CARE Bangladesh

Strategic Impact Assessment

Research Proposal
Introduction
This proposal sets out a research program for the next two months (May through June)
that will inform the Strategic Impact Inquiry on Womens Empowerment for the next two
fiscal years. The broad question to be investigated over the next two years centers
around the concept of womens empowerment, and in particular how different projects
enable women to change their ideas about the causes of their powerlessness, recognize
the systematic forces that oppress them, and act to change the conditions of their lives.
The more immediate question to be addressed focuses on how programming
approaches intersect with and reflect rural womens own views of power and
powerlessness, equity, exclusion and notions of mobility and womens day-to-day
strategies to negotiate unequal power relations. The approach adopted has been
guided by CARE USAs research protocol1, whilst emphasizing the importance of the
dynamics and interrelatedness of project interventions, organizational culture and the
social context in which projects operates.

Towards Organizational Gender Equity in CARE Bangladesh

CARE Bangladesh began working with and for womens development as early as the
1980s, starting with the Womens Development Program (WDP). This program sought
to address womens basic health needs as well as income generation; whilst recruiting,
training and deploying women staff managers and field workers. When the program
ended in 1997, the organizational landscape had changed considerably with women
comprising nearly 65 percent of field workers and support staff (administrative assistants
and officer helpers).
The 1997 Long Range Strategic Plan (LRSP) institutionalized the emphasis on gender
programmatically and organizationally. Projects, regardless of their programmatic
emphasis, incorporated a Gender and Development approach, while progressive gender
policies to promote a more gender equitable and women-supportive work environment
were designed and implemented. A Gender Committee consisting of 13 members was
formed and Gender Focal Point (GFPs) persons were elected or selected and trained to
ensure implementation of the new policies. In 1998, the Gender Committee formulated
a Sexual Harassment Policy and circulated it throughout the organization.
By 2000, CARE had recruited two senior level staff (Gender Adviser Organization and
Gender Adviser Programming) to assist in the mainstreaming of gender equity in the
organization and promote gender sensitive approaches in its development initiatives. In
the same year, the organization developed a Project and Program Design Process
Guide that emphasized gender analysis and the integration of gender equity and
womens empowerment in all aspects of program / project development.
1

See Martinez, E. 2005. Proposed Global Research Protocol For CAREs Strategic Impact
Inquiry on Womens Empowerment. Atlanta: CARE USA.
2

This section heavily draws and liberally cites Moffat, L. 2002. Gender Assessment Report.
Dhaka: CARE Bangladesh.

Addressing the Underlying Causes of Poverty An Iterative Process

In 2001, CARE Bangladesh adopted a Rights Based Approach (RBA). The 2001 LRSP
adopted five strategic directions: rights and social justice, governance, gender,
organizational culture and organizational strengthening. The organizations commitment
to promote gender equity and assist women to extricate themselves from poverty,
discrimination and marginalization was reaffirmed and strengthened. A rights based
approach meant that the projects/ programs across CARE were to address some of the
more fundamental and underlying causes of poverty, including poor governance, lack of
education, gender and ethnic discrimination.
From 2001 onwards, various projects and programs commissioned studies to better
understand the context in which CAREs initiatives are operating (see Appendix I).
These included studies on the underlying causes of womens condition as well as the
institutional landscape at the national, regional and local level. The findings of these
analyses assisted projects to refine their approaches: improved participant and
community targeting, changes in facilitation methods, and more inclusive engagement
and alliance building with social actors that influence institutions which shape access
and control over resources and the ideological dimensions of womens subordination.
Gender Dynamics in Bangladesh
Gender ideology figures prominently in all spheres of Bangladeshi society. Womens
rightful place in the home and that men are responsible for womens emotional and
physical welfare are important components of this ideology. In day to day life, this
principle of male responsibility informs not only marital relations, but also the exercise of
power in multiple domains. In particular, the political sphere is regarded as a male
domain that excludes women, despite statutory provision for their inclusion. 3
The power of gender ideology stems from its reference to abstract qualities
strong/weak, rational/emotional defined as masculine and feminine. Through this
reference to biology and nature, gender representations are often used to naturalize
inequalities and to preclude dissent within as well as beyond the household. In other
words, contestable issues are often consigned to what Bourdieu 4 refers to as doxa -that which is taken for granted.
There is a growing body of literature that suggests that gendered norms and roles in
Bangladesh are changing. NGO participation, including micro-credit, and womens entry
into the labor market, including migration, have improved womens position as their
ability to contribute income undermines the (perceived legitimate) domination by men on
the basis of their providers privilege. At the same, time, studies suggest that access to
credit or womens migration may lead to a backlash when women resist male control
over how credit is used or refuse to resume traditional gender roles upon returning from
a migration episode. 5
3

