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This paper explores the under-representation of women in STEM education in Bangladesh, and proposes ways to boost their participation to help achieving the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of ensuring quality education for all. The key argument of this paper is that while celebrating Bangladesh's success in reducing the gender gap in primary and secondary education, the persistent gap between women's participation in general education and their representation in STEM subjects receives less attention. Although women students' enrolment at the tertiary level has increased, their representation in STEM fields remains low for various reasons – societal perceptions, inadequate infrastructure, prejudice, etc. While Bangladesh has taken steps to promote gender equality in education, measures directly targeting increased participation of women in STEM education are lacking. However, in addition to implementing institutional policies to increase women's participation in STEM education, the paper recommends tackling the socio-cultural obstacles that discourage women from doing so. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Almost a million Rohingya refugees remain trapped in refugee camps in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, more than six years after being driven from Myanmar. The stated policy of the international community remains voluntary repatriation. This paper lays out our argument that the narrative of repatriation is a myth, not a genuine possibility any time in the next decade or more. Our central argument is that full repatriation of the whole refugee population is completely impossible regardless of outcome of the civil war in Myanmar, probably ever, and even repatriation of a sizeable minority is speculative, reliant on either the Arakan Army winning clear territorial control or a democratic government coming to power that gains clear control over the military. Even in these best-case scenarios, we argue that the demographic pressure of some 1.2 million Rohingya potentially returning to Rakhine State would be so destabilising as to make it an impossibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 shock resulted in a large number of people becoming newly poor in Bangladesh, for whom recovery was slow and difficult. In response, BRAC implemented a nationwide program – credit, business planning support, and mentoring – targeting the economic recovery of the new poor. This paper estimates its impact using a mixed method and finds that the program had a significant positive effect on employment, income, and assets, indicating a faster economic recovery of program participants. The learnings from this program can have major policy implications for future disaster responses targeting livelihood recovery, specifically during the time-sensitive transitory phase from relief to long-term development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can NGOs implement rights-based gender equality programs when donor focus on the area is shrinking? This paper explores how one development program has made strategic choices incorporating the interests of multiple stakeholders, addressing donor interests while simultaneously addressing the needs of local communities. It examines the evolution of BRAC's Polli Shomaj, a rural women's civil society organisation designed to challenge power structures through collective action in rural Bangladesh. It draws on interviews with program staff and existing program literature to find that over time, BRAC leadership has narrowed its program focus to shed its broad transformative agenda to focus solely on gender equality through a combination of service delivery and rights-based approaches. The paper suggests that while it is possible for NGOs to promote gender equality through a combination of rights-based and service-delivery approaches, greater focus is needed on challenging power structures to bring about lasting structural change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past half a century since its independence, Bangladesh has done exceptionally well in human development, including the health sector. In addition to the public sector, the many innovative interventions implemented at scale by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) made important contributions in this story. This paper narrates the story of BRAC, one of the largest NGOs, highlighting a few of its selected health intervention programmes. It also describes how an internal research outfit played a significant role in BRAC's success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper questions if enough is done to tackle modern slavery within the ready-made garments (RMG) supply chains, through the lens of disclosures in improving work practices. Using evidence from Bangladesh, we find how there is a continuum of labour exploitation where the reality of forced labour is not a static one, but a continuum of experiences highlighting the complexity of the exploitative environment within the dominant neoliberal logic of transparency disclosures. It is imperative not only to make disclosures more robust through due diligence, but support capacity to address exploitation at the lower end of the supply chain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since its inception, BRAC has combined emergency assistance with longer-term development interventions, grounding its approach in empowering local communities. Its experiences in navigating tensions across the humanitarian–development nexus and in debates around localising aid provide a useful perspective on the way in which these debates intersect, showcasing how prioritising a localised response is conducive of an approach that is "humanitarian in nature and developmental in solution". Through historical and contemporary perspectives, we explore how BRAC has adjusted its profile, adapted to new challenges, learned about new and changing settings, developed innovations, learned from mistakes, and dismantled boundaries to bridge humanitarian and developmental support in Bangladesh and beyond. These experiences highlight the importance of the "local" beyond geography, as evidenced by BRAC's engagement with the communities it serves and is part of, and its desire to move forward in an inclusive and socially just manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While migration debates point to both empowerment and disempowerment in the range of choices that women can experience due to patriarchal norms in the home country and families, migration norms themselves can at the same time be disempowering. This paper explores the idea of precarity as a way through this paradox. By using Key Informant Interviews in case studies from Nepal and Bangladesh, we show how the precarity of migration can change not only due to patriarchal norms at the origin and host country but also events such as COVID-19 can have a profound effect on women's choices and agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines