Project profile — BRAC Strategic Partnership Arrangement - BRAC-SPA

• Bangladesh (100.00%)

• Education, Level Unspecified: Education facilities and training (11120) (4.00%)
• Primary education:
Primary education (11220) (2.00%)
Basic life skills for youth and adults (11230) (3.00%)
• Secondary Education: Vocational training (11330) (3.00%)
• Basic health care:
Basic health care (12220) (5.00%)
Basic nutrition (12240) (4.00%)
• Health: COVID-19 control (12264) (33.00%)
• Population policy and administrative management:
Population policy and administrative management (13010) (20.00%)
Reproductive health care (13020) (12.00%)
Family planning (13030) (5.00%)
• Government And Civil Society, General: Ending violence against women and girls (15180) (9.00%)

• Gender equality (significant objective)
• Environmental sustainability (cross-cutting) (significant objective)
• Participatory development and good governance (significant objective)
• Climate Change Adaptation (significant objective)
• Children's issues (significant objective)
• Youth Issues (significant objective)
• Indigenous Issues (significant objective)
• Disability (significant objective)

This project aims to empower the most underserved and disenfranchised women and girls in Bangladesh (including those with disabilities) to gain greater access to and control over resources, decisions and actions that affect their lives. The project components are designed to achieve the following goals: (1) lowering levels of extreme poverty; (2) increasing access to quality essential services for the poorest and most marginalized groups in Bangladesh; (3) creating employment opportunities for underprivileged youth, extremely poor disabled people and migrants; (4) increasing economic and social empowerment of women; (5) improving the status of women and girls and reduce violence against women girls; and (6) improving COVID-19 management by communities. Project activities include: (1) enabling 6,650 households to graduate from extreme poverty with better sustainable livelihoods and socioeconomic resilience; (2) strengthening the resilience of 17,500 climate vulnerable households; (3) providing comprehensive health and SRHR services to 100,000 people; (4) supporting 5,550 children (at least 50% girls and 2% with disabilities) to complete primary education with better learning competencies; (5) training 1,360 people with marketable skills linked to decent employment opportunities; (6) providing counseling and legal aid services to 20,750 women survivors of violence against women; (7) engaging with over 1 million people through awareness efforts on violence against women and children and prevention of child marriage; (8) producing and distributing reusable cloth masks among the low-income people to slow down community transmission of COVID-19; (9) improving protective health initiatives through community engagement and communication for better case management, infection prevention, risk reduction and awareness building; and (10) creating access to livelihood support mechanisms in post-pandemic recovery.

The expected outcomes for this project include: (1) increased use of critical services (livelihood, finance, assets, education, health, water and sanitation, and legal aid services), especially by marginalized women and girls in hard to reach areas; (2) improved services and mechanisms (e.g. legal, SRHR, sexual and gender-based violence, and child marriage) at the local level to respond to gender-specific constraints on rights; (3) improved capacity of national government to effectively implement gender-responsive policies; and (4) increased community adherence to COVID-19 preventive measures and decreased effects of COVID-19 at the community levels.

Results achieved as of March 2025 include: (1) provided financial and business development services to 6,965,276 people (6,248,431 women, 716,753 men and 92 transgender individuals, including 490 women and 24 men with disabilities), ultra-poor households and enterprises; (2) provided economic empowerment support to 5,210,244 women; (3) provided employability and entrepreneurship training to 57,409 youths (29,139 women, 28,258 men and 12 transgender individuals, including 2,130 people with disabilities); (4) enabled 352,085 students (186,605 girls and 165,480 boys, including 11,970 with disabilities and 13,379 from ethnic communities) in underserved regions to graduate from non-formal primary schools; (5) helped 83,000 out-of-school children aged 7 to 14 years, from grade 1 to 4, to transition back into appropriate grades in government primary schools; (6) increased awareness of child marriage risks among 81,000 parents, provided 1,432 girls cash incentives to stay in school and prevented 1,468 early marriages; (7) facilitated court support, police referrals, alternative dispute resolution, rehabilitation and medical support for 17,875 survivors of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) and resolved 14,645 cases; (8) sensitized 732,141 community people on recognizing, preventing and responding to SGBV, including in cases of child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation; (9) provided disaster risk reduction support to 142,829 climate-vulnerable households; (10) trained 16,989 health care service providers on sexual and reproductive health and rights; and (11) provided health services to 962,089 people.

• Proactive disclosure