In 1997, women were elected to Union Parishads for the first time. Yet, elected womens
discrimination, harassment and exclusion from important discussions and decisions persists
widely, restricting their ability to effectively represent womens interests. See Nazneen, S. 2004
for a more detailed discussion.
4

See Bourdieu, P. and L.J.D. Wacquant. 1992. An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press.
5

The gender discussion on Bangladesh draws on the literature review by Sohela Nazneen and

Scholarly work from different parts of the world over the past two decades has
emphasized the importance of how ideology and the material intersect and how class
and gender are interconnected.6 In Bangladesh, Chen (1983), Hartmann and Boyce
(1983), and White (1992) found that resource poor households are more likely to form
separate household units, providing women greater freedom from the control of mothersin-law, who tend to act as strict guardians of gender norms. Women from poorer
households tend to have greater decision-making power over resources, because of
their income contribution as well as greater mobility (Kabeer, 1998, White, 1992). At the
same time, the increased mobility reduces womens status in the larger society in light of
purdah norms, whilst the overall ideology of male control most crudely manifested in
violence against women tends to persist. (Kabeer, 1998, While 1992).
Some scholars have also commented on the contrasting nature of middle class and
resource poor womens adherence to gender norms. Ongs work in Malaysia (1990) and
Rozarios work in Bangladesh (2004) found that urban middle class women in both
societies have been far more directly caught up in the spirit of Islamic resurgence than
working class women. This resonates with gender patterns in the rural context of
Bangladesh, where middle and upper class women maintain stricter forms of purdah,
although it is not clear to which extent this is related to the status oriented nature of
Bangladeshi society and / or the increasing trend towards Islamism that spans nearly
three decades. 7 Rural women belonging to well-off (rich and middle income)
households tend to be subjected to greater control and have limited agency. This has
important implications in terms of building solidarity amongst women of different socioeconomic backgrounds. Chen (1983) found that poor women felt exploited by rich
women, and White (1992) argues that womens networks that include wealthier women
help to reinforce gender and class norms in the village, since those who participate in
these networks are careful to follow the rules. 8
This discussion highlights that womens powerlessness is mediated by their gender, as
well as their class, age, and religion. Power expressed in the social relationship
between groups that determine access to and control over the basic material and
ideological resources lies at the heart of transforming gender dynamics. Enabling
womens empowerment a process that changes the nature and distribution of power in
a particular cultural context must take these multiple dimensions into account.

liberally quotes her work. See Nazneen, S. 2004. Gender Relations in Bangladesh: The
Household and Beyond: Dowry, Womens Property Rights and Salish: A Literature Review.
Dhaka: CARE Bangladesh.
6

The literature is indeed vast; authors that have wedded the conceptual and empirical in a helpful
manner include Beneria, L. 1982. Class and Gender Inequalities and Womens Role in Economic
Development. Feminist Studies 8/1:156-176; Fraad, H. et.al. 1994. For Every Knight in Shining
Armor, There is a Castle Waiting to be Cleaned in Bringing it All Back Home: Class, Gender and
Power in the Modern Household. Boulder: Pluto Press, 1994). For South Asia see Agarwal, B.
1991. A Land of Ones Own. Cambridge: Univeristy Press.
7

For a brilliant discussion on the growing role of Islamicist parties since the early 1970s and their
influence on Bangladeshi national political culture see Riaz, A. 2004. God Willing: The Politics of
Islamism in Bangladesh. Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
8

See Nazneen, S. 2004, for more details on this discussion.

