Leadership Development Program in Bangladesh

Challenge

Bangladesh is the world’s most densely populated country and 40 percent of its population lives in poverty. Many lack basic services such as access to clean water, electricity and sewage systems. At the community level, local governments lack the capacity, transparency and resources to adequately respond to the needs of their people. Compounding the problem, many citizens are uninformed about their civic rights and how they can make their voices heard. Civil society organizations have helped improve citizen engagement at the national level, but local communities remain disenfranchised.

Promise

Counterpart’s Leadership Development Program equipped emerging leaders to become agents of change in their communities at the grassroots level. The program provided training to local leaders and youth to help them identify and resolve the greatest challenges facing their communities. Leaders were supported in developing action plans for their community development projects, with competitive funding to support project implementation.

Impact

• Trained community and youth leaders; 6,574 out of 13,681 leaders were women
• Leaders have since started or joined 75 community development projects
• Leaders have since conducted more than 100 advocacy meetings with government officials
• Awarded $46,833 in small grants to support the development projects of trained leaders
• Trained 1,000 government officials to drive social partnerships

Sustainable Development Goals Addressed

Partners

Funder: United States Agency for International Development (USAID)

Collaborators: Ministry of Youth and Sports