how farmers from the Common Interest Group (CIG) have changed their capacity levels due to participating in Bangladesh's National Agricultural Technology Program (NATP). A mixed-method design was used to collect data from 120 rice and vegetable farmers. Results show that most respondents (above 75 per cent) agree that NATP initiatives, particularly group-based extension services, developed their capacity in different cultivation techniques, resource utilisation, farm inputs, communication behaviour, market access, and involvement in farmer organisations (FOs)/community-based organisations (CBOs). This study concludes that the concept of CIGs should be incorporated into the existing extension system following the termination of donor support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Empowerment of people with disabilities is an important aspect of commitment to human rights and inclusive development. However, the tasks of reaching out and engaging with people with disabilities and gathering and articulating sensitively the lived experiences of people with disabilities who encounter multiple challenges – physical, social, and cultural – is anything but easy. These challenges are particularly daunting in Bangladesh, where disability is also taboo and often seen as a social and economic burden. Based on a four-year research project with people with disabilities in Bangladesh, the article highlights the challenges of reaching out and the adjustments and innovations that have been applied through qualitative research. The researcher employed a probe-reach-out-learn-and-apply-as-you-go approach, which included extensive networking, extreme sensitivity, extensive attention to the issues of dignity and health of the interviewees, continuous attention and adjustments to interview conditions, and to the researcher's own emotions and health challenges during and following the interview phases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a Global South NGO from Bangladesh that has become one of the world's largest NGOs, BRAC's fiftieth anniversary was a momentous occasion for global development. This special issue celebrates BRAC's contributions to development knowledge and practice across five decades, highlighting BRAC's impact – and the challenges it has faced in achieving this – across several programs, ranging from humanitarian response to women's and young people's empowerment and its quest for inclusive poverty reduction in Bangladesh and beyond. We explore how BRAC's heavy investment in a culture of continuous learning enables the organisation to understand and improve its programs, ground these in local contexts and communities, and build external partnerships for spreading its impact, influence, and knowledge globally. We hope this special issue will advance understanding of and spread BRAC's strategies of working closely with poor and marginalised communities, of investing in transformative learning that starts with the self, of evolving and embracing mistakes, and of igniting hope over fate and despair. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Equitable futures depend upon better employment outcomes for young women. We use a skills ecosystems approach to explore how youth skills development programs can maximise their impact in highly gendered societies and labour markets. While improving employment outcomes and incomes for young women, BRAC's STAR program cannot withstand Bangladesh's deep-rooted and socially restrictive norms and practices. Short-term successes are diluted as family pressures and commitments take precedent over young women's economic lives. Adding a temporal dimension to the concept of skills ecosystems, these findings highlight that maintaining these impacts requires constant renegotiation and advocacy to challenge the structural obstacles within households and labour markets and within national policies and investments that constrain their longer-term economic empowerment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BRAC's focus on women and community organisations in the 1970s was lauded as bringing forth "a quiet revolution." We explore the evolution of BRAC's selected programs that built community forums and argue that while BRAC successfully retained its focus on women's inclusion, its approach to collective empowerment is marked by contradictions. The shifts in funding structures that emphasised individual empowerment, the organisation's emphasis on scaling up programs at the expense of investing in building community organisations, and the accommodation of patriarchal norms to prevent backlash from local actors – all resulted in trade-offs, limiting programming on collective empowerment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite being a resource-scarce country, Bangladesh hosts a million Rohingya refugees on humanitarian grounds and offers them protection, and shelter. How does their presence affect the provision of resources, services, and access for both residents and refugees? I analyze the conflict and competition over limited resources. I argue that the arrival of the Rohingyas has caused significant distress to the host community in Cox's Bazar district, but there is an inadequate reflection on their distress. By examining the locals' relationships with the refugees through field engagements, I argue their presence leads to conflict, in three main areas: public service provision, economic resources, and environmental resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research aims to identify the impact of COVID 19 and monsoon floods on rural Bangladesh communities and assess their coping behaviour. Data were collected through an in-depth study. The findings reveal that char(shoal) dwellers and riverbank communities were more affected due to unexpected floods than coronavirus infections with poor access to health, less knowledge of hygiene, no risk reduction measures, or any suitable coping strategies. Furthermore, the result shows that traditional livelihood sources like fishing, ferrying passengers by boat, borrowing money from affluent relatives, or food loans, selling livestock, etc., were usual. Local authorities were mostly inactive in alleviating suffering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This qualitative case study examines a pilot community mobilisation initiative to increase access to qualified primary health care services among slum dwellers in Bangladesh. Emerging from analysis are a series of key considerations in the design and implementation of mobilisation activities in poor urban settlements. These include who best to mobilise in highly stratified social settings; how to bridge communities in need with outside resources; the role of development agents in organising participation; whether mobilisation processes can be phased over time; and the imperative of policy advocacy to shift complex structural inequities that preclude investments in health care for the urban disadvantaged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]