The Political Economy of Localities 9

CARE Bangladeshs work to improve the livelihood conditions of men and women from
different socio-economic backgrounds in the rural Northwest has yielded considerable
insights in terms of gender and class dynamics and how these enable / constrain forms
of empowerment. As staff began to engage in rights-based approaches, it became
apparent that the political and social dynamics of the localities play a significant role in
shaping the types of initiatives and their outcomes.
Para (hamlets), which most rural people in Bangladesh view as their community, vary
considerably in terms of the patterns of economic differentiation and spheres of influence
that powerful actors residing in them hold. 10 In communities in which land is highly
concentrated, powerful actors tend to exercise considerable influence over formal and
informal institutions.11 Here staff find it more difficult to raise awareness and mobilize
resource poor households around issues that concern the poor, particularly women.
Elites act as gatekeepers and carefully guard prevailing norms and values, including
gender ideologies.
In South Asia, amongst Hindus and Muslims, mens status and honor are linked to the
control over womens sexuality and rural elites tend to enforce adherence to purdah
norms within their communities. Limiting womens mobility removes from the public
gaze and thus their ability to interact with non-affinal men. This reduces the chances of
inappropriate conduct that could negatively impact the reputation of the kin group. In
para in which the number of kin groups are limited (1-3) and are tied to one another
through marriage, this elite control over gender ideologies is particularly strong. Here a
clan patriarch is able to exercise considerable influence over the entire community
through his unique position at the top of related kin clans.
Such control over norms is possible because patron client relations in such communities
are a common feature of life, where sharecropping, contract farming, and agricultural
labor are often tied to cash advances or in kind advances. These conditions lead to a
vicious cycle of dependency that few households are able to extricate themselves from.
This situation is exacerbated when resource poor households have not been able to
diversify their income earning opportunities sufficiently to enable greater bargaining
power vis--vis the rich.
In communities in which powerful elites are absent,

land is less concentrated and

This section is based on a number of writings: Bode, B. 2002. In Pursuit of Power. Dhaka: CARE
Bangladesh; Bode, B., A. Haq and B.C. Dev. 2002. Forms of Land Tenure in the Northwest of
Bangladesh in Field Review: The Newsletter of the Rural Livelihood Program. Dhaka: CARE
Bangladesh. Haq, A. and B. Dev. 2002. New Farmer Field School Cycle Selection Strategy.
Dinajpur: CARE Bangladesh.
10

CARE Bangladesh Social Development Unit has developed a typology of para and guidelines
to identify different types of para.
11

Institutions, here, are viewed in processual and dynamic terms. They are sites where
production, authority and obligations are contested and negotiated and form a part of the interplay
of knowledge and power. Berry, S. 1993. No Condition is Permanent: The Social Dynamics of
Agrarian Change in Sub-Saharan Agriculture. Wisconsin: University Press. Informal institutions in
Bangladesh include: the family, salish (local dispute arbitration), jamat (the Muslim
congregation), samaj (local brotherhoods), while formal institutions include: key committees that
channel resources (bazaar committee, local government committees, locally elected bodies).

economic differentiation is less pronounced, whilst there tends to be a lack of

infrastructural resources (schools, culverts, electricity) and support systems in time of
periodic crisis (lean periods) or disasters (floods). Yet, with a greater degree of economic
homogeneity, it becomes easier to create forums for collective learning and facilitate
overt discussions regarding key practices that maintain or reinforce poverty and engage
people in forms of collective action.12 Here, women enjoy greater freedom to associate
in groups. Field staff have also commented that there are less restrictions to address
issues beyond the material realm, making it easier to establish a dialogue around
exploitative practices such as dowry, early marriage, the division of labor, etc.. 13 This is
not to say that these communities are havens of equity, rather they continue to exhibit
gender inequities, violence against women, and limitations to womens mobility outside
their immediate locality.
The connection between political patronage or its absence -- and gender norms is an
important dimension to be considered in this work. It highlights that the degree of
womens subordination is not uniform and thus womens ability to question, challenge
and overt or covertly resist subordination is mediated by the local political economy
in which social relations are embedded.
Bringing Community Voices and Agency Back In
The earlier discussion on gender merely touches the surface of a rich literature that
looks at gender relations in Bangladesh. In many of the writings, however, scholars,
activists and practitioners speak for women and interpret their conditions. Very little
work has been done to understand how women themselves view power and
powerlessness, equity and equality, social inclusion and mobility. 14 There is even less
discussion about how women of different socio-economic backgrounds push the
boundaries of what is permitted and the forms of overt and covert resistance they
engage in. 15 This appears to ignore an important historical reality: where there is
12

