Archives: Events

Events

International Convening | Women, Power, and Political Orders in Muslim Society Contexts

BIGD, Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML), and the Stanford Sohaib and Sara Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies brought together scholars, activists, lawmakers, and legal practitioners from Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan, Palestine, and Syria for an international convening, “Women, Power, and Political Orders in Muslim Society Contexts.”

Women are often at the forefront of pro-democracy movements and struggles for justice, yet their leadership during political upheaval rarely translates into lasting influence over the negotiations, constitutions, and institutions that follow. Across Muslim-majority contexts, debates over religion, law, and political legitimacy further shape whether women are included in, or excluded from, the political orders that emerge after a transition.

Across three sessions, the convening examined women’s political leadership during transitional moments, women’s roles in transitional justice and constitutional design, and the institutionalization of women’s rights through national women’s machineries and reform commissions. It aimed to identify practical lessons and strategies for turning women’s mobilizing power into sustained political influence, and to build solidarity and collaboration across contexts.

Welcome and Presentation of Objectives

Setting the Agenda

Session 1 | Women and Political Leadership during Transitional Moments

Session 2 | Women and Transitional Justice: Advocacy, Recognition, and Constitutional Design

Session 3 | Institutionalizing Women’s Rights during Political Transitions: Lessons and Strategies for the Future

Closing and Thanks

শিশুর সামগ্রিক বিকাশ কার্যক্রম গতিশীলকরণ: পরিপ্রেক্ষিত সিলেট অঞ্চল

About the Event

BIGD and Prothom Alo jointly hosted the roundtable discussion organized under the Catalyzing Whole Child Development in Bangladesh project (2022–2026). Through the project, five development and academic institutions have worked together to institutionalize whole child development nationally. BIGD conducted a learning-oriented evaluation as the project’s learning partner. The roundtable followed three regional outreach and dialouge workshops and a separate roundtable in Dhaka, which were convened to contribute to a shared understanding of the evidence and lessons emerging from Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD) initiatives and generate practical recommendations for strengthening coordination, government ownership, and the integration of Whole Child Development (WCD) within the Sylhet region’s ECCD system.

You can read the coverage by Prothom Alo here: শিশুর সামগ্রিক বিকাশ কার্যক্রম গতিশীলকরণ: পরিপ্রেক্ষিত সিলেট অঞ্চল

Speakers at the Roundtable

  • Abdul Kaiyum Chowdhury, Administrator, Sylhet City Corporation
  • Dr. Md. Ziaur Rahman Chowdhury, Vice-Chancellor, Sylhet Medical University
  • Md. Abdullah Al Mamun, Deputy Commissioner, Sylhet
  • Mahmuda Sultana, Deputy Director, Local Government Division, Sylhet
  • James Ward Khakshi, Senior Research Coordinator, BIGD
  • Farah Muneer, Senior Research Coordinator, BIGD
  • Dr. Masuma Kawsar, Senior Research Officer, icddr,b
  • Ataur Rahman, Manager, BRAC Education Programme
  • Md. Abdur Rafiq, Deputy Director, District Social Services Office, Sylhet
  • Shahina Akter, Deputy Director, Department of Women Affairs, Sylhet
  • Didarul Iqbal, Program Manager, Innocent
  • Pranab Kanti Deb, Associate Professor, Sylhet International University
  • Shirin Akter, Director, Primary Education Programme, Friends In Village Development Bangladesh
  • Saidur Rahman Bhuiyan, District Children’s Affairs Officer, Bangladesh Shishu Academy, Sylhet
  • Tofayel Ahmed Chowdhury, Assistant Programmer, District Education Office, Sylhet
  • Badal Chandra Barman, District Children’s Affairs Officer, Sunamganj
  • Sabiha Sultana, Assistant Director, Sylhet Youth Academy
  • Mukta Rani Deb, Program Coordinator, Prochesta
  • Zehad-Al-Mehedi, Deputy Manager, Media and Engagement, BIGD
  • Firoz Chowdhury, Assistant Editor, Prothom Alo (Moderator)

Dissemination Event | Poverty Dynamics Amidst Climate Change, Economic Instability and Political Transition in Bangladesh: Challenges and Way Forward

BIGD, in partnership with the Chronic Poverty Advisory Network, the Institute of Development Studies, and DEEP, Oxford Policy Management, organized this research dissemination event to share findings from a mixed-methods study tracing how intersecting crises compound and shape poverty in Bangladesh. This event also served as an important platform for dialogue among researchers, practitioners, and members of the civil service and the government of Bangladesh to share their perspectives on challenges and opportunities to implement the learnings from the research in the country’s context.

