marriage and eve teasing have now become a public concern due to continuous advocacy by likeminded organisations as ACD. Government has also made these high priority issues and is collaborating with ACD and their community partners to effectively address them. This collaboration is well reflected in the joint seminars and advocacy movements that ACD takes up with local government. But Rajshahi district still has a long way to go when partner organisations and the CSOs will be capable of monitoring state performance and holding the state accountable, especially regarding policy/initiatives directed at G&YW.
External Environment The CS members think that interventions of the CRA and the choice of the Partner Organisations and the CSOs are appropriate for Rajshahi. They supported that CRA interventions are based on a quality context analysis and the role of civil society is context specific as well. ACD and CSOs take into account and participate in studies of CS in Rajshahi to collect best practices, case studies and to devise future activities.
Conclusions of the MTR evaluator: The most remarkable issue that came up in the discussions was the sense of ownership among the participants and the urge of doing more for the protection of G&YW. Trafficking of children and women, and drug dealing is widely practiced in the upazilas of Rajshahi, which share their borders with India. Different forms of violence are sometimes socially condoned. Therefore, the participants look forward to ACD’s intervention that directly influences women’s emancipation and at the same time has an indirect repercussion on illegal practices. Thus, they seemed ambitious and motivated to support ACD’s ventures at all levels.
Recommendations:
The CS network members considered that involving local government at union level is not enough; the LG should be reached till village level.
They communicated a keen need of capacity building training for Women Councillors, who are the first step towards achieving gender balance in local government. Local authorities in Bangladesh are strictly controlled by central government and totally
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dependent on government funding. While considerable progress has been made in the election of women to local government positions in Bangladesh through the reservation of one third of all seats, reserved seats are not seen as having the same value as general ones. The fund they receive to do their work is comparatively lower than that received by male councillors and they cannot undertake development initiatives and actions without the permission of other ward councillors, many of who have been uncooperative. This is often due to the fact that male ward councillors are opposed to women being in these positions and are not keen to share their financial or political power. If these women councillors are capacitated with women empowerment and protection issues, they will learn the way in which the political environment works, and will be able to fulfil both their public and private roles. 
In recent years the number of initiatives targeting G&YW has grown, but more needs to be done to address the fast growing population of vulnerable girls and young women. The existing initiatives can also be expanded by bringing together knowledge generated from: G&YW-centred events, consultations with G&YW research on rural/urban livelihoods and lessons learned from work by partner organisations. GPP may offer more incentives to include G&YW in employment-related training, strengthen the capacities of business development service providers to support G&YW entrepreneurs and create links between business development service providers and G&YW groups.
3.3.2 CIVIVUS CSI FINDINGS DHAKA A total of 11 people were present in the CIVICUS workshop in Dhaka representing Women with Disability Development Foundation, Rainbow Nari O ShishuKallyan Foundation, ShwapnoPuriKallyanSamity, Social Service Officer, DSS, and GPP partner organisations. There were 3 female (one disabled) and 8 male participants (of the latter only 5 filled in the questionnaire). One of the women gave all areas a 10 except for 2.1.2.1 is the area that scored the lowest; participants explained that there is great space for improvement of involving marginalised girls (Dalit and indigenous). Overall women participation is very low and where they participate they have little decision making power, therefore also area 1.2 needs improvement.
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The participants of the Civicus Workshop believe that the GPP project is very important for empowering women and young girls. Expectations from the project are that all women and youths will be self-independent and confident.
Recommendations:
Increase self employment opportunities
Create peer to peer communication
Accommodate more young girls in the project
Give more support for socio-economical empowerment of women and young girls.
Engage the media more; the present selection of media agency may not be perfect.
Focus more on capacity building of girl children
Include teachers, parents and policy making bodies
Engage the boys in the capacity building programmes
Incorporate Life skill training in the national text books for further improvement
Give human rights education with different professionals
Give parent trainings
3.4 FINDINGS RELATED TO THE LEARNING AGENDA Overall purpose of the learning agenda as mentioned in the Girls Power Results Framework is to increase coordination and learning among partners in participating in lobby/networks and initiatives, conduct research on issues of G&YW, strength CSO network and provide capacity support to various forms of CBOs.
According to the Plan International Bangladesh representative: during implementation of GPP a number of lessons will be learned, which are essential to capture and analysis for systematic improvement of the intervention. Moreover, the systematic learning will contribute to knowledge generation in the global development sector. Considering the importance, GPP has initiated to draw joint lessons on four key agendas throughout the intervention period. Bangladesh has considered to work on three of these learning agendas, which align with GPP activities in the following way:
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Learning agenda Learning agenda 1: Institutional requirements and arrangements needed for sustainable provision of effective child protection systems
GPP activities linkage Activate Child Protection Group (CPG) at union/zone level Form and activate Girls and Young Women Forum at union/zone level Form and activate CSO network at upazila/zone level Training for government professionals, CBOs, CSO on child protection and gender Journalist sensitisation Advocacy workshop with duty bearers Training for partner organisations Learning agenda 2: Role Community awareness on child protection, child rights, of boys (and men) in the protection on gender based violence through Theatre for empowerment process of Development girls and young women Training for local elites, CBOs and other relevant groups on child protection and gender issues Journalist sensitisation Advocacy workshop with duty bearers Annual convention with stakeholders (individuals, government professionals, CBOs, CSOs) Learning agenda 4: Activate Country Steering Committee Strategies for effective Activate GP Alliance Bangladesh alliance building Operationalise expertise wheel Harmonisation with other network It is important to mention that not much progress has been made on these learning agendas to date yet, and less regarding the use of their outputs for improved programme performance by the GPP partners, as implementation is in its initial phase (e.g. not much progress has been made yet on including boys and men in the empowerment process of G&YW). However, stakeholders have started to take the learning agenda as a serious issue and are putting their efforts towards this end.
