United Nations Public Service Awards Case Studies

Lot of organizations was in the rural areas for serving the people. Multiplicity of organizations and duplication and overlapping of works in the field of rural development leads to misuse of scarce resources. On the other hand, due to lack of strong institution at the grassroots level it was very difficult for the nation-building departments to provide coordinated support services at the grassroots level. As a result, rural people were deprived from getting need based support services and could not continue sustainable development.

What is the initiative about? (the solution)
A strong institution at the grassroots level by ensuring participation of at least one member of each household was set up at the village level for taking all-out efforts for the development of respective areas. The village societies are able to take need based plan and channelise resources from different development partners for implementing the plan. The members of the society are habituated thrift saving and encouraged to form capital by purchasing share. In that way, formation of own capital for the institutions got popular. Bangladesh Academy for Rural Development (BARD) conducted a qualitative study for assessing the impact of this programme at the grassroots level. It was found that the programme was succeeded to the need based resources from the nation building department and various development partners. Eventually, it helped immensely to develop sustainable organizations at the grassroots level.

Who proposed the solution, who implemented it and who were the stakeholders?
BARD proposed the solution following findings of a research study and utilizing experience gained through in the field of rural development. BARD implemented it in its social laboratory area at the initial stage. The local government at the grassroots level, nation building departments and central cooperative associations and primary cooperatives are the stakeholders of the initiative.

Describe how and when the initiative was implemented by answering these questions
a. What were the strategies used to implement the initiative? In no more than 500 words, provide a summary of the main objectives and strategies of the initiative, how they were established and by whom.
BARD implemented the solution in a small scale as action research project during 1975-1985 under the banner of Total Village Development. Finally, this programme was included in the Fourth Five-Year Plan and experimented in 80 villages up to 2004. From 2005 this progrmame has been implemented as a national pilot programme and is being implemented in 1575 villages by four agencies of the government viz. Bangladesh Rural Development Board (BRDB), Cooperative Department, Rural Development Academy (RDA) and BARD.

b. What were the key development and implementation steps and the chronology? No more than 500 words
At the outset a strong village level institution was set up at the village level by merging different types of organizations at the grassroots. People of the respective villages were motivated to form this type of organization. The members of the society were encouraged for thrift savings and purchase share for accumulating own capital. Some members were trained in various development activities for delivering need based support services to the people. The trained members were also encouraged to keep good relation with the respective officers of nation building departments to be abreast with various development in the respective field of operation. The leaders of the society along with the trained members prepare annual plan and chennelise resources from various relevant nation-building departments.

c. What were the main obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? No more than 500 words
The main obstacle was to encourage people to form one society in one village and bring different classes of people under one umbrella organisation. Motivating different classes of people the problem was overcome. Another thing is that the nature of the programme is hard as it is driven by rules and regulation. On the otherhand, there are lot of soft programmes in the rural areas initiated by various NGOs. Sometimes people prefer to join soft prgramme rather than hard programme. For overcoming the problem, the people were motivated in that way to maintaining the rules and regulations which will ultimately ensure the security of their assets.

d. What resources were used for the initiative and what were its key benefits? In no more than 500 words, specify what were the financial, technical and human resources’ costs associated with this initiative. Describe how resources were mobilized
More importance was given on utilization of existing resources. Need based support services were channelised from the nation building departments. Additional amount was needed for capacity building of the villagers in the form of training and awareness development.

Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
CVDP has created sustainable impact on the livelihoods of the villagers. Depending on its success it has been initiated as National Programme. BARD as an originator of the programme has transferred the model to other sister organizations for greater implementation throughout the country. Therefore, the programme has proven to be sustainable and transferable as well

What are the impact of your initiative and the lessons learned?
Rural development efforts have been viewed as one of the means of poverty alleviation. As most of the people of our country suffer from poverty many organizations came forward with number of efforts for changing the scenario. CVDP aimed to bring the common people in the main stream of development by enhancing their managerial capability, self-reliance and income generating activities. In the process it has attempted to create balance and comprehensive development of all aspects of rural life of all classes of rural people. It aims at preserving the social values, norms, and customs of parental authority and tradition of rural Bangladesh and at the same time to bring about positive changes in social, economic and political life of rural dwellers. It, in the long run, looked for total rural consolidation and transformation. It desires to bring all the rural destitutes under one umbrella. Now the programme needs greater implementation for bringing about positive changes in the rural livelihoods.


Institution Name:		Bangladesh Academy for Rural Development
Institution Type:		Government Agency
Contact Person:		Khairul Kabir
Title:		Director General
Telephone/ Fax:		+88-081-63600
Institution's / Project's Website:		+88-081-68406
E-mail:		bardbd@hotmail.com
Address:		Bangladesh, Kotbari, Comilla
Postal Code:		3503
City:		Comilla
State/Province:		Not Applicable
Country:		Bangladesh

The Problem

Solution and Key Benefits

Actors and Stakeholders

(a) Strategies

(b) Implementation

(c) Overcoming Obstacles

(d) Use of Resources

Sustainability and Transferability

Lessons Learned

Contact Information