Bangladesh produces less than 1% global carbon emission but victim of climate change that impact life and livelihoods of the people severely. People from rural areas migrate to urban slums due to river erosion, salinity of water, frequent flooding, cyclone and drought because of climate change impact. This situation disproportionately affect women and children. Women have less access to safe shelter, emergency health care, water, finances, goods and knowledge to protect themselves during the crisis. But they are responsible for collecting water, fire wood managing food and caregiving responsibilities during any crises.

BNPS gained comprehensive experiences to operate gender sensitive relief and rescue program in Dhaka in 1988 and Sandwip in 1991. Later it operated relief and rehabilitation program in Dhaka in 1998 and at Netrakona in 2001. During the time of relief operation at Sandwip, BNPS experienced how natural disaster affects women and man differently. That was the first time BNPS identified in details women’s strategic and pressing needs in disaster situation and started advocacy for gender sensitive humanitarian approach in disaster response. BNPS documented case studies of affected women of Sandwip, conducted in-depth interview and presented the findings at the World Disaster Management Forum in Japan in 1995.

BNPS has been implementing Resilience through Economic Empowerment and Community Adaptation, Leadership, Learning (REE-CALL) program since 2010 on climate change and DRR in Haor region with special emphasis to develop coping mechanism and to reduce vulnerability of women during disaster. BNPS’s works have contributed to community resilience building including women, girls, youth and men as well as other CSOs and the local government officials so as to take collective effort to address climate endemic crisis such as gender based violence, access to water, food and risks of sexual abuse of women and girls that generally exacerbate during any crisis. BNPS contributed to construct protection wall to save the villages from massive wave, supported people to raise height of the households, set up water sources to protect the people from arsenic contaminated diseases and bathing places for women and young girls for their safety and planted trees to mitigate climate change intensity.

The organization also implemented a project on Policy Review for Advocacy to Address Needs of Women in Climate Change Agenda in 2014. Under this project BNPS conducted a few studies and advocated with policy makers. In addition, BNPS provided training to the reporters of mass media, Members of Union Parisad Standing Committees and NGO workers for intensifying awareness on climate change impact.

BNPS is also active in Dhaka and Chittagong urban slums where climate impacted people migrated from rural areas. To ensure uninterrupted water supply, BNPS facilitated to claim slum dwellers rights by the women group leaders to the government Water And Sanitation Authority (WASA), lobby with the policy makers as the women are responsible to collect water for the families and ultimately the slum dwellers got access to pipe water supply. Later on, formed water management committee and link women group leaders with local government representatives for continuation of services and dialogue. BNPS facilitated the slum dwellers to set up separate toilet and bathing places for women and girls, advocated for access to cooking gas pipeline at the urban centers and supply of gas cylinder at affordable prices in the rural areas to reduce dependency on fire wood which is mainly coming from cutting the trees.

After 2000, the government planned to export gas to India. BNPS launched campaign against the decision involving intellectual and other CSOs, spotting that 50% population of the country is women and they have ownership of natural resources. The demand was, the government should provide gas to every households at first stage to remove the burden on women from collecting firewood and reduce cutting trees for environmental conservation. Ultimately the government refrained from exporting gas. Health hazard of climate change is visible in Bangladesh. Water salinity caused high blood pressure and pregnant women suffer a lot. Pressure on underground water and arsenic contamination has leaded to develop skin diseases. Practice of harvesting rain water has not become popular in the country but it is really necessary to reduce pressure on underground water by promoting use of over the ground water. Realizing this fact, BNPS has been mobilizing people in rural areas to protect pond water from contamination by selecting ponds for bathing of cattle and earmarked separate ponds to use its water for household use and facilitated establishing women’s leadership in this kind of arrangement.

Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) is home of 12 ethno-linguistic groups and total population is over 1 million; most of them depend on water from the streams for households and agricultural activities. Climate change has affected water flow as it has been reducing day by day, eviction of indigenous people and new settler having conflict related to land and water and even the sources of the water (stream) have become unsecured for women and girls of indigenous communities. BNPS has partnership with 10 indigenous NGOs, developed women activist forums to prevent and protect the people from conflict as well as formed committees to clear the blockades of the upstream to maintain regular flow of water and manage the streams from water contamination. In addition, cutting trees to use as fire wood is a major problem in the region. BNPS put effort to aware people on importance on planting and preserving trees to protect households from hill slides which caused massive destruction of households and lives.