There are a number of actors directly involved under GPP interventions in reducing genderbased violence against girls and young women in Bangladesh. Responses will be captured to generate lessons on the basis of learning questions through appropriate methodologies such as FGD and KII. The key actors for learning are as follows: a) Girls and young women forums b) Child Protection Groups c) Community Based Organisations (CBOs) or natural groups d) Local Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) e) Government professionals f)
Staff of partner organisations under GPP
g) Members of GPP alliance Bangladesh 72
All the process of learning, i.e. learning capturing, compiling, sharing started. Learning is being captured and documented from a preselected sub-district / zone from each of the eight districts that are covered with the programme. These sub-districts will change every year.
The following methods are being applied for capturing learning: Process documentation, Focus Group Discussion (three FGDper sub-district with G&YW, CPG and CBOs/CSOs), Key Informant Interview (KII with the UNO, Women and Children Affairs Officer and Officer Incharge of Police Station) and Learning Meetings with key actors(PNGOs and alliances). Secondary materials are also being reviewed and incorporated in the learning results.
The following outputs will be produced: a) Annual learning synthesis report (at the end of each calendar year) b) Country learning report in printed and e-book form (at the end of 2015) c) National seminar on learning (at the end of 2015).
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4
OVERALL FINDINGS
4.1 RELEVANCE Relevance relates to the extent to which the objectives of an intervention are consistent with beneficiaries’ requirements, country needs, global priorities and partners’ and donors’ policies. It is likely that these requirements, needs, priorities and policies do not neatly fit together. The relevance of a programme is therefore always in relation to one of these external aspects.
Participants of the Evaluation Summit (representatives of PNGOs) agreed that the GPP is a highly relevant programme in a society where social norms, values, superstitions and hegemonic forms of masculinities lead to violence against women and issues like poverty, religious norms and social insecurity are identified as main reasons for the high rate of child marriage. They indicated that the programme has addressed urgent needs of G&YW, including empowerment and the presence of effective protection mechanisms.
Violence against women is indeed a very common phenomenon in Bangladesh and violence rates in the selected GPP districts are high. The fact that GPP addresses this issue focussing on girl’s and women’s protection from violence by empowering them is therefore considered relevant as well as the fact that PNGOs work specifically with the poor, disadvantaged and minority groups that are most affected by it. However, violence is not a single folded issue, but tangled with others like poverty, patriarchal society, hegemonic masculine notion of men, economic dependency of women, lack of women’s education, etcetera. These are not tackled by GPP in Bangladesh as the thematic of economic participation and education were not chosen for this country, nor are boys and men included as a target group. However, these aspects might be necessary to include in order achieving the main goal of the programme.
Apart from the context analysis appreciation of activities can be considered an indirect measure of relevance. As 93% of the G&YW respondents are (very) satisfied with the activities organised through GPP partners, it is more likely that the changes aimed for will be achieved, and that the intervention is relevant. On the other hand, less of the young men are satisfied, which is directly related to the fact that they are not included as a direct target
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group and can only participate in some activities, whereas they would like to be involved much more.
% respondents who reported that they were satisfied with the activities of the GPP 100% 80% 60% 40% 20% 0% 10-13
14-17
18-24
G&YW (N=400)
Young Men
Men
Women
Girl Panel (20)
Community Members (N=100)
4.2 EFFECTIVENESS Effectiveness relates to the extent to which the direct results of interventions (the outputs) contribute to the sustainable achievement of programme objectives (the outcomes). Efficiency and effectiveness refer to two successive levels of the theory of change. An intervention is considered effective if its outputs have made a demonstrable contribution to achievement of the intervention’s intended objectives.
Empowerment of girls, for example, via sports, mainly karate, training and other activities, is advancing. When they complete the karate course, they feel empowered and are very bold. In general, they are more vocal in their rights and better able to protect themselves today than two years ago. Girls in Sariatpur even indicated that they enjoy more freedom of movement compared to earlier days. This is seemingly a big achievement made by CRA partners.
Regarding the use of Karate for protection however, while young men believed that a girl with ‘karate skills’ can beat three guys, girls themselves did not seem that much confident. Some of the girls who have received karate training thought that if they ever had to use their skills on a boy that is harassing them, they would try not to do it as they think that many guys may retaliate and cause more harm instead.
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Still a lot of improvements have to be made to involve B&YM of the community in GPP activities. Though they have shown considerable knowledge about violence, gender and protection issues, their attitude towards treating girls and women equally is somewhat indifferent.
Hegemonic masculine attitude still dominate the thinking of B&YM, their consciousness and engagement should be increased to stop violence in society. On a positive note, many B&YM did express the interest to participate in GPP. The evaluation team strongly recommends including them as a target group.
Overall, the effects of GPP until date have been moderate. GPP activities have just started to raise awareness among direct (G&YW) and indirect (B&YM, community members) beneficiaries, which is considered an achievement, but the programme has still a long way to go. Activities seem sometimes to be facility based, rather than need based. Nevertheless, GPP beneficiaries seemed well aware of their rights and have shown very positive and committed attitude towards combating violence against women and protecting children from early marriage.
Civil society strengthening on child rights issues and providing information about GPP activities are going on effectively. PNGOs have increased their capacity to strengthening other CSOs on child rights issues specifically, not so much on gender equality (see chapter 4.7 on gender transformative potential).
At institutional level, the changes in the policy level caused due to advocacy and the government ownership of the programme components have been lauded. However, it was concluded in the Evaluation Summit that there is more room for improvement in the advocacy level.
