Poverty and Development

The rate of child marriage and early childbirth is significantly high in Bangladesh due to the traditional gender norms of society and the socio-economic condition of the families. Adolescent girls from comparatively poor families often fall victims to early marriage. In addition, the status of physical and mental growth of adolescent girls is poor in the country. The adolescent clubs were formed to address the underlying social constraints which affect the adolescent girls’ lives and restrict them from becoming active economic agents under an EU-funded project titled ‘Food Security 2012 Bangladesh-Ujjibito’ , implemented by PKSF <www.pksf-bd.org>. These clubs have been established to empower girls by giving them access to information about their rights, educating them of their responsibilities towards the society, providing them life skills for improving their self-confidence and negotiating skills to establish their rights. It reveals from the independent evaluation that those ...

Today’s adolescent girls are tomorrow’s mothers, citizens and leaders of the country. Taking care of them can have greater impact on the society. Securing their health and nutrition requirement can prevent malnutrition among the new born, pregnant and lactating mothers, and produce reciprocal impact over child and maternal mortality. A total of 897 clubs were formed , which enrolled around 14,836 girls throughout the project titled “Food Security 2012 Bangladesh-Ujjibito, which was funded by EU. The objective of th is club is t o aware the adolescent girls regarding their nutrition, health, reproductive health and other social issues. A representative from PKSF’s POs conducts a 60 minutes session at least once in a month in each club. The members and anyone else voluntarily contribute to the management of this club. These clubs find some spaces for them to engage themselves in health camps and organises education related activity like sports, cultural and social events. Ad...

A ‘Fund’ is generally termed as an institutional mechanism of using financial resources for achieving a well specified set of social development objectives. There are various types of ‘Fund’ with different kinds of institutional arrangements seeking varied kinds of socio-economic development objectives. Fund may have different tenures, i.e., perpetual fund and non-perpetual fund. It could also be used to achieve, short-term, medium-term and long-term goals. However, it works well if it fits with attaining sustainable development goals. There are some examples of poverty reduction funds that have significant contributions in achieving social development objectives. For example, very recently, in July 2015, an agreement was signed to set up the World Bank Group (WBG) and China Trust Fund to help developing countries in achieving inclusive and sustainable development. The fund worth $50 million is expected. Another important fund titled Japan Poverty Reduction Fund (JPRF). It was establ...

I am really happy to see this Annual Report 2011of PKSF. I was involved with this task in preparing this Annual Report as a Team Leader of the PKSF Publication Unit. I also remember two of my other colleagues in the PKSF publication section: Ms. Jisan Afrin and Ms. Sharmine Mridha. PKSF Newsletter No.8, 2012

I am really happy to see this Annual Report 2011of PKSF. I was involved with this task in preparing this Annual Report as a Team Leader of the PKSF Publication Unit. I also remember two of my other colleagues of the PKSF publication section: Ms. Jisan Afrin and Ms. Sharmine Mridha. PKSF Annual Report 2011    

This research article was submitted as a partial requirement for the degree of Master of International and Community Development (MICD). I did a supervised research on The Contribution of ‘Palli Karma Sahayak Foundation’ (‘Rural Employment Assistance Foundation’), PKSF, to Microfinance Development in Bangladesh” . It was 2 credit points course. That course was assessed by an assignment of equivalent totaling 15,000 words. The main objective of that study was to find PKSF’s potential expanding microfinance in Bangladesh under the active supervision of Government of Bangladesh, but not as a formal Government agency. That was an empirical study based on secondary sources of data. But the practical working experience with PKSF for the last 6 years has given extra benefits to the researcher to analyze the issue from a practical perspective. The researcher was very much familiar with the issues have discussed in this study. For updates, telephonic and e-mail conversations have also done duri...