Events Archive - BRAC Institute of Governance and Development

Bridging the Gap: Empowering Women Through Digital Financial Services and Connectivity

WEE-Connect is delighted to announce the official launch of its second Request for Proposals (RFP) through this engaging webinar. This session will explore the transformative potential of digital connectivity, with an emphasis on health use cases, in advancing women’s empowerment across South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia.

The webinar will feature:

Keynote Address by Rachel M. Heath, who will discuss the potential of the Initiative from her perspective as both a WEE-Connect board member and a WEE-Connect grantee.
Presentation on RFP Guidelines by Kym Cole, Initiative Director of WEE-DiFine and WEE-Connect, who will provide an overview of the RFP, including submission requirements, priority focus areas, and tips for a successful proposal.

Participants will have the opportunity to engage through interactive Q&A sessions, live polling, and access to follow-up resources such as office hours and coaching calls to support proposal development.

This event underscores WEE-Connect’s commitment to fostering rigorous research, building inclusive knowledge hubs, and promoting equitable research partnerships.

Reserve your spot today: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0qd-Crqz4oGtwBCUxg9qvpMrocSVKfYpKa
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Learning Event: Fundamentals of Survey Design

The BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD) hosted an intensive three-day training workshop on survey design fundamentals, bringing together young researchers to enhance their capabilities in developing robust research tools. The workshop took place from November 17 to 19, 2024, at BRAC Tower – 65 Bir Uttam AK Khandakar Rd, Dhaka.

Our expert facilitators included:

Md. Abdul Awal, Coordinator, Data and Field Management, BIGD
Md. Shakil Ahmed, Research Coordinator, BIGD
Semab Rahman, Senior Research Associate, BIGD

This hands-on training covered the fundamentals of survey design, focusing on both Survey Instruments and SurveyCTO. Participants first mastered Survey Instruments, including theory of change, log frame development, SMART tools, data collection concepts, bias identification, and sensitive data handling. They then advanced to hands-on SurveyCTO implementation, learning xlsx form design, expression writing, skip patterns, response validation, and survey randomization techniques.

The workshop provided young researchers with an opportunity to strengthen their foundational knowledge in survey design while gaining practical experience with industry-standard tools.

Catalyzing Women’s Financial Inclusion in Bangladesh: A Multi-Stakeholder Approach to Digital Innovation

As part of Financial Inclusion Week 2024, we hosted a compelling panel discussion on advancing women’s financial inclusion in Bangladesh through digital innovation. This session, organized by the Alliance for Financial Inclusion, brought together experts from various sectors to explore collaborative strategies for expanding digital financial services to women consumers in one of the world’s fastest-growing mobile money markets.

Our distinguished speakers included:

Dr. Leora Klapper, Lead Economist, World Bank – Expert on women’s empowerment through DFS.
Dr. Zaki Wahhaj, Professor, University of Kent – Expert on women’s empowerment through DFS in Bangladesh, currently working on a WEE-DiFine funded study titled ‘Empowering Poor Urban Women in Bangladesh through Digital Financial Services: Does Wage Payment via Mobile Money translate into Economic Empowerment?’
Shahana Ferdousi, Additional Director, NFIS Administrative Unit, Bangladesh Bank – Expert on Women’s Financial Inclusion Data (WFID) Dashboard.
Moinuddin Mohammed Rahgir, Chief Financial Officer, bKash – Offers an industry perspective on innovative strategies for expanding digital financial services to women.
Dr. Imran Matin, Executive Director, BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD), BRAC University – Moderator of the panel discussion.

This panel was part of BIGD’s ongoing WEE-DiFine and WEE-Connect Initiatives, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. These initiatives aimed to generate rigorous evidence on the impact of digital financial services and digital connectivity on women’s economic empowerment across South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia.

The discussion offered practical, scalable solutions for enhancing financial inclusion for women in Bangladesh, with lessons applicable to similar contexts worldwide.

Forty Days of Uprising: What are People Thinking?

On the occasion of International Democracy Day on 15 September, an open discussion titled Forty Days of Uprising: What Were People Thinking was held at the University of Dhaka. Emphasizing this year’s theme of “empowering the next generation,” the event focused on the critical role of young people in promoting democracy and ensuring that their voices are included in public policy formulation and decision-making. To prevent democracy from relying on one-sided information distribution, as seen in past governments, speakers also highlighted the expectations of the general public from the interim government to generate dialogue and action on how the state can best serve its people.

The discussion featured distinguished speakers, including Imran Matin, PhD, Executive Director of BIGD, BRAC University; Dr. Badiul Alam Majumdar, Secretary of Citizens for Good Governance (SHUJAN); Dr. Samina Lutfa, Associate Professor at the Department of Sociology, University of Dhaka; Mirza M. Hasan, PhD, Senior Research Fellow at BIGD, BRAC University; and Dr. Asif Mohammad Shahan, Associate Professor at the Department of Development Studies, University of Dhaka. Representatives from the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement and National Citizens Committee (NCC), including Samantha Sharmin, Mamun Abdullahi, Md. Asaduzzaman, and Rownak Jahan, also attended the event.

