Project profile — Food Security and Empowerment of Women in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh

• Bangladesh (100.00%)

• Basic Education: Basic life skills for youth and adults (11230) (20.00%)
• Basic nutrition:
Basic nutrition (12240) (15.00%)
Health education (12261) (10.00%)
• Government And Civil Society, General: Ending violence against women and girls (15180) (5.00%)
• Business And Other Services: Business support services and institutions (25010) (50.00%)

• Gender equality (principal objective)
• Environmental sustainability (cross-cutting) (not targeted)
• Participatory development and good governance (significant objective)
• Trade development (not targeted)
• Biodiversity (not targeted)
• Climate change mitigation (not targeted)
• Climate Change Adaptation (not targeted)
• Urban issues (not targeted)
• Desertification (not targeted)
• Children's issues (not targeted)
• Youth Issues (not targeted)
• Indigenous Issues (not targeted)
• Disability (not targeted)
• ICT as a tool for development (not targeted)
• Nutrition (significant objective)
• Disaster Risk Reduction(DRR) (not targeted)

This project focuses on increasing the financial security and resilience of the host communities affected by the Rohingya refugee influx in Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh with a particular focus on ultra-poor women and children. This project has two components designed to address the immediate and underlying causes of the prevailing food insecurity and malnutrition in this region. Component one focuses on improving food security, women’s empowerment and livelihoods, benefiting 12,500ultra-poor host community women and their families. Project activities include: (1) training in technical skills for income generation; (2) a small cash subsistence allowance to improve food consumption and dietary diversity and to cover essential household consumption needs; (3) a business start-up fund; life skills training; and (4) social and behaviour change communication on topics such as child marriage, gender discrimination, gender-based violence, disaster risk reduction, nutrition, child and maternal care, and personal hygiene. Component two focuses on improving nutrition, benefiting 7,500 children under the age of five and 2,500 pregnant and lactating women. Project activities include the provision of: supplementary food assistance; and social and behaviour change communication on topics such as feeding practices, child and maternal health and hygiene.

The expected results of this project include: (1) ultra-poor women are empowered economically through income-generation activities; (2) ultra-poor women are empowered socially through enhanced life-skills and knowledge; and (3) improved nutrition of pregnant and lactating women and children under the age of five, and improved hygiene behaviours and practices of women and care-givers in ultra-poor households.

Results achieved as of the end of the project (March 2021) include: (1) provided entrepreneurial and life skills training to 45,000 host community women (areas of focus: climate adaptive agricultural practices, organic farming, saline water tolerant summer and winter crops, post-harvest management, advanced technical tailoring and value chain development); (2) 20,000 women graduated from a two-year program about building and improving household incomes and later took part in income-generating activities in the local market (such as running their businesses); (3) women participants and graduates of the Enhanced Food Security and Nutrition program earned almost US $ seven million from business activities (such as vegetable, fruit, mushroom and fish production, livestock and poultry farming, handicrafts, garments and pottery); (4) established 1,734 self-help groups (SHG) by participating women to improve collective well-being via monthly savings. Also formed four SHGs specifically for women with disabilities; (5) more than US$726,000 was raised and saved in SHG bank accounts; (6) under the maternal and child nutrition component, 132,000 malnourished women and children under five got supplementary nutrition support at 129 clinics in the host communities; (7) nutrition messaging at the community level reached 63,419 women and caregivers; and (8) 33,919 women and caregivers got nutrition counselling at the household level.

• Proactive disclosure