The best practice of GPP so far have been: 
Directly targeting adolescent girls who are at a stage of physical and psychological changes, and make them knowledgeable about violence types, how to protect themselves, and how to respond to violence.

The involvement of local level organisations (CSOs, CBOs, youth club), relevant government officials, locally elected authorities, community leaders, as well as
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incorporating community people, influential personalities, journalists and parents to make them aware about violence and how to work against it.
Girl’s engagement with self-defence training and sports like karate, cricket & football.
In summary, some of the positive effects until date on the beneficiaries that were reached so far are:
GPP is in the process of increasingawareness at individual, community and institutional level. Especially, direct beneficiaries seem more aware about violence and empowerment issues.
Girls are more self confident than before
Girls have learned self defence
Girls and Young Women’s mobility, freedom of speech, decision making rights have been increased
Girls and Young Women know about services for victims of violence
They know how to response if violence happens to them
Reduced child marriage tendency
Some of the women are now more self dependent through livelihood support training
Attitudes towards girl child and their education has been changed
Community members are now more aware about violence issues
Girls are feeling more united
G&YW have created distinct places of their own in their community to work with GPP
Various external factors will have had an influence on the GPP outcomes in the last two years. In Bangladesh many other stakeholders work on GBV and women’s empowerment, but their methodologies, target group, geographical area and project activities may vary. Another important external factor is the legal framework present before the start of the programme and changes made in legislation over the past two years. The most important laws, policies and legal practices present before GPP are the domestic violence Act (2010), High court Rule on Sexual violence (2009), National Women Development Policy (2011) and Women Education Policy. Additionally, the Hindu Marriage Registration Act (2012) and the Human Trafficking Deterrence and Suppression Act (2012) were enacted during the
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implementation period of GPP. These laws have certainly made it a bit easier for the GPP implementers to work against violence, child marriage and trafficking of women and children. However, it is important to mention that these legal changes just raised awareness among some people but their effect on reducing the rate of violence is deemed minimal until now because of a lack of implementation and others barriers.
Moreover, it is important to mention that from April 2010 till June 2013 a joint UN programme to Address Violence against Women (VAW) in Bangladesh has been implemented with an amount of USD 8 million, covering amongst others four of the eight GPP
districts
(Dhaka,
Dinajpur,
Rajshahi,
Gazipur).
Its
aim
was
to have a positive effect on the lives of women and girls of Bangladesh by reducing, preventing and responding to VAW through the promotion of i) an adequate policy legal framework; ii) changes in behaviours and attitudes that condone gender violence; and iii) comprehensive and culturally appropriate support to survivors through improved care and access to justice.
According to the final evaluation of this programme it had the following main achievements:
Enhanced capacity of Government officials in 11 ministries and many civil society organisations;
Increased awareness on specific lesser-known areas of VAW such as VAW in the workplace, for vulnerable groups such as sex workers or persons infected and affected by HIV/AIDS; use of textbooks and education in defining gender roles.
Increased awareness of existing gaps in the justice system together with recommendations for addressing these, and a better understanding of how to apply CEDAW.
Pilot for a database on VAW, which would provide evidence on, causes, prevalence and needs to fight VAW in Bangladesh.
Courtyard meetings on internal and international migration; community drama sessions; awareness raising with communities and parliamentarians on sex workers and victims of trafficking; 16 day campaign as a UN-wide model to build on; community dialogue addressing masculinity using positive deviance.
Strengthening of a culturally sensitive gender approach to healthcare making it more accessible for women, capacity building for a more adequate treatment for VAW survivors together with linkages to legal support and counselling services.
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In view of the overlap of these aims and some of the achievements with GPP goals, conclusions regarding attribution of effects have to be made with care.
On a more negative note, under GPP, during the past 2 years, only 20-25 girls belonging to the Girls’ Forum received Life Skill Training (LST) once. This appears to be quite insufficient if the entire community it to be influenced through this training. Indeed, only negligible numbers of girls from the forums were able to correctly identify all of the components of LST or TFD.
Another negative aspect is that in FGDs with B&YM and male community members in some cases they expressed vexation that GP only works with women and girl and “just ignore” men and boys.
There are also some external factors, which have negatively influenced the programme, among which the deep-rooted socio-cultural factor is a major one. It is very difficult for girls to overcome the social and cultural barriers. Non-cooperation from the family and society in sending girls for empowerment training is another hurdle related to the previous one.
Overall, there is room for improvement within the GPP: •
Girls still face stigmas when they go out of their houses and want to join the Girls Forum Meeting. Girls are ‘aware’ of their rights and are more empowered now than before, but there is still a long way to go.
•
The general socialisation process rationalises violence against women. Hegemonic masculinity threatens the effective implementation of GPP at community level.
•
Sexual harassment via Internet and other communication media has increased.
•
There is a lack of public-private partnership in terms of creating opportunities for victims towards improving their social and economic situation
4.3 EFFICIENCY Efficiency measures how economically resources (human resources, financial resources, time, materials) are applied (the inputs) and converted to direct results (the outputs). In this relationship both the quantity and quality of inputs and outputs are assessed as well as the way in which they are applied (the process).
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The cost-effectiveness aspect of GPP in Bangladesh is good. A large number of outputs are delivered and many direct beneficiaries have been reached so far with limited resources. The numbers of girls and young women reached and benefitted from the programme areas with the limited number of human resources as well as the time horizon spent to deliver the results demonstrate the cost-effectiveness of the programme. For example, to support 169,422 total population in the Khansama Upazila in Dinajpur, there is only one Upazila Coordinator. This is a representative situation applicable to other areas as well. Apart from direct beneficiaries who receive legal aid, awareness, shelter service, Karate training etc. the benefits have also reached the socio-cultural (community members) as well as the institutional (e.g. government and CSO stakeholders) level.