We cordially invited attendees to join the open discussion on Forty Days of Uprising: What Were People Thinking on Sunday, September 15, 2024, in commemoration of International Democracy Day. This year’s theme was “Empowering the Next Generation.” During the event, the results of the “Pulse Survey” conducted by BIGD, aimed at understanding public sentiment following the events of August 5, 2024, were also presented.

Pulse Survey August 2024

Workshop | SuPWR Validation

When, how, and why do women’s power struggles succeed in retaining power and sustaining their gains against backlash? In answering this question, BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD) has conducted research under the Sustaining Power: Women’s Struggles against Contemporary Backlash in South Asia (SuPWR) from 2019 to date. This five-year multi-country research project, spanning Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Pakistan, was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and led by the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex.

In Bangladesh, the research focused on coalition building within women’s movements to counter backlash from state and non-state actors. The four contemporary women’s struggles studied included the anti-child marriage efforts with the Girls Not Brides alliance, comprehensive sexuality education initiatives with the Right Here Right Now coalition, rape law reform (RLR) advocacy, and the trade union movement for decent wages led by the Bangladesh Garments Workers Solidarity (BGWS). After four intensive years of data collection from 2020 to 2024, BIGD arranged a residential validation workshop on 5 and 6 October 2024 at the Bangladesh Academy for Rural Development (BARD) to share preliminary research findings with participants. The workshop also provided an opportunity for the movements to reflect, learn, and strategize to further strengthen their efforts.

Learning and Reflection Workshop: Catalyzing Whole Child Development in Bangladesh

BIGD in collaboration with IPA has organized a two-day workshop from 10th December to 11th December 2023 to learn the policy landscape and implementation dynamics to embed Whole child development (WCD) for children in adversity into key government systems. The workshop brought together key government stakeholders and implementing partners working on ECD.

This reflection workshop aims to understand the WCD system change dynamics in Bangladesh experienced by some implementing partners: BRAC ied, icddr, b, Synergos, Bangladesh ECD Network (BEN) and Frameworks Institute. The partners shared their learning on embedding their initiatives into the ECD system and understand the priorities, feasibilities, and capacity of Government stakeholders in embedding WCD into the system.

This workshop is part of the learning and reflection exercise under the ‘catalyzing WCD in Bangladesh’ initiatives supported by Porticus.

Planning and Reflection Workshop: Catalyzing Whole Child Development in Bangladesh

BIGD in collaboration with IPA has organized a two-day workshop from 6th June to 7th June 2023 to co-design the learning framework with all the implementing partners (: BRAC ied, icddr, b, Synergos, Bangladesh ECD Network (BEN) and Frameworks Institute) under the ‘Catalyzing WCD in Bangladesh’ Programme. In addition, they got a good insight into each other’s work and how it aligns with the overall programme and explore the scope for course correction and collaboration to influence the system.

This workshop is part of the learning and reflection exercise under the ‘catalyzing WCD in Bangladesh’ initiatives supported by Porticus.

Can New Technology in Financial Transfers Empower Women? Evidence from Pakistan and Bangladesh

Our recent virtual event in partnership with #WEESA explored the transformative impact of new financial technologies on women’s economic empowerment in South Asia. The event spotlighted evidence from two studies: (1) a pilot randomized controlled trial in collaboration with a gig economy platform in Dhaka that examined the impact of digital financial services training and digital wage payment on women’s control over their finances; and (2) an impact evaluation of a biometric verification system used to issue unconditional cash transfers to women in Pakistan.

The event, held on May 22 from 9-10 am (EDT), was organized in partnership with the World Bank’s South Asia Gender Innovation Lab.

The World Bank #womenempowerment #southasia

Watch the Full Event Recording

Run up to the Summit for the Future: Learning from Research on Adolescent Wellbeing in Bangladesh, Challenges and Priorities

The Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence (GAGE) program organized a dissemination workshop in Dhaka, where the latest midline findings around adolescents’ wellbeing were shared. The workshop brought together the international GAGE Team, GAGE local researchers and advisors, and representatives from different ministries, UN agencies, NGOs, and research institutions, who shared their views and experiences related to the lives of young people in Bangladesh.

This stakeholder workshop aimed to strengthen relationships and partnerships amongst actors working on adolescent wellbeing in Bangladesh and to align with national efforts to harmonise support and data with development partners. Another workshop goal was to share challenges and good practices with relevant government ministries. In addition, the event aimed to contribute to country preparations for the United Nations Summit of the Future in September 2024, which focused on how to ‘better meet the needs of the present while also preparing for the challenges of the future’.

The GAGE program was a decade-long (2016-2026) mixed-methods longitudinal research initiative exploring the gendered experiences of young people during adolescence and as they transitioned into early adulthood.

In Bangladesh, GAGE’s work was carried out in partnership with the BRAC Institute of Governance and Development, BRAC James P. Grant School of Public Health, and researchers from the University of Chittagong.

BIGD Spring 2024 Proposal Development Workshop

For the first time, BIGD is pleased to have organized a live proposal development workshop in Dhaka, Bangladesh! The workshop helped teams craft competitive proposals in advance of the spring 2024 RFP deadlines for both the WEE-Connect and WEE-DiFine initiatives.