He disclosed the plan at a roundtable discussion on energy security organised by the Daily Sun at East West Media Group Limited auditorium in Bashundhara Residential Area on Tuesday.

The state minister said providing new gas connections to industries remains suspended but the government will resume it only to the units inside economic zones in April.

The Daily Sun acting Editor Enamul Hoque Chowdhury presided over the discussion titled “Energy Security & Vision 2041” while the daily’s Executive Editor Shiabur Rahman moderated it.

The state minister said the government is going to introduce energy audit system with a view to ensuring efficient use of energy and power.

Mohammad Hossain, director general of Power Cell of Power Division, presented the keynote paper.

He said power production was 5,000 megawatt in 2009, when the Awami League-led government assumed office, but it jumped to 15,000 megawatt due to timely steps of the government.

About short-term, mid-term and long-term steps of the government, he said quick rental power plants have contributed to magical growth in power generation.

“Electricity coverage has increased from 47 percent to 80 percent. Number of power plants has grown from 27 to 81. Systems loss has come down from 17 percent to 13 percent,” he added.

He spoke of the need for diversification of energy basket by increasing production of solar power, hydropower and wind power.

He said the government has a target to raise power generation to 24,000mw by 2021 and 60,500mw by 2041 to materialise the vision of the government.

Attaching importance to energy saving, he said 1mw energy saving means 1mw energy production.

He said the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) has opened a new avenue for the countries of this region to share energy with each other.

According to him, energy supply at affordable cost in reliable and environmental friendly manner and equitable distribution are important to ensure energy security.

FBCCI President Md Shafiul Islam Mohiuddin said economic development of the country should be given priority while taking any plan for power generation.

BUET professor of Department of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Engineering M Tamim suggested that the organisations involved in power and gas generation and distribution present real picture of the sector for better future planning.

“Unless they provide the real statistics it will be very difficult to formulate flawless planning,” he said.

Enamul Hoque Chowdhury said the incumbent government made tremendous success in power generation and distribution.

“Power cut was a regular phenomenon before this government resumed office. But now there is almost no load-shedding,” he said.

Shiabur Rahman said the country has a target to be a developed nation by 2041, the time when gas resource is supposed to come down to zero level.

He said the government will have to make a policy to overcome the challenge to be created by gas shortage.

Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCCI) Vice President Kamrul Islam called for a map to specify the places which will get gas and power connection on priority basis.

Bangladesh Rural Electrification Board Chairman Major General Moin Uddin, BGMEA Vice President (Finance) Mohammd Nasir, Bangladesh Auto Re-Rolling & Steel Mills Association Secretary General Md Shahidullah, Bangladesh Power Development Board Member Md Fakhruzzman and Director Kazi Afsaruddin, Bangladesh Independent Power Producers Association Secretary Abdul Halim and Bangladesh-India Friendship Power Company Limited Managing Director Ujjwal Kanti Bhattacharya also spoke at the roundtable.

Business leader at the event said many entrepreneurs have to count loss by investing in a place where gas connection is not available for long.

The post No new power, gas connection to units outside industrial zones appeared first on NGO News, Latest NGO News, Fund for NGO, NGO News Update.

After Pasricha made a case for it, she noticed that the page had been republished in April. This is not a rare occurrence, and sexism, it seems, won’t leave Wikipedia quickly. According to Wikimedia Foundation’s Editors Survey of 2011, women make up just nine per cent of Wikipedia’s editors. It found that about six per cent women complained of sexual harassment, but popular belief is that, “Wikipedia is not able to attract women editors since user space is highly sexualised, and often sexual innuendos drive women editors away.” Wikipedia’s ‘Systemic Bias’ page mentions that its entries have a gender bias alongside race and social class, and adds that the gender gap in its encyclopedia is not decreasing.

In Pasricha’s experience, sexism is evident in many other ways: paucity of women-centric articles, write-ups on women that are mostly stubs (defined by Wiki as articles that are too short to provide encyclopedic coverage of a subject), descriptions of women with their physical, marital or family status that may not be essential, gender-stereotyping of roles such as male nurse and female engineer and greater scrutiny of pages created by women editors or those with feminine sounding usernames.

It’s these things that Pasricha set out to change last October with the monthly ‘Wikipedia Editathons’. Every month, the FII team picks a topic and follows it up with two to three weeks of initial research to list 15 – 20 personalities in the category to create pages on. The criteria is simple: it has to be related to Indian women and ideally ones that have a low representation in media. “For instance, we recently did a page on Manpreet Kaur, a shot put gold medalist from Punjab,” says the 28-year-old.

The editathon, usually held on a Saturday in Delhi, is announced a week prior and those who sign up are sent a mail explaining the dos and don’ts and preparation points such as material to read up, creating of a Wikipedia account prior to the event and carrying their own laptops.

“There’s no selection criteria for participation, but we ensure that 70 per cent editors are women. On the day, after an hour and half of induction, each person produces one or two articles at least. My team edits them before they go up,” adds Pasricha. Sometimes they also collaborate with those having expertise in certain subjects and allow for writing in regional languages to increase representation of Indian languages. Sources must include books and news articles.

