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Bangladesh

With a focus on gender equality, civic accountability, and social cohesion, our Bangladesh office encourages innovation in tackling community challenges, building leadership capacity that reflects the country’s diversity, and facilitating broad-based participation in the country’s development.

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Country overview

Kazi Faisal Bin Seraj,
Country Representative

Staff in Bangladesh »

Contact

The Asia Foundation – Bangladesh

House #5, Road #8 Baridhara
Dhaka-1212, Bangladesh

Tel: + 880 (2) 984-6944 and +880 (2) 984-6945
Fax: +880 (2) 984-6134
Email: bangladesh.general@asiafoundation.org

 

Promoting religious peace and tolerance

We are empowering citizens from across faith groups to respond to and reduce violations of religious freedom through the creation of an Early Warning Systems effort in Bangladesh.  For communities and individuals who are being targeted for their religious beliefs, there are no systems in place to forewarn of impending threats. In Rajshahi District, with the support of the U.S. Department of State,  community leaders from the private sector, local government, academia, and civil society assess threat reports and enlisted “peacekeepers” to train and mobilize volunteers to raise the alert about threats of imminent violence. To understand the impact of these efforts, we conducted an interfaith assessment and conflict analysis of local religious freedom dynamics to inform peacebuilding strategies.

NEWS FROM BANGLADESH

More From Bangladesh

Growing the Bangladesh economy with women entrepreneurs

Women in Bangladesh face a distinct set of challenges when they seek to start or grow a business: many run the household and care for families, and society expectations impact property ownership and access to collateral, finance, buyers and markets. They are challenged by often limited access to networks for support and to strengthen their voices. With funds from the GSRD Foundation and the Lotus Circle we are equipping women’s business associations in six districts to increase networks, facilitate loan opportunities, and promote the use of information technology among these new entrepreneurs. We sponsored six district-level networking events, trained more than 550 women entrepreneurs, built six online marketing and sales portals to gain access to buyers, and hosted public private dialogues promoting new policies to support women’s entrepreneurship.

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Economic Dialogue on Inclusive Growth

In spite of Bangladesh’s impressive growth in recent decades, over 40 million people still live below the poverty line. Many question if the growth has been “inclusive” and helped generate large-scale productive employment for the growing number of citizens entering the labor force each year. To increase evidence-based dialogue on inclusive growth, The Asia Foundation and the Overseas Development Institute, with support from the UK Department for International Development, are implementing the Economic Dialogue on Inclusive Growth Program in coordination with the General Economics Division of the Planning Commission. In addition to quarterly workshops, the project will produce six thematic research reports to support specific policy recommendations.

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Economic Dialogue on Inclusive Growth

In spite of Bangladesh’s impressive growth in recent decades, over 40 million people still live below the poverty line. Many question if the growth has been “inclusive” and helped generate large-scale productive employment for the growing number of citizens entering the labor force each year. To increase evidence-based dialogue on inclusive growth, we are implementing the Economic Dialogue on Inclusive Growth Program in coordination with the General Economics Division of the Planning Commission.

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