Scholars of collective action have long argued that homogeneity of a group is an important
aspect to successful mobilization. See Olson, M. 1965. The Logic of Collective Action: Public
Goods and the Theory of Groups. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press; Ostrom,
E. 1990. Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press; McCay, B.K. and J.M. Acheson. (eds). 1990. The Questions of the
Commons: The Culture and Ecology of Communal Resources. Tuscon: University of Arizona
Press.
13

In elite dominated paras staff have to spend considerable time with elites to ensure their buyin to work on issues beyond income generating activities around the homestead. For more
discussion on staff tactics to negotiate elite support see: Howes, M. and B. Bode. 2004. Securing
Access to Water Bodies. Dhaka: CARE Bangladesh and CARE Bangladesh, Social Development
Unit with Kamal Kar. 2005. Building Solidarity Through Collective Action: A Process
Reconstruction. Rangpur: CARE Bangladesh.
14

See Nazneen, S. 2004. Gender Relations in Bangladesh: The Household and Beyond: Dowry,
Womens Property Rights and Salish. Dhaka: CARE Bangladesh. This literature review cites few
examples of work that touches upon womens strategies.
15

This is in striking contrast to work that has been done in other parts of South Asia (e.g. see
Agarwals work that draws on dozens of studies, some of which comment on the tactics that
women employ to resist male domination. Agarwal, B. 1991. A Land of Ones Own. Cambridge:
University Press) and around the world: Ong, A. 1987. Spirits of Resistance and Capitalist
Discipline: Factory Women in Malaysia. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Hart, G.
1990. Household Production Reconsidered: Gender, Labor Conflict and Technological Change in

domination, there is resistance to domination and alternate, albeit contested, views

about how to organize social life.
The missing dimension of womens agency has permeated the thinking of many
development organizations, including CARE, where women are frequently viewed as
powerless and in need of outside intervention to bring about their liberation from
oppressive structures. Such forms of paternalism on the part of development
practitioners can have significant implication in terms of how staff approach their work. A
recent review of one of CARE Bangladesh programs commented on how staff was in
the forefront of organizing women and actively leading the processes through which
women were addressing social issues (dowry, early marriage) and gaining access to
state-funded entitlement and services schemes, placing the sustainability of the
intervention into question.16 The same review commented on how a pilot project 17 that
seeks to build solidarity amongst men and women to collectively address poverty and
gender equity, has failed to place women in the forefront or at least side-by-side with
men of community-led activities. 18 Whilst Rozario (2004), who visited a folk drama
organized by one CAREs projects, wrote:
..rather than always portraying women in helpless situations, some positive role could be given
to women in the drama. Similarly, in the lectures that were interspersed with the drama, different
language needs to be used. Instead of showing momota (pity), women need to be given their
due respect. 19

These critiques raise the issue to which extent our work further legitimizes existing
identities that rationalize the sources of structural domination. 20 This points to the need to
consider our own understanding of womens power and powerlessness and how
processes of empowerment would look like if built on existing forms of survival that are
different from, or opposed to, those permeating the institutions of society. The notion of
agency in particular womens strategies to negotiate day to day forms of subordination
is an important element of this Strategic Impact Inquiry. Viewing women as strategic
actors also reflects CARE Internationals 1 st Programming Principle: promoting
empowerment. (We support the efforts of poor and marginalized people to take control of
their lives and fulfil their rights).
Bringing It All Together
This discussion has highlighted that we need to be more critical of how our world views
influence the ways in which we interface with rural communities and particularly how
Malaysias Muda Region. World Development. Carney, J. And M. Watts. 1990. Manufacturing
Dissent: Work, Gender and The Politics of Meaning in a Peasant Society. Africa 60 (2).
16

See Chipeta, S. et.al. 2005. Rural Livelihoods Programme: Capturing Lessons Learned. CARE
Bangladesh.
17

Nijeder Janya Nijera (We, For Ourselves)

18

Informal discussion with staff from other CARE projects who visited this pilot have also
confirmed this view, whilst recognizing that women had benefited from collective activities.
19
20

Rozario, S. 2004. Building Solidarity Against Patriarchy. Dhaka: CARE Bangladesh. P. 52.