As there is only one Technical Officer (TO) for each upazila, they often cannot give enough time to each community, which jeopardises the follow up of GPP activities. Often receiving training once is not enough for the knowledge to abide.
According to the participants in the Evaluation Summit, sport clubs and girls clubs are facing resource constrain.10
4.4 SUSTAINABILITY Sustainability relates to the extent to which the benefits of the intervention will last after termination of the programme. It is closely related to effectiveness and includes factors such as stakeholder involvement, socio-cultural environment, capacity strengthening, community and institutional structures and the availability of an exit strategy.
GPP has developed profound knowledge and experience, and built an extensive network of organisations and individuals. G&YW Forums, CPGs and CSO networks can keep maintaining their activities in close collaboration with local government and law enforcement agencies.
10
In their review of the report, Plan Netherlands, indicated that NUK is focussing on this and there was a training by WW on this theme which GPP partners attended, however, the MTR team does not have information regarding the result of this.
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Moreover, if the funding for the GPP would stop today, the covered communities will probably remain aware of the consequences of VAW.
On the other hand, if the push from GPP is withdrawn, the regular meetings of Girls Forum and linkages with local government may collapse. Although the support being given by the government is encouraging it is hard to determine if the model gets continued support after GPP ends. For now, there are some good evidences where local partners have been able to include Girl Forum members in the Union Parishad committee like the CPG. Local Government Institute (LGI) Union Parishad haspositively owned the concept of GPP and they are working towards achieving zero tolerance goals through CPG and other committees. SUPK, the local partner in Dinajpur, has cited an example where in the annual budget of a Union Parishad, the members of girls’ forum have successfully included activities related to VAW and child protection.
With initial support from GPP partners in establishing and facilitating it for a while the girls are now able to lead and manage the Girls Clubs on their own and they are planning to expand its work, agenda, establish network with health and law agencies so that it can play a more effective role to prevent and response to violence. The girls’ forum can be a major lobby group for the community in future, if nurtured appropriately and if effective leadership is built in the coming years of GPP. Like this sustainability can be achieved due to strengthened networks of G&YW.
In summary, some community structures are being established for continuation of GPP activities like a Shelter home for Women, Girls Forum, Girls Sports club, CBO committees are working with government officials to incorporate expansion of GPP activities with their budget, boys groups has been formed for GPP activities and TFD shows.
Though government has the primary responsibility in protecting its citizens. As long as the government and local authorities are not on board, attaining sustainability seems difficult. Until now local authorities are not able to give efficient continuation of GPP activities. However, if government completely takes the responsibility of stewarding the efforts, incidents of VAW is likely to remain low. Stewardship is the responsibility of government through different ministries. This does not mean that government needs to fund and provide all interventions to combat VAW. Certain stewardship tasks may be delegated to other
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actors. Responsibilities for different aspects of stewardship may be divided between central and sub-national authorities, local government, other ministries, parliamentarians, professional associations, and ombudsmen. Like this the benefits of the activities of GPP could sustain.
Finally, strong CSOs in Bangladesh are a foundation for the changes to last. Partner organisations have indicated that they want to continue supporting the targeted groups on their own. GPP local partners have formed alliances with likeminded CBOs and CSOs already. They continue to assist the government, the CBOs and G&YW forum in their activities related to protecting G&YW from violence. Local partners have mentioned that they will build sufficient capacity to be able to adequately support the CSOs and CBOs in the many on-going aspects of protection. They do however lack adequate child protection and gender policies as well as trained staff on these issues. The fact that the government does also not have a clear stance on child protection policies, further weakens sustainability on this issue.
4.5 COORDINATION AND HARMONISATION Coordination and harmonisation has an internal and an external component. The term relates to the level and quality of collaboration among organisations involved in the intervention as well as the collaboration with external partners. It relates to the global, regional and national levels of the programme and concerns both policy and practice.
4.5.1 INTERNAL COORDINATION AT NATIONAL, REGIONAL AND GLOBAL LEVEL A moderate to strong level of coordination was observed between the GPP partners through expertise sharing, Bangladesh Girl Power Allies building, local level network, expert wheel and the CSC to coordinate GPP activities. There is sufficient communication among CSC members at both individual and organisational levels, although CSC meetings could be held more often than every three months.
Partners feel united through the GPP; however, they face some problems regardingthe uniqueness of GPP. Partners are experts in some but not in all of the issuesaddressed and they are working in different geographical, social and cultural areas. They should be able to share more their different expertise with the other partners and address issues like the rural-urban, religious, cultural, economical context.
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At present, this type of efficient use of coordination is not seen at large. For example, in providing legal aid services to the victims of violence, BNWLA, one of the local partners, has extensive skills and countrywide human resources. However, other partners seldom seek their support for their project beneficiaries; they try to serve the victim by their own mechanism.In the absence of coordination and tapping an opportunity for horizontal learning between GPP partners, certain victim survivors might not be reached and served,especially to those who live in remote areas or who do not have access to the formal support system.
Ensuring that coordination structures are in place and that they function efficiently during this process is very important for effectively implementing GPP. GPP local partners, CSC and the GP desk, meet regularly at senior working level to update each other on the latest developments. The partners monitor the outcomes through quarterly report. They provide both quantitative and qualitative report to Plan International Bangladesh. The Programme Coordinator from Plan as well as the GPP staff from Plan makes regular visits to the field for monitoring purpose.
4.5.2 EXTERNAL COORDINATION AT NATIONAL, REGIONAL AND GLOBAL LEVEL Both formal and informal alliances have been formed by GPP. At community level, G&YW have come together under the umbrella of G&YW Forums. Likeminded CBOs and CSOs are working together under CSO Network and Upazila Networks. Moreover, Child Protection Group is an exemplary platform for organisations working for human rights to learn how to access local government officials and lobby them for community priorities. Finally, LGI Union Parishad has been working very closely with the GPP partners in all the communities.