BNPS has been implementing humanitarian programs following feminist approach in Rohingya refugee camps and host communities in Cox’s Bazar. The activities are directly addressing needs of vulnerable women and adolescent girls; engaging men, youth, community leaders, camp leaders, other non-government agencies and following the government protocol and humanitarian principles.

During COVID, with its limited resources, BNPS quickly responded to the crisis with innovative ideas. BNPS advised its staff to contact women and youth group leaders over phone to share preventive messages about COVID with them to disseminate the message among the women group members, their families and neighbors.

BNPS staff shared COVID prevention protocols with garment workers where majority of them are women and they are more vulnerable due to lack of awareness about COVID prevention measures, absence of adequate wash facilities and congested work place. BNPS staffs oriented trade union leaders to encourage them to share preventive messages among the garment workers.

BNPS distributed government leaflet and used loudspeaker to disseminate information about prevention of COVID pandemic because in many cases people cannot read the leaflets. Moreover, people at the villages and urban slums did not understand what is “isolation, quarantine, lockdown, physical distancing”, therefore, BNPS translated those words into local language/dialect to simplify for easy to understand by the mass people. The unique steps BNPS had taken to engage local people to disseminate preventive information in local languages in CHT.

BNPS distributed food and hygiene kits among 50,891 vulnerable people of 12,000 households, shared COVID preventive awareness raising messages among one million people of 189,550 households at different districts. BNPS organized group members mobilized fund from the community and public sources and provided support to 37,104 people of 8,817 extreme poor households.

BNPS staff have supported government activities engaging with local administration on food distribution and worked together with other NGOs in the field. The government initiatives through BNPS benefitted 143,200 people those were previously left out from the relief support by any agencies. Moreover, BNPS cooperated `Market for one-minute activity’ of Bangladesh Army, Region 2, in Chittagong for selecting women headed households, preparing distribution plan and providing volunteer support to distribute relief items among the vulnerable people.

To help the girls to maintain hygiene during pandemic, BNPS provided dignity kits among them where the packages include sanitary napkin, bathing soap, hand sanitizer, under garments (panty) and detergent. To prevent and protest increased level of GBV, oriented staff, youth volunteers, CBO leaders, women and girls, shared the government hotline numbers to complain and linked the victims with experts for psycho-social support and treatment. The organization is actively involved with Bangladesh Women’s Humanitarian Platform (BWHP), Start Fund Bangladesh and Gender in Humanitarian Action Working Group (GiHA WG).

 

Since inception, BNPS has prioratarized Policy Reform Interventions along with her intervention at grassroots level as her core program and thus become one of the major civil society actors in following areas:

• Initiative on CEDAW: BNPS has been playing a proactive role in influence the government in adopting and implementing CEDAW and mobilize people’s awareness on this convention through following activities and capacities:

• Founder member of Citizens' Initiative on CEDAW, Bangladesh
• Took leading role in preparing sixth and seventh alternative report to the UN CEDAW Committee in areas of  Economic Policy, Local Government and  Political Empowerment
• Executive Director of BNPS is an Advisor to the Government committee on CEDAW reporting 
• Campaign for full ratification of CEDAW through  workshop, and seminar and disseminating IEC materials
• Awareness workshop with students, teachers, journalists and lawyers and other actors of NGO sector. 

 

• Mapping the implementation of policies and commitments made by state regarding women’s empowerment: It is a continuous activity of BNPS for identifying the gaps through knowledge and information generation and dissemination and sensitizing various actors like policy makers, government duty bearers, civil society as well as the international community to take up targeted interventions for increased status of women in Bangladesh. CEDAW is the benchmark in this analysis and advocacy.

 

In 2008-2010, BNPS developed a ‘Mapping on implementation of policies and commitments made by state regarding women empowerment’, first of this kind in Bangladesh with support of UN Democracy Fund (UNDEF) under a project titled ‘Promoting Rights of Women through Changing Mindset’. 