Presentation and Discussion of Research Findings and Policy Recommendations

The event opened with an introduction to the research and the day’s proceedings by Dr. Imran Matin (Executive Director, BIGD). The findings of the research were then shared by Dr. Vidya Diwakar (Deputy Director, Chronic Poverty Advisory Network & Research Fellow, IDS), Dr. Andrew Shepherd (Director, Chronic Poverty Advisory Network), and Syeda Salina Aziz (Fellow of Practice and Head of the Governance and Politics Cluster, BIGD, BRAC University). This was followed by a discussion on the findings and their policy recommendations, featuring Dr. Ashikur Rahman (Principal Economist, Policy Research Institute of Bangladesh – PRI) and Maheen Sultan (Senior Fellow of Practice, BIGD, BRAC University).

Rapid-Fire Presentations on DEEP Bangladesh Challenge Fund on Wellbeing in Bangladesh

The following session featured presentations from three of the eight teams that won grants under the DEEP Bangladesh Challenge Fund, which focuses on generating data-driven evidence for national poverty reduction. Presenters at the session included Khadija Islam Tisha (Assistant Scientist, Health Economics and Financing, Health Systems and Population Studies Division, icddr,b), who presented on Measuring and Validating the Multidimensional Poverty Index by Identifying the Characteristics of Urban Poverty in Bangladesh; Saadman Faisal (Senior Program Coordinator, BIGD), who presented the team’s Predictions of Internal Migration in Bangladesh: A Data-Driven Approach for Policymaking; and Dr. Md. Moniruzzaman (Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, University of Dhaka), who presented on Farm-to-Non-farm Transition and Poverty Dynamics in Rural Bangladesh: A Gendered Analysis.

Policy Panel

The final session of the event was a policy panel moderated by Mehnaz Rabbani (Director, Operations, Strategy, and Partnership, BIGD), which focused on how best to tackle the challenges of poverty alleviation in the country. The panel featured Dr. Rashedur Rahman Sardar (Deputy Secretary, Finance Division, Ministry of Finance, Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh), Makshuda Hossain (Joint Secretary (Joint Chief), Programming Division, Planning Commission, Ministry of Planning, Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh), M. M. Mahamudullah (Additional Director (Institution), Department of Social Services, Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh), and Dr. Zahidul Quayyum (Professor, Health Economics and Chair, Institutional Review Board, Co-Director CUEH, BRAC James P. Grant School of Public Health).

Discussion with the Media | Rupture, Reform, and Reimagining Democracy: Navigating the Agony of Transition

This event was organized to share the critical findings of the State of Governance Report 2026, conducted by BIGD’s Governance and Politics Cluster.

The discussion convened senior leadership from Bangladesh’s leading print and electronic media houses to engage with senior researchers from the Governance and Politics Cluster, led by Dr. Mirza M. Hassan, Dr. Asif Shahan, and Syeda Salina Aziz. The dicussion centered around the dynamics of the July Uprising 2024, the evolving landscape of youth politics, and the complexities of the current political transition.

গোলটেবিল বৈঠকে | বাংলাদেশে শিশুর সামগ্রিক বিকাশ কার্যক্রম গতিশীলকরণ

About the Event

BIGD and Prothom Alo jointly hosted the roundtable discussion at the Prothom Alo office in Karwan Bazar, Dhaka. The event was organized under the Catalyzing Whole Child Development in Bangladesh project (2022–2026), through which five development and academic institutions have worked together to institutionalize whole child development nationally. The roundtable followed a series of three regional outreach and dialouge workshops, which were convened to contribute to a shared understanding of the evidence and lessons emerging from Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD) initiatives and generate practical recommendations for strengthening coordination, government ownership, and the integration of Whole Child Development (WCD) within Bangladesh’s ECCD system.