GPP activities are harmonised with interventions of other NGOs, governmental institutions, and local structures like schools and cultural clubs. GPP added government officials & local influential persons from CBOs and harmonised with their policies. The UP chairman, UNO, District officials, police and lawyers are also are linked with GPP activities.
Furthermore, GPP is represented at the regional level through SAIEVAC (South Asian Initiative to Eliminate Violence Against Children) where the SAARC countries are present.
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4.6 DO NO HARM AND CONFLICT SENSITIVITY Do No Harm and Conflict sensitivity relate to the ability of organisations to
understand the context in which they operate;
understand the interaction between the intervention and the context; and
act upon the understanding of this interaction,in order to avoid negative impacts and maximise positive impacts of the intervention.
The word ‘context’ is used rather than ‘conflict’ to make the point that all socio-economic and political tensions, root causes and structural factors are relevant to conflict sensitivity because they all have the potential to become violent.
The partner organisations and Plan International Bangladesh know very well the context and are very much aware of the sensibility of the themes and their possible impact on this context. The vast majority are organisations with a long track record in the issues of violence and children’s rights, and have a high conflict management capacity. Also, the organisations recognise that the context is loaded with structural and cultural limitations, which they face with contextualised strategies and methodologies.
A threat is that there is still little willingness of men, leaders and authorities to change behaviour and established power relations. In this sense it doesn´t help that until now there was little disclosure of the purpose of the GPP programme and the logic of its interventions, and not much work carried out with B&YM.
4.7 GENDER TRANSFORMATIVE POTENTIAL Gender-transformative potential relates to the extent to which interventions actively strive to examine, question, and change gender norms and imbalance of power. Gendertransformative approaches encourage critical awareness among men and women of gender roles and norms; promote the position of women; challenge the distribution of resources and allocation of duties between men and women; and/or address the power relationships between women and others in the community, such as service providers or traditional leaders.11
11
Interagency Gender Working Group www.igwg.org
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Gender transformation in society requires working with both women and men. Whereas women are often in more disadvantaged and vulnerable situations they should be given more priority to achieve gender equality. Therefore GPP prioritises women’s empowerment, focuses on Gender based violence, and arranges life skill training, gender training and selfdefence training for G&YW. Gender training is also given to representatives of CSOs, CBOs, government officials, and other stakeholders like journalists with the goal to make them gender sensitive. However, in order to really be gender transformative, more has to be done. Bangladesh is a very gender biased patriarchal society and women empowerment is a very sensitive issue to work with. In order to reduce gender-based violence and exclusion, achieve empowerment and ultimately reach gender equality the traditional patriarchal and masculine attitudes should be changed. This requires focusing on boys and men to make them more gender sensitive, as they are the main (future) perpetrators who commit violence against girls and women.
Moreover, efforts have been made to consider the view of G&YW in the programme, but its practical implementation is lacking. Girls and women can share their views in meetings, training sessions and, specifically, Girl Forum meetings but these do not take place regularly. Life skill trainings are only given once to each participant, there is no follow up meeting; Girl forum meeting are not held regularly as they were planned because of barriers like security problems, a lack of place, human resource constraints, budget scarcity, etc.
Some of the FGD participants did mention that they have received gender training under GPP. But, the need for gender training targeting boys and young men was felt really necessary.
Views of women and girls are time to time captured and reported by the local partners in the form of qualitative monitoring reports, learning agenda and recommendations from the community. But, there seemed very little room in the programme design to consider these views and incorporate them within the existing activities.
Progress on gender equality was found weak during the 5C exercise in all instances. There is a strong need to educate the staff, partners and the community and build strategy to reach out to them. In general, gender advocacy is weak in Bangladesh.
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5
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
5.1 CONCLUSION REGARDING THE OVERARCHING RESEARCH QUESTION The main goal of the GPP is to build capacity of local civil society in order to support the empowerment of girls and young women for gender equality. The overarching research question is thus, if this is actually happening? In Bangladesh, civil society empowerment activities on child rights issues is generally going on effectively. Empowerment of girls, for example through karate, education and other activities is also going very well. There are seemingly big achievements made by CRA partners. However, progress on gender equality was found weak during the 5C exercise. There is a strong need to educate the staff, partners and the community and build strategies to reach out to them. Consequently gender advocacy is still weak in Bangladesh. 5.2 CONCLUSIONS ON RESEARCH SUB-QUESTIONS This section presents summary answers to the sub questions of the evaluation, based on the findings presented in the previous chapters. a. The extent to which the CRA financial and technical support is leading to increased capacity and outputs produced by partner organisations. Most of the partner organisations in Bangladesh have increased the capacity to empower young girls in many respects. Partners have built strong relationships and networks with CSOs and with government bodies. A large number of outputs are achieved and beneficiaries reached with limited resources. However, they require capacity development in programme management, M&E and gender issues. Several organisations, like Plan Bangladesh, indicated that whilst it has a gender policy, staff could benefit from training to improve its full implementation. Augmenting human resources (currently there is only one staff member per subdistrict) could also improve the effectiveness of the programme. b. The extent to which the increased capacity of partner organisations is leading to, or at least contributing to, the empowerment of girls and young women. Are they really empowered? Partners have developed an extensive network of organisations and individuals, and have made strong gains in the raising of awareness amongst girls and young women. Training girls
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in self-defence sports such as karate has improved their confidence greatly. However, the programme is somewhat limited in its scope, and can benefit extensively from inclusion of boys and young men, and training in gender issues and equality may support this. c. The extent to which the increased capacity of a partner organisation is leading to, or at least contributing to, increased civil society capacity to act as an agent in for gender equality Partner organisations have increased their capacity to empower civil society on child rights issues. On gender, there are not many strong evidences, where civil society took stand on gender equality; there is a strong need to further empower partner organisations on gender issues as well as to train civil society groups on gender equality and achieving gender transformation. Moreover, more emphasis is required on working with boys. d. The extent to which other (external or internal) factors influence the outcomes, so to what extent can the observed change be attributed to the programme activities? There are external factors, which have influenced the program of which the deep-rooted socio-cultural factor is a major one. It is very difficult for girls to overcome the social and cultural barriers. Non-cooperation from the family and society in sending girls for empowerment training is another hurdle. In Bangladesh, there is no girl panel at the national level, but there are district level girls groups. However, boys also need to be included in the programs with the aim to empower boys and girls together and achieve openness as well as support for the empowerment of their female peers. Moeover, gender equality training is needed for community men and women. This will make people more eager to send their girl children, like boys, to schools and other programmes. e. Does the GPP have unintended spill-over effects at civil society level? No unintended spill-over effects at civil society level have been observed.