Their nine editathons have resulted in over 100 Wikipedia articles on women, as poets and authors, queer feminists, human rights activists, and on subjects such as online social movements, queer pride marches, sexual assault awareness month, and women in science, sports and politics. FII also edits existing copies to correct any kind of bias and turn stubs into holistic pieces. But getting people is not easy and many also back out last minute, but “the number has never gone below five, our minimum requirement.”

As for impact, Pasricha is rooting for “participants to take back a new skill and write and edit articles on their own. And from a larger perspective, the goal is that in any search, Indian women should show up since Wikipedia entries usually are the first to come up in search results, and it is among the most widely read encyclopedias.”

The post Bashing out the bias, word by word appeared first on NGO News, Latest NGO News, Fund for NGO, NGO News Update.

In 2014, a team from Pollisree (Oxfam’s local partner) started a discussion on the importance of women’s economic leadership and the various ways of women could get involved in economic activities. Rojina attended several meetings and enlisted herself as a member in the community based organisation.

Rashidul said “I supported Rojina initially as she was just attending few meetings, but gradually she learnt about rearing cows and business management and wanted to get involved in the milk producer group. I was not comfortable with that because she would not have any spare time after doing all the household chores.”
An eye-opener meeting

Rojina said, “One day in the meeting, Pollisree discussed how doing household chores is the responsibility of all family members and how sharing the housework would help everyone engage in other productive work. I found an opportunity to make my dream true and asked my husband to take part in a two day workshop on care analysis”.

“After returning from the meeting, he told me that, I was right – taking care of family members and doing household chores is every one’s duty “

Now Rashidul tries his best to help Rojina with the household chores so that she can concentrate on her business. Every day he cleans, mops the house, brings water for cooking, and sometimes chops the vegetable.
Getting adapted to the new situation

They have been married for 9 years. Their early years of marriage were not as happy because Rojina had a huge amount of work to do while Rashidul sat idle after returning home from the work.

Rojina added that, “At that time, his sweet words seemed bitter to me! Most of my time was spent cooking. Now he understands and helps me with the cooking. As a result, I can attend meetings or training to enhance technical knowledge and I have more time to take care of the cows to increase the milk production”.

“My wife heard that a rice cooker and magic burner can cook food easily and these do not create smoke. We are thinking of buying these if these are not too expensive. She needs more time to do relax.” said Rashidul.

“Our love has increased for each other,” said Rojina

The post Economic leadership of women’s are changing lives appeared first on NGO News, Latest NGO News, Fund for NGO, NGO News Update.

Known formerly as the Bangladesh Rehabilitation Assistance Committee and then as the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee and now Building Resources Across Communities, BRAC was initiated in 1972 by Sir Fazlé Hasan Abed at Shallah Upazillah in the district of Sunamganj as a small-scale relief and rehabilitation project to help returning war refugees after the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971. In nine months, 14 thousand homes were rebuilt as part of the relief effort and several hundred boats were built for the fishermen. Medical centres were opened and other essential services were ensured.

BRAC is an international development organisation dedicated to spreading solutions to poverty worldwide. It is ranked the number one NGO in the world by the Geneva-based NGO Advisor, an independent media organisation committed to highlighting innovation, impact and governance in the non-profit sector. BRAC clinched the top spot as part of the 2016 Top 500 NGOs World rankings. Of more than 500 organisations worldwide, NGO Advisor placed BRAC first in its international category, based on its impact, innovation and sustainability. BRAC was praised for its holistic approach to fighting poverty, treating it as a system of interrelated barriers that must be addressed concurrently. The ranking also highlighted the organisation’s history of designing and implementing solutions at scale.

BRAC, formerly Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee, was founded in Bangladesh in 1972, and today is a global leader in creating opportunities at scale as a means to end poverty. It is the world’s largest non-governmental development organisation, touching the lives of an estimated 138 million people in 12 countries using a wide array of tools such as microfinance, education, healthcare, legal rights training and more to create opportunities for people most in need.

From the perspective of our ranking 165 criteria covering our three main pillars of interest – impact, innovation and sustainability – BRAC ticks every box with extra scoring this year due to clarity of its strategic vision for the next five years and its willingness to expand its international outreach. A member of the era-defining 1970s wave of Bangladeshi microcredit and microfinance pioneers, alongside the Grameen Bank and ASA, BRAC has since gone on to outpace its old counterparts and assume an unparalleled position in the crowded field of international development. While still involved in the microfinance space, the organization has carefully, but steadily, diversified into a wide suite of activities, from agriculture and food security to education, legal aid, climate change risk reduction, livelihoods support and maternal and child health. Rather than spreading BRAC’s resources too thin, this strategy has instead remained faithful to founder Sir Fazle Hasan Abed’s vision of a holistic, sustainable approach to poverty reduction. Indeed, BRAC is in a unique position to use its microfinance base as a social platform to deliver innovative scaled up services aligned to a principled, rights-based philosophy.

The post BRAC: An international development organisation appeared first on NGO News, Latest NGO News, Fund for NGO, NGO News Update.