This issue has been raised in a recent review of CARE Bangladesh Gender-Based Violence
Initiatives. See Robinson, V. 2004.

development practitioners allow their own perceptions of womens marginalization to

shape the interventions through which they wish to support women in their processes of
empowerment. It suggests that we revisit the studies that we commissioned and tease
out underlying assumptions, most importantly how women are represented in the body
of work that we have internalized and subsequently incorporated into our developmental
tool kits. It challenges us to examine the extent to which we have been able to
incorporate the knowledge filling our office shelves into our day-to-day interactions
with rural men and women and how this has shaped our engagement in developmental
and empowerment processes. If we have failed or partially failed to do so, this work
may provide us with an opportunity to guide us into new directions and at minimum
improve our approaches.
Continuing our reflections on organizational transformation of the past few years and
how the significant changes we made have trickled down and permeated project culture
and programming approaches will also be a challenge, albeit one we are familiar with.
Finally, refining our understanding of the intersection between socio-economic context
and womens condition and how women navigate the structural inequities, whilst
contributing to the multiple spheres of day to day life, will assist us to tune our work to
existing realities.
The task ahead has multiple dimensions:
1) the initial work will consist of a literature review (May) that summarizes CAREs
thematic studies on gender and power and relates these to the approaches that
the projects chosen for the SII have adopted.21 The literature review will
incorporate a discussion of CARE Bangladesh effort to transform itself into a
gender equitable and less hierarchical organization (consultant 1);
2) based on this review the same consultant will then reconstruct with staff the
projects intervention (consultant 1);
3) side by side, another consultant will engage staff to understand how they
conceive of gender relations (consultant 2); and
4) a case study approach in one community to a) ascertain how men and women
from the community view power and powerlessness, equity and equality, social
inclusion/ exclusion and mobility, b) work with women to understand how they
negotiate day-to-day life in relation to the structural inequities that they face; and
c) reveal how women understand structural inequalities and the construction of
(local) morality. This case study has the potential to give us an alternate view of
women. It will also provide us with a first draft methodology to assist us to better
understand women and their strategies in our future work. (consultant 2)
Key questions:
The key questions to be addressed in this first period of CARE Bangladesh Strategic
Impact Inquiry
1) What are the underlying assumptions about women in the literature that CARE
has commissioned?
21

The Bangladesh SII team has selected 1) Violence Against Women initiative of Partnership for
Healthy Life (PHL); 2) Nijeder Janyia Nijera (We, For Ourselves) pilot situated in RLP; and 3)
Womens Access to Markets and Labor Contracting - an initiative situated in ISFP.

2) How are CAREs programming approaches (three SII projects) and interventions
shaped by the bodies of thought and knowledge that we have commissioned and
our organizational culture?
3) How do our programming approaches and interventions intersect with and reflect
womens own view of power and powerlessness, equity and equality, social
inclusion and mobility and build upon existing strategies through which women
negotiate forms of subordination in their day-to-day lives?
This work will provide the basis for Impact Assessment in fiscal year 2006.
The Strategic Impact Projects
The CARE Bangladesh SII Team has selected three project initiatives to be researched
over the next two years. A brief summary of each intervention is provided below. (Initially,
the SII team was also considering to include the HIV project, but consensus now
appears to have been reached that research findings would not apply to other projects /
programs as the sex worker population is a subculture whose condition are not
comparable to mainstream society.)
Initiatives to Address Violence Against Women:
A. Violence Prevention and Rights Reinforcement Cell (VPRRC) June 2003 to June
2004 This initiative has been implemented in the northern part of Bangladesh for the
past two years. It is situated within the Rural Maintenance Program, which employs
destitute women to maintain earthen roads. RMP also works with these women to raise
awareness of human rights and health issues and provides basic literacy and small
business development training. This small pilot project was designed to address
violence against women.
The pilot works with 2 men and 3 women elected
representatives, who receive training on gender issues, in particular violence against
women. These individuals collectively form a cell, a body that responds to confidants,
trained by RMP, who operate on a village level and intervenes in salish (informal dispute
arbitration, usually dominated by village elites and elders) on behalf of women who raise
issue around violence.
B. Violence Against Women Initiative of Partnership for Healthy Life (PHL) 2002-2004
This project operates in the northwest of Bangladesh and evolved from pilot project
(Safe Mother Initiative) that addressed maternal mortality and morbidity. PHL was
designed to explore, test and demonstrate different community based approaches to
addressing priority health and social issues that affect poverty. A key dimension to the
project is its work that seeks to mitigate violence against women.