5.3 CONCLUSIONS BASED ON COUNTRY SPECIFIC SWOT ANALYSIS An Evaluation Summit meeting was held with the CSC at the end of the in-country MTR process. During this meeting, the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) for the GPP were discussed. Below is an overview of the key conclusions.
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STRENGTHS Relevance The GPP has addressed a pertinent need and has reached the vulnerable community from various geographic areas of the country. Through its baseline, GPP has identified the correct target populations: the Dalit community, whom the project has targeted, involves those that are not formally accepted in the society. Similarly, girls as a violence prone group are given first priority. ACD, Rajshahi thinks it a strength that they work with the Hindu, Muslim and other ethnic groups under the same roof. As ‘early/child marriage’ has been identified as a key problem, activities are designed and implemented accordingly to address the issue. When GPP was introduced the rate of eve teasing was reported to have suddenly risen in Bangladesh. GPP started at the right time and was the first to address this social evil in a planned way. Government and the community (irrespective of class, gender and caste)favoured the programme. With only 1 technical officer (TO) and 1 project coordinator (PC)at each Upazila (subdistrict), GPP was able to access the committees of Local Government Institutes (LGIs). GPP has successfully started a ‘social call’ to end VAW.
Effectiveness There are several evidences that demonstrate that GPP outputs are owned by the direct and indirect beneficiaries: CPG and CBOs are well known social pressure groups in the programme area. The CPG of Aparajeyohas introduced Toll Free Child Help Line 1098 and a couple of cell numbers for people to call in case emergency service is required. A girl in Dinajpur became victim of eve teasing. Upon her complaint to the CPG and the Union Parishad the perpetrator was given 2 months jail sentence.Similarly, in Shariatpura madrasa teacher, who was convicted by the court, raped one of the adolescent girls. Before the verdict, SDS was invited to the ezlas (court hearings). Finally, the court declared the highest punishment. With training and other GPP support some individuals have now become self-reliant. Law enforcement agencies used to reject registering violence related cases but now they do not reject anymore. As the cell phone number of the LGI representative is made available to the girls they contact directly the Union Parishad.
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Girl forum members have started working at schools in their community to teach about VAW. Moreover, in some areas, the girl forum is advocating to include their agenda in the Union Parishad budget. Community Radio ‘Padma’ is working on GPP and is managed by youth and adolescents that broadcast for 24 hours a day. As local journalists are sensitised they report GPP activities very positively. The involvement of girls can be seen at all the stages of the project activities, which indicates the effectiveness of the programme. Moreover, the project has effectively partnered with government services.
Sustainability The likelihood of making the project results sustainable are being increased by: Focussing on transferring knowledge and technology rather than just providing a service. The beneficiaries are taught to identify and analyse what is best for their destiny, thus increasing their knowledge and empowerment. These assets she can pass on to peers, other community members or even to her (future) children. The ownership is being handed over to the CSOs, whose capacity is being strengthened by GPP. Also, communities and Local Government Institute (LGI) are being developed (where GPP Bangladesh calls the smallest unit of LGI, i.e. Union as “community”). Some of the unions formed at the later stages of GPP are also trying to replicate GPP. 5 CPG are formed under AB in 5 urban areas of Dhaka. These groups have announced that they want to continue the programmeafter the GPP ends. They are trying to get registered with the government. GPP working with LGI and extending the sub-committee of LGI as well as integrating CPG within the government structure. CSC has activated the local alliance from the very beginning and has made attempts to link it up with international organisations, regional and national bodies and government institutions. It will remain as a Task Force member; the government can use this Task Force and their expertise in the future.
Learning Agenda and Regional Component Girls’ issues are a prime agenda all over South Asia despite the differences in cultures across the region. Hence, intra and inter country learning opportunity is there and
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partners are tapping this opportunity to learn from each other and increase their capabilities. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has adopted 3 global agendas – strengthening child protection, engagement of boys and men and strengthening the alliance. Plan International is working seriously to achieve these global agendas. The learning agenda is being articulated well.
Do no harm and conflict sensitivity During the inception phase of GPP, the partners organised a series of meetings with local authorities, CSOs, community leaders and members to ensure that they cooperateto address the problems their daughters and sisters face during programme implementation. GPP works at individual, family, community and CSO levels to resolve potential conflicts if any occur. Social leaders are included in the CBOs, CSOs and meetings. Flexibility has been given a due priority to ensure beneficiaries are reached when and how it is appropriate to them. The partners worked weekends and after working hours in order to assure that community members are available at their homes to talk and discuss the GPP with them. As a result, community members started seeking help from the partners, not only on the GPP thematic, but also on other issues like education, water and sanitation etc.