• Analysis of National Budget and Policies from gender perspective: BNPS is the pioneer organisation in Bangladesh to start analysis of national budget and Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) from gender perspective since 2001. BNPS has been trying to articulate the demand and necessity of gender budgeting in the country both among the proponents of women’s empowerment and the policy-makers. The discourse of gender budgeting and allocating resource from gender perspective is getting impetus and is being reflected in the national budget. In this respect BNPS has been conducting national budget analysis from gender perspective for the last eleven years. In addition BNPS also has following specialized study related to gender budgeting in her credit:

 

• Performance of the Annual Budget of the Ministry of Science, Information and Communication Technology and the Ministry of Information in attaining Government’s Mandate of Empowerment of Women, 2012
• Analysis of Gender responsiveness of the National Budget for Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Ministry of Labor and Employment, Ministry of Women and Children Affairs, 2011
• National Budget and MDG for Women: Ensuring women’s fundamental rights and requirements is necessary instead of neo-liberal measures, 2010
• Factors Affecting Utilization Efficiency of Allocation Earmarked for Women’s Development in the National Budget of Bangladesh, 2007
• Role of National Budget in Developing Entrepreneurs among Women in Bangladesh, 2006
• Role of National Education Budget of Bangladesh in Women Empowerment, 2005

 

• Reformation of Education System from Gender perspective: Addressing root causes of problems to facilitate a sustainable social transformation are the key strategy of BNPS to achieve her mission of creating an enable environment for women. In this context BNPS works on reforming of education system for changing traditional mind set and other values grounded in patriarchy. BNPS is pioneer in reviewing education system from gender lens by analysing gender discriminatory components in Madrasa education in 1993.  At present BNPS has a project on making Education Gender responsive and promotional for sexual and reproductive health rights’. Besides policy advocacy, 2000 students and teachers are direct beneficiaries of this pilot project on developing curriculum on gender sensitivity and sexual and reproductive health care and rights.

• Electoral reform and policy advocacy for women’s greater participation in political domain: BNPS believes that, elimination of discrimination against women and advancement of equality for them can never be achieved without creating proper space and access to political sphere both at national and grassroots levels. Since inception, BNPS has been the pioneer in taking up steps on demanding women representation in power structure i.e. parliament and local governments, reformation of acts and ordinance and electoral rules and procedures to ensure women’s greater access to  political arena. BNPS is experienced in undertaking following programs and study in this arena:
• Women status in Electoral process, 2010
• Analysing the election manifesto of major political parties from gender perspective, 2008 and 2001
• Election Observation from Gender and Minority Perspective, 2001
• Democracy Education for effective Local Elected Bodies, 1997-1999
• Voter education on women issues, 1996
• Discussion with political parties on increasing of women’s participation in party’s decision making bodies and sensitizing women member of different political parties on this through workshop and seminar since 1993  

 

• Advocacy and campaign for improving maternal health and decreasing drop-out rate of girls students: In 2010, BNPS collaborated with UN Millennium Campaign and undertook national policy advocacy and campaign for strengthening maternal health services, preventing drop-out rate of girls students and to increase women’s share in national parliament.

At present BNPS is implementing a program on Promoting Gender quality and Improving Women and Girls’ Access to Education and Health Services in four Parliamentary Constituencies in Chittagong and Sirajgonj.
 

• Advocacy for fair wages and decent working condition for women: BNPS advocates for rights of women worker by lobbying within different committees of government, particularly in ministry of women affairs, finance and labour. As a part of its advocacy and campaign for achieving MDG for women in Bangladesh, BNPS has brought issue of recognition and ensure rights of women labour force in agriculture and other informal sector to reach the goal of attaining gender equality.

In all above initiatives BNPS successfully involves the all relevant actors including relevant ministries and departments, parliamentary standing committees, political leaders, women rights activists, academicians,  journalists, trade union, cultural activists and other part of  civil societies.
BNPS is also a pioneer in:

• To bring gender, secularism and the concept of “poverty eradication and development is a political process” from periphery to the centre stage of NGO sector through vigorous efforts through the platform of ADAB and other forums.

 

• To build bridge between NGOs and other part of civil society, progressive forces including peoples movements.
• Initiated various forums and movements for creating space for the related issues and diversified younger leadership in different sectors during early `90s.

 

• Brought change in perception regarding women’s role from only victim to active fighter in liberation war and anti-British movement.