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Over the decades of the 1980s and 90s many poverty alleviation programmes have been implemented in developing countries. Evaluations of such programmes have traditionally looked at their success in increasing the income levels of participants but less at the wider goals of human well-being. This paper looks at the poverty alleviation programme of BRAC, a large non-governmental organisation in Bangladesh, and, based on carefully designed studies, presents its impact on selected components of ‘human well-being’. This study found better child survival and nutritional status in households served by the programme. Simular impacts were also found in other areas such as expenditure patterns, family planning practices and children's education. The studies also looked at the impact on the rural power structure and found a substantial change in the networking relationship of health providers. The likely influence of ‘selectivity bias’ on the above results is also discussed. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent evidence highlights that integrated interventions have sustainable impacts on household welfare. This paper evaluates the 'Char Development and Settlement Program,' which targets marginalized, coastal populations of Bangladesh and is implemented by the NGO BRAC, which pioneers integrated programs in over 20 countries. The analysis exploits household panel data (2012, 2016) for over 2500 households living in 11 chars to measure the impact of a programme, comprising microfinance, health services and legal aid. Employing a difference‐in‐difference approach, we find considerable, programme‐induced increases in consumption, food security and legal awareness suggesting that an integrated 'big push' is efficient for poverty alleviation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Owing to increased inclusion of young people with disabilities into the private sector in Bangladesh and Kenya, there is an urgent need to find alternative ways to support young graduates with a disability in the workplace with assistive technology solutions. The aim of the paper is to identify barriers for private workplace sectors to use assistive technology to support young graduates seeking, maintaining and retaining employment. This qualitative study adopted the research onion design of Saunders et al. Data were collected using interviews and focus group discussions and analysed using thematic analysis. The findings reveal that barriers are linked to seven key person‐centred capability themes: the dream, external factors, internal factors, assistive technology vision, strategic design priorities and gaps and assistive actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite a growing focus on disability‐inclusive employment and livelihoods, people with intellectual disabilities and their families remain underrepresented in both the literature and in employment programming. This paper identifies key barriers to inclusive employment collected through six (6) focus groups made up of people with intellectual disabilities (N:54) and their family members (N:45) in Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, and Bangladesh. Self‐advocates and families report stigma, denial of access to education, safety and security concerns, pressure to engage in self‐employment, and discrimination as key barriers. Their experiences can contribute to more inclusive cross‐disability perspectives on employment and provide guidance for practitioners aiming to design responsive disability‐inclusive employment programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bangladesh has one of the world's highest child marriage rates. It is also one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change. This paper studies the effect of climate variability on child marriage using data from five waves of the Demographic and Health Surveys. I find that a higher number of dry months in a given year significantly increases the probability of early marriage. Importantly, precipitation fluctuations only affect rural but not urban populations, suggesting that the main channel through which climate affects early marriage is likely an income channel. © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To understand the complex mechanism of the politics of food security in Bangladesh, this paper attempts to understand the discourse of food security and endeavour to unpack the way in which food security is framed in Bangladesh, and its key images and/or narratives. In doing so, this paper surveys food security literature in Bangladesh focusing on policy debates. Key findings of the paper are that food security is still merely political rhetoric in Bangladesh, and there is a lack of consensus in regard to food policy among various political actors. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing forcibly displaced populations worldwide are adversely affecting the poorest host communities' livelihoods. Livelihood programmes can reduce this tension by addressing host communities' skills and capital constraints. In this paper, we examine the effect of a customised version of BRAC's Ultra‐Poor Graduation (UPG) programme on the livelihoods of the host communities of Rohingya refugees. We find that the programme increases labour supply in self‐employment of working‐age men and women, household income, food expenditure and productive asset. Further, we find some weak evidence that the programme decreases the tension between hosts and Rohingya refugees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates whether the income augmenting role of microcredit is attributable only to increased participation of the borrower in economic activities or switch to more productive activities also. The paper provides a framework to analyze this question in absence of any longitudinal data. By using the data from the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh, the paper finds that microcredit enables the borrowers to move progressively into more productive activities as they become experienced. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to look into the role of social resources in the urban labour market. Unlike most empirical work in Bangladesh, which consider the labour market with reference to the supply and demand of labour, this paper argues that there are ‘other’ things that need to be considered. In a society like Bangladesh, different social elements have an obvious influence on the labour market. This has practical importance in devising any poverty alleviation policy and intervention strategy. The present paper tries to show that different elements of labour market are interlinked and interlocked and social capital often dominates financial capital. This keeps the vast majority of the social resource-poor excluded from labour market opportunities. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is often argued that strong macroeconomic fundamentals along with weak integration with international financial markets acted as major buffers for least developed countries (LDCs) against fallouts of the recent global financial and economic crisis. This paper examines the hypothesis that LDCs had strong macroeconomic fundamentals in the wake of the crisis by studying Impulse Response Functions (IRFs) of Gross Domestic Product per capita of the LDCs during the crisis. With the treatment of the crisis as a transmission of shocks and utilisation of IRFs, the paper finds substantial and rather persistent output and growth loss for LDCs because of fall in external demand and terms of trade shocks. With the forecast of the impacts of a potential 'double-dip' recession on the LDCs by using Vector Autoregressive, the paper concludes that LDCs would require the greater part of the decade to recover which is lower than the earlier recovery period. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines microfinance conditionalities of the Bangladesh Rural Development Board in Bangladesh from clients' and providers' perspectives based on a qualitative case study. The study reveals that the credit is less poor focus in terms of amount and disbursement procedure. Additionally, group liability and cooperatives are used as tactics for surveillance and punishment instead of invigorating collective effort. Saving and share work as disciplinary instruments instead of capital accumulation. Besides, service is regarded as a conditional commodity, and skill development becomes individual responsibility. The study implies listening to the voice of the poor and redesigning antipoverty programmes based on the need felt by them. © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on a sample of households in Bangladesh, we utilise the generalised propensity score method to investigate the impact of internal and international remittances on households' net assets. The analysis suggests an inverted U‐shaped relationship between the amount of internal remittances and the net assets of households. The effect of international remittances on net assets is similarly inverted U‐shaped. The paper also indicates not only the source but also the size of remittances effects of the utilisation of remittances for asset accumulation. © 2019 The Authors Journal of International Development Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

‘Partnership’ has become a standard buzzword in the NGO and ‘development’ world. Until 1980s it was common for many Northern NGOs (NNGOs) to implement their own ‘development’ programmes and projects. This implementation approach has shifted to one in which local ‘partner’ organisations are identified and do most of the work, with the NNGOs in a funding and organisational support role. Also many Northern donors started funding the Southern NGOs directly making many NNGOs irrelevant. This paper reviews the current literature on ‘partnership’ between Northern and Southern NGOs and concludes that the new role of the NNGOs in the North should be to work with governments and business to change policies which create poverty in both the North and the South. It also examines the ‘partnership’ between a NNGO (Save the Children (UK)) and local NGOs in Bangladesh. There are probably more and bigger NGOs in Bangladesh than in any other country of its size. This paper concludes that in Bangladesh the relationship is led by the financial constraints of the NNGOs not by any intention to build partnership. In other words it is ‘donorship’ rather than ‘partnership’. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper chronicles how the microfinance industry in Bangladesh has evolved from its initial focus on credit, disbursing standardized loan products and collecting obligatory savings to the development of flexible savings products. We describe the process through which the industry gradually moved away from compulsory savings and introduce flexible savings. We provide detailed descriptions of various savings related products used by MFIs in Bangladesh. We point out the numerous problems that can arise when MFIs collects savings especially from non-members without a proper legal framework. We conclude the paper by suggesting prudent regulation of MFIs to ensure the security of the meager savings of the poor. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Culture has received increasing attention in critical development studies, though the notion that there are important cultural differences within and between development organizations has received less consideration. This paper elaborates elements of a framework for studying organizational culture in multi-agency development projects. It draws on selected writings in anthropology and in organizational theory and suggests that these two bodies of literature can be usefully brought together, as well as on insights from ongoing fieldwork in Bangladesh, Burkina Faso and Peru. At the centre of this framework is the analysis of context, practice and power. Where development projects involve multiple organizations (such as donors, government agencies, non-governmental organizations and grassroots groups) an analysis of cultures both within and between organizational actors can help explain important aspects of project performance. The paper argues that organizational culture is constantly being produced within projects, sometimes tending towards integration, often towards fragmentation. This fragmentation, indicative of the range of cultures within development organizations, is an important reason why some projects fail, and why ideas stated in project documents are often not realized, especially in the case of the newer and more contentious objectives such as ‘empowerment’. © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses inequity in formal health care use in rural Bangladesh using data from a survey conducted of 4010 households drawn from 120 villages. We find that the use of formal health care is incredibly low (40 per cent); about two-thirds of which is private health care, and only one-fourth utilises public sector facilities. Inequity favours the better off, although the level of inequity is modest. Prevailing inequity resides mainly in the utilisation of private health care while non-communicable diseases contribute significantly. Thus, the main public health concern in rural areas of Bangladesh is the low utilisation of formal health care (especially public health care), not inequity. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the impact of salinity on livelihood choices of rural households in south‐western Bangladesh. We find interdependence among households' decisions involving various livelihood choices. High salinity reduces a household's probability of entrepreneurship while those households that stick only to agriculture suffer significant crop losses because of salinity. Households also face a trade‐off between subsistence and entrepreneurial activities, that is, participation in one type of activity reduces the probability of participation in the other. Households with more agricultural land, in fact, benefit from high salinity levels by taking up fisheries related activities, whereas marginal households resort to increasing labour supply. Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study draws on structured interviews of 285 villagers and semi‐structured interviews of 20 key stakeholders to investigate the effectiveness of resourcing for post‐disaster housing reconstruction in Bangladesh. Through evaluating post‐disaster housing reconstruction theories and approaches, the synthesis of literature and empirical fieldwork, this paper develops a dynamic theoretical framework that moves the trajectory of post‐disaster housing reconstruction towards the construction of more resilient houses. The results of descriptive statistics, multiple regression and thematic analyses indicate that only 6 per cent of reconstructed houses could withstand cyclones, and access to resources played a pivotal role in post‐Sidr and post‐Aila housing reconstruction. Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the particular understanding and practice of a human rights-based approach (HRBA) in ActionAid Bangladesh, drawing on 28 interviews and 35 documents. Employing thematic analysis, it identifies changes in ActionAid Bangladesh's HRBA influenced by the organisational and national contexts and by the role of development practitioners. The changes are conceptualised as the product of 'internalisation', non-governmental organisation workers' building understanding of and commitment to a HRBA, and 'contextualisation', their shaping the HRBA to fit organisational and national contexts. This paper argues the importance of human agency for discourse change, noting the influence of contexts on both agency and discourse. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite record national output in the early years of this decade there is widespread concern that rice yields in Bangladesh are below those attainable, and that given future population growth this may constrain achievement of food security and poverty reduction objectives. A frequent response to this problem is that farmers could close the gap between actual farm yields and potential yields identified in field trials if farmers who are technically inefficient could improve their current farming practices. This paper estimates and explains technical efficiency for a sample of rice farmers in Bangladesh employing Bayesian methods. The results provide insights into the distribution of technical efficiency and identify important influences on rice growing. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines changing agrarian institutions in south-western Bangladesh where a large number of farmers, small and large, have switched from rice farming to export-oriented freshwater prawn farming within the last decade. The local economy boomed until ecological and managerial problems began to threaten the sustainability of the farming activities. At the same time, the impact of global competition is forcing the industry to adopt so-called global standards concerning food safety and sanitary conditions. This demands the restructuring of the local supply chain at the bottom of which a significant number of small farmers are struggling to survive. It is argued that this restructuring is leading to small farmers' reduced access to financial capital, and possibly to changes in ownership patterns of freshwater prawn farms. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic liberalization in Bangladesh has led to the emergence of a number of export-oriented industries, of which the manufacture of ready-made garments is the most prominent. The industry currently employs around 1.5 million workers, the overwhelming majority of whom are women. This paper explores the poverty implications of this new form of employment through a comparison of the socio-economic backgrounds, wages and working conditions and contributions to household needs of women working for global markets with those working for domestic markets. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The capacity of the poor of Bangladesh to save is surprizingly large—surprizing to observers, and surprizing to the poor themselves. This capacity has long been used, with modest success, as the basis for self-help savings-and-loan devices that the poor (like others) have used in the absence of formal banking services. But over the last twenty years an innovative form of financial service provision has been developed in Bangladesh by ‘micro-credit institutions’ (MCIs) such as the Grameen Bank, BRAC and ASA which has exploited this capacity to save, to the benefit of millions of rural people, and at the same time brought profits to the MCIs. Splendid though this development has been, it could be more splendid. For under the systems adopted by the MCIs—who are fundamentally lenders rather than financial intermediaries—the poor can exploit their capacity to save only by going into debt. This paper argues that a shift in approach would allow the MCIs to offer a much better service to a broader range of customers (including the very poor), and bring surprizing benefits to themselves as well. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Development studies faces a major methodological challenge in combining large scale surveys of problematic accuracy in conceptualisation and measurement with local studies whose generalisation is questionable. This paper attempts to combine the overviews from highly aggregated quantitative Labour Force data, adjusted for child and underemployed labour, with insights from village level qualitative case studies to indicate the processes forming patterns of livelihoods in Bangladesh looking over a decade. Using this methodology the prognosis for the mass of people of Bangladesh is deeply worrying despite all their efforts to sustain and improve their income earning opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: We examined the quality of publicly provided primary healthcare service in two different rural settings: USA and Bangladesh. Using both primary and secondary data, the quality of primary healthcare services was examined across four dimensions: access, equity, responsiveness and citizen's influence over services. Findings demonstrate that apart from responsiveness, the US underperforms across all other dimensions of quality. Compared with the US, Bangladesh fared worse in almost all indicators other than physically accessibility. Wider political economy factors that shaped the quality of service were the colonial legacy, political competition, the economic system and social inequality. Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the effectiveness of a participatory institutional development approach for better primary schooling in Bangladesh. We conduct a qualitative investigation and find that, despite some limitations, the two key instruments of the participatory approach, school catchment area mapping and school planning, are highly effective in achieving enhanced primary school enrollment, higher retention, reduced dropout and overall better learning. These participatory school management approaches employ social capital by involving communities to attain better learning achievement. Since basic primary education significantly contributes to human capital accumulation in Bangladesh, we argue that our findings reinforce the hypothesis that social capital fosters human capital. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper applies a stochastic production frontier model to measure total factor productivity growth, technical efficiency change and technological change in Bangladesh crop agriculture for the 31 observations from 1960/61 to 1991/92, using data for 16 regions. The results reveal that technical change followed a U-shaped pattern, rising from the early 1970s, when the green revolution varieties were adopted, giving an overall rate of technical progress at 0.27 per cent per year. However, technical efficiency declined throughout, at an estimated annual rate of 0.47 per cent. The combined effect of slow technical progress, dominated by the fall in technical efficiency resulted in total factor productivity (TFP) declining at a rate of 0.23 per cent per annum, with the rate of decline increasing in the later years. TFP change is shown to depend on the green revolution technology and agricultural research expenditures. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on primary research in development organizations and with working children themselves, this paper questions the logic of child rights, and its validity for the cultural context of Bangladesh. A strong stress on child rights at the programme level may not be sustainable and can have contradictory outcomes for poor children. Working children place a premium on the quality of relationships and show a strong sense of (in)justice and entitlement. This suggests ‘child rights’ work should re-examine the cultural constitution of entitlements and responsibilities and how these intermesh with the material, social and political factors that make and keep children poor. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the Urban Livelihoods Study that has been conducted by the Institute for Development Policy Analysis and Advocacy in Bangladesh in the late nineties. Objectives of the study; Information on the contemporary discourses about urban vulnerability; Vulnerability issues which affect individuals.

The objectives of this paper are to estimate fertilizer consumption relationships using Bangladesh farm-level survey data for the year 1981-82. Various hypotheses were put to a test and it was found that structural, environmental and institutional factors were important in explaining farmers' use of fertilizers for rice crop. The price elasticity of fertilizer demand ranged between -0.72 to -0.78 on cross-section data. Fertilizers and hired labour were complements, with a non-price definition while with a price definition they were substitutes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International non‐governmental organisations (INGOs) bring together actors from three very different backgrounds: international aid workers, national aid workers generally from the urban middle classes and disadvantaged communities. However, the ways national aid workers negotiate their cultural encounters and use accountability tools and information systems have not been the objects of much research. In this article, we analyse how the Bangladeshi employees of an INGO with headquarters in the United Kingdom and a country branch in Bangladesh are using accountability tools and information systems developed by and for English speakers and how they are coming up with work practices that are more attuned with their cultural and linguistic preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nepal Terai has historically had higher rates of mechanisation compared to the rest of the country and has the potential to expand and intensify its constrained agricultural productivity through agricultural mechanisation for smallholder farmers. This review provides a timely reflection on the pathways in which mechanisation has occurred in India and Bangladesh to inform the development of future mechanisation pathways and policies for Nepal Terai. Findings highlight the need to prioritise agricultural research, improve credit access, invest in human resources, incentivise local manufacturing and reassess extension services to address the needs of the farmers in Nepal Terai. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This qualitative study explored facilitators, barriers and perceived changes related to programme participation and utilisation among 69 parents of young children who attended a Positive Deviance/Hearth (PDH) programme alone or a PDH programme alongside an Economic Development (PDH/ED) programme to improve child nutrition in rural Bangladesh. Family support stimulated participation in the programmes, while a lack of understanding of the programme's objectives could hinder the effective assets utilisation provided by the ED programme to improve child nutrition. Improvement in child nutritional status was frequently observed in both groups. Proactive engagement and elevated self‐esteem were distinctively reported in the PDH/ED group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An econometric model of the monetary sector of Bangladesh is formulated and estimated using annual data for the period 1974-87. The model is evaluated using a range of diagnostic tests and the results from dynamic simulations. The simulations indicate that, historically, inflation, real output growth and monetary growth are all consistent with a structuralist framework in which exogenous shocks such as harvest failures play a leading role in monetary expansions via their effects on food prices. Accommodationist monetary policies may generate further inflationary pressures, though there may be short periods during which monetary expansions increase real output. Excess supplies of real money balances do not appear to have any significant impact on real expenditures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent trends in the productivity of South Asia's irrigated cropping systems are reviewed with emphasis on the large, densely populated Indo-Gangetic plains of Pakistan and India and parts of Bangladesh, where wheat is an important crop. Technical and institutional problems emerging in these areas may seriously impinge on the ability to maintain the gains in food-grain productivity and sustain the resource base in the next two decades. Future productivity increases in South Asian cropping systems depend on a new strategy that implies profound changes in agricultural research priorities and in the institutions that foster technical change in agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Waste pickers make a livelihood by collecting recyclable waste contributing to urban development and poverty reduction. Most often, they are socially excluded and exposed to different vulnerabilities (e.g. occupational health risks and accidents). This study adopts the sustainable livelihoods framework to assess multifaceted aspects of everyday life and work experiences of waste pickers in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The framework takes an integrated and transdisciplinary approach to livelihood assets and vulnerabilities. Our findings reveal a situation of extreme poverty and neglect of waste pickers, while they are making the city more sustainable. Specific policies, strategies and actions are required to reduce risks and improve the working conditions of waste pickers. © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1980s, most developing countries have been following market‐oriented liberalising policy reforms and have prioritized private sector‐led growth. Bangladesh's inability to provide quality healthcare services, along with issues pertaining to limited resources, absenteeism, poor governance, and lack of accountability in its public healthcare system have created wide gaps that are increasingly being filled by the private sector. This has been fuelled by the state's investment in medical education and training of public sector physicians while simultaneously permitting them to practice privately, as well as the provision of grants and subsidies. The growth of this sector has limited benefits for the improvement of people's health. The government should take a comprehensive approach and engage its political will to make changes in management and governance and bring in stewardship to revitalise the public sector. © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Controlling floods and raising rice production in Bangladesh have been the centres of struggle for nearly a century—between North and South, and between engineering solutions and local knowledge. Decades of disastrous construction of dikes and polders led first to local protests, including cutting dikes, and then to a structured local solution known as tidal river management, which won the support of Bangladeshi scientists and academics. Suddenly, the global North has noticed and is rushing to catch up—asking what local farmers knew and their hydraulic engineers did not, while trying to maintain the dominance of aid industry engineers and technicians in Bangladesh. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Bangladesh, labour supply is abundant, but land for cultivation is shrinking mainly because of growing human settlement and urbanisation with a very high population density. This study examines whether labour use is efficient in Bangladesh agriculture and analyses the relative efficiency of hired and family labour for three crop seasons. Production functions are estimated using data collected by International Rice Research Institute on expenditures of agricultural inputs and returns on investment from a nationally representative sample of 1928 farm households from all 64 districts of Bangladesh. Results show that family labour is more productive than hired labour in Bangladesh agriculture, which has important policy implications for the rural labour market. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social Network Theory is suggested as a theoretical frame within the context of adaptation to climate change. Two elements of the theory that prove useful are that network brokers bridge networks and diffuse novel information that helps lead to group innovation. Novel information is needed for adaptation to climate change. Network data from a Bangladeshi community exemplify how a rural network functions during non-climate variable and climate variable times; which actors comprise the network and that brokers inside and outside the network diffuse information for possible adaptation. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This article considers the distinction between, first, doing research and having research findings and, second, giving value to those findings, making evaluative judgements about the research. Although there is a great deal of analysis on how to do research, there is less attention to making explicit the range of values which inform evaluative judgements and match various individual and institutions interests in the research findings. We argue that processes of evaluation should be thought of as developmental and, if based on the values of the development initiative, become one of the 'means' through which development goals are established, contributing to shared outcomes that are the 'ends' of development. This article is a contribution to understanding the valuing of research findings by discussing ways to facilitate these processes and suggesting a number of practical steps that can contribute to making evaluation a 'means' to development 'ends'. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Islamic economics has been counter-constructed as an alternative to the mainstream development model perceived to be purely focused on the material world. In this context, the development narrative of a leading Islamic bank in Bangladesh is explored, utilising a discourse analytical approach. Despite the fact that the Islami Bank's development programme appears to very similar to mainstream interventions, it seeks to re-cast development as a holistic process with a vision for society that is both spiritual and material. By virtue of this narrative that conceptualises the objectives of development in a different fashion to the mainstream, complex power dynamics and antagonistic frontiers with other development actors are generated. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study deals with two questions: what role infrastructures can play in promoting paid work opportunities for women and what specific type of infrastructure can reduce women's time burden? The study brings empirical evidence on these two questions in a specific country context. Findings from an econometric model that endogenises women's paid and unpaid work show that the impacts of infrastructure on women's work and total time burden depend on the type of a particular infrastructure and availability of other infrastructures. While hard infrastructure shows significant influence on women's work with a lag, a rise in paid work outside home has not been equally compensated by a decline in unpaid work at home. The findings have important policy implications in infrastructure policy design and provision. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historically, educational gender gaps in Bangladesh persisted as households invested more in the education of boys than girls. Recent anecdotal and descriptive reports, however, claim that Bangladesh has achieved gender parity in education. Using advanced empirical methods and nationally representative data, this study finds that urban and rural boys (relative to urban and rural girls) have a 7.4–27.4% lower likelihood of being enrolled in school, 0.4–1.5 fewer years of educational attainment and 9.7–30.8% lower likelihood of being literate. These findings draw attention to the causes of the reversal in the educational gender gap in Bangladesh. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Floodplain wetlands are the major common pool natural resources in Bangladesh. Men do most of the fishing, but women collect aquatic plants and snails. A women-only, a men-only, and a mixed community based organisation (CBO) are compared, each of which manages a seasonal wetland. The CBOs involving women are in Hindu communities where more women use aquatic resources and belong to other local institutions. In the oldest of these CBOs, women have gradually increased their role as community recognition of their success has grown. In the Muslim community few women collect aquatic resources, and they have no role in the CBO. Community compliance was higher where both men and women played an active role in the process. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The quantitative impact assessment of microfinance programmes, like the programmes themselves, originated in Bangladesh. This essay reflects on the significance and usefulness for present day researchers of the analytical advances made in Bangladesh since the beginning of the 1990s. Particularly in the area of selection bias, fungibility and the assessment of wider impacts, it argues, those advances are crucial, and need to be borne in mind by all practitioners; but financial sustainability remains an unresolved problem. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines development programme design, using the Chars Livelihoods Programme in Bangladesh as a case study. Central to the Programme was the need to address the deep structural barriers preventing the exercise of voice by the extreme poor. By describing how this issue was tackled in the design process, the article explores the room for manoeuvre to engage in processes of social development relating to extreme poverty by focusing on ‘citizen participation’, ‘voice’ and ‘responsiveness’. It argues that within the confines of a conventional, bureaucratic planning process, opportunities to be innovative may be limited. However, to refuse the challenge, is to disregard the role design plays in opening up spaces for future action. It concludes by arguing that design is an inherently politicised process, which involves choices about whose voice is heard, whose power is respected and whose is disputed. This issue cannot be ignored by initiatives that seek to eliminate extreme poverty through citizenship participation in development. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies of spatial market integration have adopted error correction models to test for its existence and for market dominance. An integrated empirical framework is proposed here which tests for long-run spatial market integration between price pairs using a dynamic vector autoregressive model and cointegration. Hypotheses tests of market integration, perfect market integration, and causality are conducted sequentially. The approach is illustrated using monthly prices from rice markets in Bangladesh since trade liberalisation in 1992. Results show that rice markets are perfectly integrated and that Dhaka dominates near markets but is dominated by more distant markets. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyzes the demand for flexible microfinance products in Bangladesh. Changes microfinance institutions (MFI) might implement to better serve clients; Summary of the experiences of a major MFI in Bangladesh that attempted to transform its savings products; Reasons for the slow pace of change in the country's microfinance industry.