Gender GPP works from a gender perspective and aims at achieving the same opportunities for girls as for boys. Members of the communities and families that are addressed by partners expressed concerns regarding the fact that boys and men are not involved in the programme.ACD included men and young boys in the programme so that gender issues can be addressed with them as well in order to raise awareness and achieve more effective results with GPP.
WEAKNESSES Relevance GPP is working only with girls, whereas B&YM should be addressed as well to raise awareness and work on prevention by addressing potential future perpetrators.
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Effectiveness The programme has a limited coverage, i.e. more communities seek support. Though the left out communities are not very vulnerable, nor hard to reach, there is a common understanding among various stakeholders that it would be good if these left-out communities would also benefit by the GPP.12 Duration of the life-skills training is very short. One day training is not enough in the absence of follow-up training.
Efficiency The present number of staff is too limited to reach the targeted amount of beneficiaries.
Sustainability The sustainability will be a challenge in the absence of government policy on ‘child protection policy’. Until now, involvement of government institutions has been very complicated because of the frequent rotation of staff and the fact that resources are sometimes used for their own agenda. Overall, 5 years is not enough for a project to become sustainable; government stewardship is considered by CSC members to take almost 10 years.
Learning Agenda Replicating learning has been a challenge, as partners don’t feel confident about having captured all that has been taught until now.
Regional Component Cross-country activities are limited.
Do no harm and conflict sensitivity CSOs that GPP partners work with have their limitations on Do No Harm as they are just developing their programme in line with Do No Harm principles.
12
This can also be seen as a strength of GPP that the most vulnerable and remote communities are targeted as these are more in need of support. In view of the limited resources it is recommended to not augment the coverage to much but rather to focus on a limited number of communities with a thorough process that leads to higher probabilities of sustainability.
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OPPORTUNITIES Relevance Community acceptance is very high. So far they know about the GPP and the problems of girls the programme addresses and are willing to cooperate.
Effectiveness The girls associated with the child protection group (CPG) are very much aware of their rights and, with the right support in place, can play a significant role to improve the protection of girls in their areas.
Sustainability LGI knows about the programme interventions, but they need direction from the top management on how they can implement this. The ministry has the opportunity to support girls’ rights at the local level. Getting support from community leaders, government officials, and from the judiciary is a great opportunity as GPP activities are in line with the government agenda. GPP contributes to achieve the Sixth Five Year plan of the government. There are opportunities to scale up and expand the GPP to considerable more geographical areas.
Learning Agenda and Regional Component SAARC has eight member countries and only three are GPP countries. Regional sharing is not happening effectively. Using SAARC for regularly sharing GPP lessons is an opportunity for scaling up the programme.
THREATS Effectiveness Weak legal action – the perpetrators are often not punished.
Coordination and harmonisation Networks at sub district level are present but not yet very strong. Hence, coordination and harmonisation in providing legal support for victims in the villages is weak. Moreover, it has caused problems in institutionalising GPP objectives.
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Capacity and capacity development At CSO level, staff turnover is high and the way they are being refreshed seems poor. Hence, the organisational capacity building of CSOs needs more attention. Partners need more training on programme management, monitoring and evaluation.
Sustainability Political instability weakens the government commitment. If the government keeps changing and if the new government doesn’t have the girls’ issue as a priority, GPP may not sustain. If GPP does not get scaled up it might face sustainability problems.
Do no harm and conflict sensitivity In the eyes of the mainstream society members, persons who work for girl’s empowerment or for GPP specifically become an enemy.
5.4 RECOMMENDATIONS 5.4.1 RECOMMENDATIONS
RELATED
TO
QUALITY
PROGRAMME
IMPLEMENTATION GPP activities and beneficiaries: 1) As socio-cultural barriers are very strong in the country, and B&YM need to be included to make the programme more ‘gender sensitive’. Orientation on gender issues, reproductive health issues of youth and adolescents through boys youth club would be a good start. Moreover, in other countries, like Bolivia, trainings are given to boys and girls together in their school setting. 2) For the same reason, and the non-cooperation detected at family and society level, the evaluation team recommends including gender equality training and other awareness activities for both community men and women. This should include information on the benefits of sending not only sons but also daughters to school and programme activities. 3) The actors of the GPP have to consider the development of a very specific strategy to access the girls through community additional to accessing them through the family. In a country where family level decision has less value to the society level decisions, made by religious leaders, and other social institutions making family 93
members aware and accountable is a necessary but not sufficient condition. Moreover, to assess the psychological part of violence, critical strategies should be there. 4) As positive self image and confidence is a foundation for increased socio-political empowerment of the girls it is recommended to, apart from other socio-political empowerment interventions, strengthen and scale up the Karate trainings. Mobility is a basic requirement for girls to get benefit of any other opportunities and that is more likely to be achieved once the girls are skilled for their self-defence. 5) Include the topic of sexual harassment via Internet and other communication media and how to deal with this in GPP activities. 6) Focus on further advocacy, specifically regarding updating out-dated laws like the Vagrancy Act 1943 and Dowry Prohibition Act 1980. 7) Include income generating trainings and other activities, as G&YW that are economically independent tend to have lesser incidence of violence. 8) In addition to protection, education is also a very important issue for districts like Dinajpur. In the future, GPP may consider including education component in their activities. 9) During interviews and FGDs, the beneficiaries repeatedly mentioned that the duration and frequency of life skill training needs to be increased, so that they can really internalise the skills. 10) Since the programme intends to make a difference in the lives of the adolescent girls, lessons on sexual and reproductive health issues should also be incorporated within the programme. 11) Lobby for enacting a strong law for monitoring age certificates given by the notary public in Bangladesh. Due to lack of monitoring, wrong age certificates are often given away and this is one root cause of child marriage in Bangladesh.
