Asian Development Bank

JFPR-9080: Social Development for Erosion-Affected Poor in the Jamuna-Meghna Floodplains

Bangladesh (BAN)

Grant Summary

Name of Counterpart (loan) Project(s)

Grant Type

Task Officer / Department

Budget

Executing Agency

Implementing Agency(ies)

• Eligible NGOs with excellent track records and experienced in the relevant components and sub-components, having a partnership with the Palli Karma-Sahayak Foundation (PKSF), to be selected by the executing agency.
• Independent research institution or organization for the poverty impact assessment, to be selected by the executing agency.

Scope

• Providing regular employment opportunities and other income-generating activities
• Establishing community organization for the poor for effective networking and information sharing
• Project Management

Objectives

Grant Development Objective (GDO)

The long-term goal of the JFPR Project is to help reduce poverty (in terms of incomes and other social indicators) of the most vulnerable poor who were displaced by river erosion, became landless, and settled in riverine fringe areas. Its specific objective is to pilot and establish a community-based, self-help mechanism of social development for informal settlers living on and around the flood embankments and other landless people within the areas covered by the Meghna-Dhonagoda Irrigation Project (MDIP) and the Pabna Irrigation and Rural Development Project (PIRDP) supported under loan number 1941-BAN: Jamuna-Meghna River Erosion Mitigation Project (JMREMP).

Project Purpose

Aimed at core poverty reduction with a primary focus on areas along the riverbank, the Project will

1. create permanent employment opportunities, such as nursery development and social forestry, fish culture, and livestock development, along with the effective use of existing water management facilities (including the facilities’ lands and water bodies)
2. develop the organizational, institutional, and leadership capacities of the poor through community mobilization and organization, through networking, and by establishing self-managed information and resource centers (IRCs) in the subproject areas

In return for these benefits, the beneficiaries will be engaged in the operation and maintenance (O&M) of water management facilities, thereby contributing to their long-term sustainability.

Expected Outputs

• Long-term employment opportunities provided to approximately 4,000 poor households.
• IRCs established and operated in a sustainable manner as effective centers for networking, training, skill development, and monitoring and evaluation.
• Existing village disaster preparedness committees (VDPCs) actively participating in village-level planning, monitoring, and coordination of the JFPR Project’s activities.
• Effective participatory processes established to engage the landless poor in maintaining water infrastructure and undertaking livelihood activities using the infrastructure, replicated nationwide.
• Capacities established within BWDB, relevant local governments, and NGOs to support participatory poverty reduction processes.

Main Grant Components and Activities

Livelihood Enhancement through Regular Employment

• Community-based routine maintenance of embankments and other water management facilities.
• Social forestry, site plantation, and nursery development.
• Income generation using existing water resources facilities.
• Other income generation activities.

Community Organizing and Networking of the Poor

• Mobilization, awareness-creation, and organization.
• Information and resource centers.

Project Management and Institutionalization

• Project management activities.
• Poverty impact assessments.
• Dissemination of project experience and lessons.