Nijeder Janya Nijera (We, For Ourselves) October 2004 to September 2005
This is a pilot that emerged from the Rural Livelihood Program. It attempts an approach
to rural development that a) works in politically and economically marginalized
communities, b) employs Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) as an entry point to
build solidarity, c) facilitates a process of self-realization through analysis and action to
enable various interest groups within communities to set their own developmental
agendas and pursue these, d) encourages community to community sharing and
community consultants (natural leaders) to inspire neighboring hamlets to take
responsibility for key aspects of development that do not require state subsidy or

support, and ultimately e) seeks to build a larger forum within unions through which
marginalized groups and communities can effect change in local governance.
Womens Access to Markets and Labor Contracting: 2003-2004
The initiatives falls under the BUILD Capacity Project situated in the former Integrated
Food Security Program that ended in the fall of 2004. BUILD had been working for
several years with elected local government on the supply and demand side of service
provisioning to the larger constituency. Womens Access to Markets is an initiative to
increase womens facilities to engage as vendors in market places. The project chose
selected sites, where local authorities and market committees endorsed this initiative,
and brokered between prospective women traders, local government officials and
market committee members to facilitate the provision of funds for building physical
market infrastructures (stall, toilets, etc). The construction contracts were issued
through transparent open bidding processes in which Local Contractors Groups (LCGs)
-- headed by women participated as bidders.
Practical Considerations
The core SII team: Anna Minj, Frank Noij, Shameem Siddiqi and Brigitta Bode (this is
largely by default as other members where not present) agreed that the first initiative to
be researched (approach and context) would be the PHL project, located in Dinajpur
district. This is largely because PHL has operated for longer than the other two
initiatives. It was also agreed that we would limit this investigation to the Northwest of
Bangladesh, where all three initiatives have field locations. The advantage to limiting
ourselves to the Northwest is that the majority of context analyses were undertaken in
this region. In addition, CARE Bangladesh Social Development Unit operates from
Rangpur and over the past three years its staff have acquired considerable research
skills, with the potential to be a helpful resource to future consultants.

The model constructed by members of the CARE B SII Team (Anna, Frank, Shameem and Brigitta)
External Influences
(Media, NGOs, etc)

Project Intervention
Choice of Location
Entry Point / Activities

Agency

Local Political Economy

Position in the wider power structure

Group Formation
Solidarity building (with whom)

Socio-economic differentiation
class, age, religion, ethnicity

Engagement with key actors

Social Position

and institutions

Social Inclusion/Exclusion

Engagement with Men

Social Capital -Networks/Association

Structure

Mobility
Identity
Forms of Consciousness

IMPACT

10

11

Questions to Understand Context:

Methods:

What is the communities location in the larger

society?
What is its relation to the larger power
structure

What types of social relations exist

between community elites and the larger
network of powerful actors ?

Resource and Elite (formal and informal leaders)

mapping of the larger community (union and village)
Interviews with elites and other residents to
understand resource flows (state funded entitlement
and services schemes) to selected community and
influence in Salish (local arbitration system)
Use of para typology developed by SDU (see
Appendix)

What is the communitys profile in terms of socioeconomic differentiation?

What is the religious make up of the

community?

What is the distribution of landholdings?

What types of professions are different

households engaged in?

How many men and women are selling

their labor power and in which areas of
work?

Which households are / were members of

other NGOs and local committees?

What types are the types of formal or informal

networks are women engaged in?

What kind of resources flow along these

networks?

What kind of support do these networks

provide in times of crisis

How do these networks / associations

intersect with class?

What kind of mobility do women have within and

beyond the para?

Card exercise which captures information on each

household in terms of religion, size of landholding,
profession, labor in and out, and NGO membership.
This information can be used to make simple tables,
charts that provide a profile of the community

Network Analysis (including geneaology)

Mobility Mapping

FGDs with men and women (separately) of different

socio-economic groupings (separately) to get at
meaning. Questions such as when did you feel
most powerful / most powerless? Which men or
woman from your socio-economic background or
other backgrounds do you consider empowered"?
Who is a role model to you and why? (Developing a
Methodology to get at these issues will be part of

By class / age/ religion

How do men and women of different socioeconomic backgrounds view power,

powerlessness, equity, exclusion, mobility?