Alliances with stakeholders 
The involvement of local government, law enforcement agencies and district public administration with GPP is highly commendable. However, there exist many challenges that have a negative impact on women’s access to remedies including the lack of reporting, the use of mediation and conciliation to solve incidents of violence, and the lack of proper documentation and evidence gathering to support cases. GPP has to work more closely with different ministries and other governmental institutions, especially
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Women and Children Affairs, Health and Family Welfare and Law Enforcement Agency (e.g. Police) to come up with a mechanism that will remove any obstruction faced by women in gaining access to justice. Plan International Bangladesh, along with CRA, may make a move to increase the involvement of these institutions in GPP activities.
More technical support from international donors to involve the government agencies effectively.
To achieve GPP objectives a strong, active and grass root level of participation and collaboration is needed from all stakeholders. NGOs, CBOs, journalists, and public institution officials like the law enforcement agency, Upazila and District level government officials, Marriage register and Notary Public officers can play a very important role to reduce the intensity of Gender based Violence or bring justice for victims but they still face many barriers (including corruption of the same Law enforcement agency, Marriage register and Notary Public officers). GPP could address cases of corruption, lobby for a full implementation of laws, assist in the development of regulations and policies to achieve this, give training to officers to support a quicker response to cases of violence, promote openness and even collaboration of the government to CSO efforts, increase awareness about existing laws and services for violence victims, promote stakeholders to initiate special health services for violence victims and inform people about the importance of reporting violence.
Specific capacity strengthening needs of other CSOs, including CBOs, than the partner organisations should be defined and addressed by the programme, with a focus on girls’ rights, protection and gender equality in general.
Learning agenda and regional component
SAARC could be used for regularly sharing GPP lessons and scaling up the programme from the present three SAARC countries to all eight.
5.4.2 RECOMMENDATIONS RELATED TO PROGRAMME MANAGEMENT
Include target groups more in programme design to make activities and strategies more need based. Review and reflection meeting among all GPP partners should be increased in this regard so as to make the programme flexible in incorporating emerging issues. Moreover, provision of a small ‘innovation fund’ in the programme structure (under capacity building of civil society organisations) would encourage partners to be creative
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in designing new activities, which after piloting can be scaled up and replicated if found appropriate.
There is a strong need to strengthen PNGOs on gender issues as well as to train CSOs and CBOs on gender equality. This should involve the development of gender policies and strategies for all PNGOs with activities on internal level (training personnel, developing HHRR gender policies) as well as on external level (linking it with GPP activities for greater impact on gender equality in the intervention areas).
There is a need to develop child protection policies with the PNGOs and train their personnel on how to implement it.
Partners need extensive capacity development support in relation to human resource management, documentation, IT development, individual skill development, M&E, advocacy and lobbying.
Regional sharing of experiences and best practices should be promoted. Exposure visits by local partners, especially, field staffs could be one of the means while web-based information clearing house with case studies and success stories, lessons learned can be facilitated.
PNGOs need to work more closely together to advocate and represent their sector’s needs in external forums. Exchanging information about experiences and the lessons learned is crucial to this type of collaboration.
Analyse the possibility to augment the number of technical staff working on GPP (one technical officer for one upazila is not enough for an overly populous country like Bangladesh).
As a facilitating organization for the capacity building of local CRA partners Plan International Bangladesh has to, apart from looking upon its own internal capacity, reflect on its partners capabilities as identified in this MTR study and take necessary action. A reflection and review meeting following the completion of MTR together with all partners is desirable.
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Moreover, linkages with other (Plan) programmes can be increased, for example with the Asia Regional Programme of civil society strengthening and the SAIEVAC. This would at the same time strengthen the regional component of the GPP programme.
5.4.3 RECOMMENDATIONS RELATED TO PROGRAMME LOGIC / THEORY OF CHANGE / GPP MONITORING PROTOCOL When revising the general monitoring protocol, the evaluating team concludes that it integrates quantitative (% of G&YW) as well as qualitative (measuring quality of life in sociocultural, economic and political terms) indicators, which is positive as the quantitative part allows for better generalising and using the data for decision-making at policy and strategic level, considering at the same time what it is about (quality of life according to the perception of the population, which is more difficult to generalise). It is also positive that the monitoring protocol contains especially results and impact indicators, and to lesser extent product indicators; there are no input indicators. This is positive as the focus is on the change to be achieved in quality of life of the target population, rather than in the resources needed to achieve this.
5.4.4 RECOMMENDATIONS RELATED TO TARGET SETTING FOR 2015 The global GPP has formulated very ambitious impact indicators; it is recommended to review and contextualise them for the case of Bangladesh and of the different district with the participation of technical staff of the partners and of the G&YW themselves, to understand the reality of the contexts and the feasibility of the results proposed by area (rural – urban; capital – remote town; etc.) and target group (especially the most vulnerable). Also, together with all counterparts a sustainability plan must be developed with an exit strategy of the programme, as it may have implications for the type and contents of the activities as well as the alliances that need to be developed already from now on. As part of the plan, a joint vision for the future has to be developed which looks beyond 2015 and values the structural limitations at socio-cultural and institutional level. Also strategies for the long term must be developed and tackled.In this framework it is essential that all GPP counterparts have GPP financing ensured until the end of 2014, and not just for the year.
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ANNEXES A - Revised Girl Power monitoring protocol dated January 2013 B - Country sampling plan C - Country evaluation plan D - Tables E - Manual for MTR F - Data collection tools G - 5C Report per partner (Tool J) H - CIVICUS reports per district I – Examples of violence
See Seperate documents
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