Sustainable Development, Human Dignity and Choice | Lessons from the ENRICH Programme, Bangladesh

The Enhancing Resources and Increasing Capacities of Poor Households Towards Elimination of their Poverty (the ENRICH) programme is being implemented by Palli Karma-Sahayak Foundation (PKSF), which is a government-established Foundation and implements its programmes through Partner NGOs. The efforts are concerned with the perspective of eradicating poverty, aiming at enabling individuals to live a life that is humanly dignified. In doing so, the ENRICH programme focuses on creating opportunities for them to exercise freedom in determining their choices. The approach based on this understanding, i.e. poverty reduction/elimination and economic improvement strategies, coupled with interventions that ensure access to universal human rights, should promote freedom of choice leading to a dignified life and has shaped the programme contents and implementation framework.

The ENRICH programme has been conceptualized and promoted by the current Chairman of PKSF, Dr. Qazi KholiquzzamanAhmad, who was appointed to the position in November 2009. In essence, the ENRICH programme is innovative, integrated, human-centred, taking into consideration the multidimensionality of human life and living, involving socio-economic and environmental dimensions. It focuses on human capability, both individual and collective and social capital formation to facilitate the way forward, the ultimate goal being humanly dignified living of all those who are deprived of this fundamental call of humanity.

Martin Greeley is a Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, Brighton, UK working on poverty and public policy. He is a Development Economist with nearly 40 years professional experience including ten years long-term overseas research in South Asia. In Bangladesh he has led two major DFID-funded research projects on poverty. He was centrally involved in the development of extreme poverty graduation programmes (TUP) with BRAC. He has also worked extensively since 2015 with Fonkoze (Haiti) and PKSF (Bangladesh) on their extreme poverty programmes and has consulted with the World Bank on graduation programme cost effectiveness.

Dr Greeley has researched and published extensively on poverty and public policy in Africa and Asia and has worked with the World Bank, European Investment Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, African Development Bank and Asian Development Bank as well as several UN agencies and many bilateral donors. He has recentlyled an ESRC research project on psychological wellbeing and extreme poverty. Previously, he worked for WFP and the EC-ECHO in Pakistan on the role of food assistance in transition settings and in sustainable livelihood development. He has also led a seven-country study for UNICEF on Real Time Monitoring of the Most Vulnerable. He has worked extensively in fragile states, with a focus on aid effectiveness for which he developed an analytic framework in joint IDS-World Bank research. He has published several papers on microfinance, leading a USD 2.5 million research programme funded by the Ford Foundation on social performance and also worked with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development on microfinance, identifying opportunities to incorporate social performance indicators that straddle transition and development objectives. In addition, he has worked on poverty and public policy in several other countries including Tanzania, Afghanistan, Uganda, Palestine, and Ethiopia.

At IDS, he has held several senior positions including head of graduate programmes, member of Governing Body and, for the University of Sussex, Chair of the Research Degrees Examination Board. He was previously on the Board of MISFA (Microfinance apex Afghanistan) advising on impact assessment and is currently on the Board of Afghanaid.

Dr. Asif M. Shahan is currently working as an Associate Professor at Department of Development Studies, University of Dhaka. He has worked on difference issues related with administrative system, government performance, accountability, social protection and governance of Bangladesh for more than 10 years. He has provided consultancy services to different agencies of the Government of Bangladesh (including the Prime Minister’s Officer, Cabinet Division, Ministry of Women and Children Affairs, PKSF) and international organizations including World Bank, UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF, WFP, IDS (University of Sussex), Agropolis France, Swiss contact Bangladesh, BRAC Institute of Governance and Development, The Asia Foundation, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Centers on the Public Service, George Mason University etc. As part of his assignment, he analyzed the institutional capacity of different institutions of accountability (e.g. Election Commission, Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General of Bangladesh, Judiciary, Public Service Commission), analyzed the overall governance scenario of Bangladesh, assisted in developing activity plans for different government ministries (e.g. activity plan for Ministry of Women and Children Affairs in implementing the National Social Security Strategy), designed policy advocacy plan (e.g. policy advocacy plan for UNFPA), evaluated the performance management system and National Integrity System of Bangladesh, conducted strategic review to understand the current status and future challenges of Bangladesh in the domain of food security and nutrition, evaluateddifferent programmes carried out by different organizations (e.g. ENRICH by PKSF) and explored the policy process in Bangladesh. He is a member of SDG advisory committee convened by the Prime Minister’s Office, Government of Bangladesh and is currently leading a technical team that is working for designing the National Adolescent Strategy in Bangladesh. He has authored a number of book chapters and several journal articles in different peer reviewed journals

Dr. Shubhasish Barua is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Development Studies, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. He also served as a Research Economist at the Bangladesh Bank and as a Senior Project Economist at the Institute of Microfinance (now known as Institute for Inclusive Finance and Development, InM). He obtained PhD in Economics degree from the University of Warwick, UK in 2016 and MSC in Economics and Econometrics degree (with Distinction) from the University of Essex,UK in 2008. Earlier he had obtained BSS and MSS degree in Economics from the University of Chittagong, Bangladesh.

His research interests centre on understanding the strategic responses of economic agents (e.g., firms, households or individuals) to changes in economic environments. His PhD thesis, “Essays on Trade, Multi-product Plants, Manufacturing Performance and Labor Market,” explores the impact of intensified import competition from China on the evolution of the manufacturing sector in India. His current research spans broadly in the areas of development economics and international trade from understanding how firms (or factories) in developing countries adjust to rising international competition to how households respond to natural disasters and health shocks in rural areas. He is particularly interested in impact evaluation of development interventions using micro level survey data and randomized experiments.

He was also involved in designing appropriate financial protection schemes, in particular microinsurance for low-income households and developing institutional mechanisms and regulatory framework for efficient distribution of financial services.