Read the full-page coverage in Prothom Alo: শিশুর প্রারম্ভিক বিকাশ নিশ্চিত করতে হবে

Key Takeaways

The speakers emphasized the challenges of coordination. With nineteen ministries currently engaged in early childhood work, several speakers argued that fragmented oversight was limiting the reach and durability of existing initiatives, and called instead for a leaner coordinating body with genuine authority, a dedicated budget, and a shared results framework that all stakeholders could work toward together.

Much of the conversation centred on Bangladesh’s existing service infrastructure, particularly its network of over fourteen thousand community clinics. Speakers saw these clinics as an underused platform for delivering child development support at scale, and proposed evolving them into integrated community health and wellness centres, with brief, regular child-development sessions folded into health workers’ existing responsibilities rather than treated as an added burden.

A recurring concern expressed by speakers was the question of continuity. Speakers observed that progress made under one administration or one set of officials often stalls when leadership changes, and argued that gains need to be documented and absorbed into government structures themselves, rather than remaining dependent on individual project champions or time-bound projects. Development partners echoed this sentiment, calling for research and monitoring data to be co-created with the government from the outset and aligned with existing government information systems, so that findings feed directly into policy rather than running parallel to it.

Finally, speakers pointed to concrete gaps still holding the system back: the absence of a national ECD database, uneven budget distribution across the ministries involved, and the risk that children with disabilities are left out of mainstream services unless access is deliberately built into program design.

Speakers at the Roundtable

  • Md. Abdur Rahim, Additional Director General, Directorate of Primary Education, Ministry of Primary and Mass Education
  • Mohammad Nasir Uddin, Deputy Secretary, Community Clinic Health Support Trust, Health Services Division
  • Mehnaz Rabbani, Director, Operations, Strategy, and Partnership, BIGD
  • Jena Derakhshani Hamadani, Emeritus Scientist, icddr,b
  • Esha Husain, Country Lead, Synergos Bangladesh
  • Syeda Sajia Zaman, Program Head, BRAC Institute of Educational Development
  • Md. Moazzem Hossain, Program Head, BRAC Education Programme
  • Shaila Ahmed, Assistant Professor & Research Fellow, BIGD
  • Ahlam Ahsan, CEO, Phulki NGO and Phulki Ltd.
  • Farah Muneer, Senior Research Coordinator, BIGD
  • Mostanzida Alnoor, Education Specialist, UNICEF
  • Saidur Rahman Mashreky, Professor, Department of Public Health, North South University
  • Dr. Kamran Ul Baset, Dean & Associate Professor, School of Pharmacy and Public Health, Independent University Bangladesh
  • Rizwan Khan, Senior Program Manager, Synergos Bangladesh
  • Tanzina Dina, Consultant, Social Policy, World Bank
  • Anne Drong, National Project Coordinator, International Labour Organization
  • Ahsan Mahmud, Advisor, Early Childhood Development and Inclusive Quality Education Programme, Plan International Bangladesh
  • Foysal Hossain, Early Childhood Development Focal and Project Manager, Center for Disability in Development
  • Mir Masrur Jaman, Executive Director, Somosti Media Communication and Development Foundation
  • James Ward Khakshi, Senior Research Coordinator, BIGD
  • Firoz Chowdhury, Assistant Editor, Prothom Alo

DEEP Challenge Workshop | Small Area Estimation of Internal Migration in Bangladesh

BIGD hosted a DEEP Challenge Workshop titled “Small Area Estimation of Internal Migration in Bangladesh,” which was led by BIGD’s Saadman Faisal (Senior Program Coordinator), Tahmid Bin Mahmud (Senior Research Associate), Namira Chowdhury (Data Associate), and Shadid Hossain (Research Associate). The session introduced participants to Small Area Estimation (SAE) for generating migration estimates at the upazila level, even when the underlying survey is representative only at the district level.

The workshop explored how to combine the 2023 Socio-Economic Demographic Survey (SEDS) with demographic and satellite-derived data to produce statistically sound estimates at the upazila level in Bangladesh. Participants also learned about the data currently available on internal migration and the factors that help explain mobility.