12

the external consultants TOR)

According to women, who sets and enforces the
boundaries?

Is there variation by class, joint, nuclear or

female-headed households, religion?

When have boundaries changed? And

why?

What are womens overt and covert strategies to

cope with the structural inequalities (by class/
nuclear / joint / female headed households) they
face?

How do women address inequities in terms

of food distribution (if any) within the
household?

How do they negotiate for access to

resources? What kind of leverage (if any)
do they use?

How do women mitigate the girl /boy

biases that occur in households?

How do women cooperate (or fail to) to

reduce violence within the household / the
compound / the community?

FGD with women

Timeline of key practices (women selling labor,

working in agricultural activities on land away from
the home, involvement with NGO) and reasons for
change

FGD

Individual Interviews

(Much of this generally requires ethnographic engagement

with a community and individuals. At the same time raising
these issues with women that have worked with CARE and
have built relationships with our staff can be helpful.
Nazneen will certainly have her own methods of how to
approach such sensitive issues)

Questions to Understand Programming

Approaches

Methods

What is the programs entry point?

Process Reconstruction with staff about

How does it chose location?

How does it approach group formation and

targeting?

Criteria used to narrow down location, who in the

locality provided information in terms of the locality;

Criteria for selecting participants

How much time do staff spend to engage program

participants (and non-participants) in different
activities?

How do staff approach gender and group activities?

What are the methods through which staff

initiate discussions on gender?

How do they analyze the discussion and

how do they act on it?

How is group leadership determined and

13

Production Flow Chart constructed with staff to capture

Sequence of activities

Time spent

Actors involved

Literature Review on Program Documents

Process Reconstruction with staff about

Issues raised

Staff time spent on reflection of discussion

Staffs guidelines to forms groups

how does it work?

How do groups operate and make

decisions?

How do staff build solidarity between women (and

men)?

Does this involve women of similar or

different socio-economic backgrounds?

Does it involve women from the same kin

group

Does the approach build on existing

networks of women?

What is the engagement with existing institutions?

What kind of institutions do staff interact

with

What kind of institutions do the groups

interact with?

What is staffs understanding of gender, power, and

empowerment?

Groups guidelines in terms of decision-making

Use context analysis (see above) to determine group

membership by

Class, religion, etc

Kin group

Existing networks

Literature Review on Program Documents

Interviews with staff

FGDs with staff (by gender and position)

What are the different views among men

and women staff / junior and senior staff?

What does program culture look like?

Interviews with staff

What is the basis of staff performance

evaluation in relation to program activities

What is the staff composition?

What do internal gender dynamics look

like?

Consultants and CARE Bangladesh Input

The work to be accomplished would require two consultants and input from CARE
Bangladesh Social Development Unit, which has already developed and applied many
of the methodologies and tools that will be applied in the context analysis.
Consultant 1 will work on the literature review and do parts of the process reconstruction
of the first project to be studied. It is estimated that this would take around 21 days.
Consultant 2 will work on the more difficult question of how rural women and men
construct their identities and what empowerment means to them and their coping
strategies. An important output will be a methodology that assists CARE Bs projects
and programs to gain a better understanding of women and their condition. She will also
contribute to the understanding of PHLs programming approaches by working with PHL
staff to ascertain their views regarding gender as well as the projects internal gender

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dynamics. This work will take around 25 days (including report writing, attending and
presenting at the London Workshop in June).
Social Development Unit staff will not only assist the consultants, but will also provide
the ground work for Consultant 2, prior to her arrival.
Budget
Line item

Cost (in US$)

Initial Consultant (10 days @ US$ 350/- per day) (Linda Moffit)

3,500.00

Local accommodation, local travel and other expenses for the lead
consultant (Linda Egypt)

1,500.00

First Consultant (21 days @ US$ 575/- per day)

12,075.00

Second consultant (25 days @ US$ 919/- per day)

22,975.00

International travel for consultant(s) to / from Bangladesh (excluding the

Cairo workshop and global synthesis workshop)

4,000.00

Field visits including accommodation, travel, etc.

3,500.00

Mini workshop, meetings, CO synthesis workshop

3,000.00

Materials

500.00

Contingencies

1,500.00

Total:

52,550.00

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