The session combined concepts with practical applications to show how SAE can help address gaps in subdistrict-level migration data and generate more granular evidence for understanding population mobility in Bangladesh.

Join our Envisioneers community to attend more workshops of the kind in the future.

Webinar | Beyond Credit: Rethinking Liquidity and Risk for Women

As part of Financial Inclusion Week 2026, this session examined how financial products can better respond to the liquidity constraints and financial risks women face. Organized by the WEE Initiatives at the BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD), BRAC University, the discussion will brought together research and practitioner perspectives on approaches that go beyond conventional credit.

Drawing on evidence from studies on earned wage access in India and index insurance in Kenya, the panel explored what these approaches can tell us about women’s financial needs and experiences. The discussion centered around how financial products can respond to short-term liquidity needs and financial uncertainty, and what researchers and practitioners can learn from these experiences.

Our distinguished speakers included:

  • Achyuta Adhvaryu, PhD, Professor of Economics, University of California San Diego
  • Nathan Jensen, PhD, Senior Research Fellow, University of Edinburgh, Dryland Observatory
  • Sowmya Dhanaraj, PhD, Associate Director (Research), Good Business Lab
  • Wendy Chamberlin, Senior Advisor, Trickle Up

Elijah Kipchumba, PhD, Research Fellow, WEE-Connect & WEE-DiFine Initiatives, moderated the discussion.

The panel was organized by BIGD’s WEE Initiatives, WEE-DiFine and WEE-Connect, which generate evidence on the relationship between digital financial services, digital connectivity, and women’s economic empowerment.

The discussion considered lessons for designing more customer-centered financial products that better support women in managing financial uncertainty.

Rajshahi Regional Workshop | Catalyzing Whole Child Development in Bangladesh: The Way Forward

BIGD, the Bangladesh ECD Network (BEN), and the Institute of Education and Research (IER), Rajshahi University jointly hosted the third and final regional outreach and dialogue workshops under the Catalyzing Whole Child Development in Bangladesh project (2022–2026), through which five development and academic institutions have worked together to institutionalize whole child development nationally. BIGD conducted a learning-oriented evaluation as the project’s learning partner. The workshop aimed to share key findings and implementation experience while opening dialogue on strengthening Bangladesh’s Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD) system.

Guests and speakers included Kazi Shahidul Islam (Deputy Commissioner and District Magistrate, Rajshahi), Toktok Talukdar (Additional Deputy Commissioner – Education and ICT), Mahmuda Akhter (Vice Chair, Bangladesh ECD Network), James Ward Khakshi (Senior Research Coordinator, BIGD), Farah Muneer (Senior Research Coordinator, BIGD), and  Zahidul Haque Khan (Programme Coordinator, Somosti Media Communication & Development Foundation). The event concluded with a vote of thanks by Professor Happy Kumar Das (IER, Rajshahi University).

বিআইজিডি গবেষণার খোঁজখবর | Sreevidya Ayyar

Can a program designed for the ultra-poor create economic benefits for an entire village?

At বিআইজিডি গবেষণার খোঁজখবর, Sreevidya Ayyar, PhD Candidate in Economics at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), discussed her research, “Trickle-Up: Village-Wide Effects of Targeting the Ultra-Poor.”

The study examines the wider effects of BRAC’s Ultra-Poor Graduation (UPG) program across 1,309 villages in Bangladesh. It finds significant increases in wealth among both beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries, with some of the strongest effects among richer, land-owning households. It also explores how shifts in land and labor markets may help explain these spillovers, offering a broader perspective on the returns to social assistance.

Workshop | Research on Women’s Participation in Elections in Bangladesh

BIGD and AARSHI Trust jointly conducted a qualitative study on women’s electoral participation, supported by the European Partnership for Democracy (EPD). The primary objective of this research is to analyze the broader social and policy perspectives surrounding women’s political leadership, representation, voting decisions, and their campaign experiences on social media within the context of the 2026 National Elections in Bangladesh.

BIGD and AARSHI Trust organized this validation workshop to share and review the key findings from the draft research report, as well as to gather valuable insights for formulating policy recommendations.