Hosted on the 14th and 15th June 2017, the 3rd annual Aid & Development Asia Summit offers unparalleled opportunities for cross-sector collaboration and debate to bring escalating issues of disaster relief, food security, access to healthcare and use of mobile technologies to the forefront of regional agenda.

Southeast Asia is particularly vulnerable to severe climate change related disasters. Out of 65.3 million displaced people around the world, 14% are being hosted in Asia and the Pacific. Despite significant progress made over the last decade, hunger, malnutrition, disease and poverty are still among the notable challenges particularly facing the region.

Over 130 million people in Southeast Asia do not have access to basic health services. Communicable diseases, such as malaria, HIV/AIDS and Tuberculosis (TB), remain a major public health challenge. The region has the lowest density of health professionals with a deficit of 6.9 million health workers. As a result, Southeast Asia has one of the highest rates of child mortality in the world with 1 in 19 children dying before their fifth birthday.

Challenges in achieving health Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have urged global and regional agencies to look for innovative ways to improve health systems and programmes. Technology and partnerships are paramount to ensure that desired universal health care access is achieved in an affordable and sustainable way.

Humanitarian and development practitioners will meet at the Aid & Development Asia Summit in Nay Pyi Taw to discuss challenges and opportunities in aid and development sector in Southeast Asia and to share new innovations and best practice. High-level delegates include business leaders, sector experts, investors, government ministers and representatives from NGOs and UN bodies.

The opening keynote address will be given by Dr Tin Htut, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, and Irrigation. Day one will focus on funding and procurement trends in Myanmar and Southeast Asia, innovations and policies to support community resilience and food security, strengthening disaster preparedness and early warning systems. It will also look into how agricultural productivity can be improved and offer an update on technology and latest initiatives for meeting education SDGs in the region.

Khin Thida Maw, Country Officer, International Finance Corporation, World Bank, Kyaw Thu, Infrastructure Specialist, Asian Development Bank and Martina Aureli, Business Development and Sales Executive, Asia and Oceania, NRS International will look into building successful public-private partnerships in the humanitarian and development space.

U Tun Tun Naing, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Planning and Finance​, Myanmar will close the first day of the Aid & Development Asia Summit with a keynote address.

Day two will commence with an opening speech by Dr That Zin Htoo, Assistant Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Health and Sports, Myanmar, followed by a panel on mobile for development programmes in Southeast Asia.

How to strengthen maternal and child health programmes and share best practice in tackling communicable diseases will be discussed by Dr Stephan Paul Jost, Country Representative, World Health Organization (WHO), Dr Aye Yu Soe, Senior Public Health Officer, Three Millennium Development Goal (3MDG), UNOPS, Luc Provost, CEO, B Medical Systems, Dr Tobe Makoto, Senior Advisor, Health Financing and Health Systems, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and Lena Wahlhed, Director, Alliance Development, HemoCue.

The roundtable discussion session provide participants with an opportunity to discuss topics such as WASH partnerships and initiatives, emergency communication with communities, climate smart agriculture and disaster risk reduction.

Shon Campbell, Manager, Myanmar Information Management Unit (MIMU), UNDP and Wivina Belmonte, Deputy Regional Director, East Asia and Pacific, UNICEF will debate the importance of shared platforms and data exchange amongst aid and development stakeholders. Special focus will be given to crowd sourcing and open source knowledge solutions for data collection and management.

Digital and financial inclusion in Southeast Asia is the focus of the panel led by Alix Zwane, Chief Executive Officer, Global Innovation Fund. Paul Luchtenburg, Country Director, Myanmar, United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) and Myint Kyaw, Program Director, Rural Finance and Value Chain Development, Livelihoods and Food Security Trust Fund (LIFT), United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) will discuss the growth of mobile money, what it means for the development sector as well as how to use cash transfers in an emergency context.

Moe Thu, Associate Director, Humanitarian and Emergency Affairs, Myanmar, World Vision and Ei Ei Htwe, Director, Logistics Department, Myanmar Red Cross Society join the panel on humanitarian logistics. They will look into how to overcome the challenges of last mile logistics and how to ensure the safety of aid workers and goods in areas of reduced infrastructure or conflict.

Delivering SDGs requires a clear shared vision that brings together key stakeholders and actors involved in the aid and development sectors in the region. Innovations and developments in disaster resilience, health & WASH, agriculture, humanitarian logistics, education, connectivity and financial inclusion are fundamental for the successful achievement of the SDGs in the region.

The Aid & Development Asia Summit 2017 is a platform for knowledge exchange and cross-sector engagement based on structured networking and interactive debates that influence regional development and humanitarian goals in Southeast Asia.

The post AID & Development Asia Summit to kick-off June 14th appeared first on NGO News, Latest NGO News, Fund for NGO, NGO News Update.

The budget speech seems to lack providing prudent and farsighted solutions to the current challenges except it earmarks an ambitious target of expenditure amidst inefficient distribution of resources and cost overrun, says the organization in its rapid assessment of the proposed national budget for the FY 2017-18.

“The Finance Minister concedes “still have many miles to cover,” and stops “by woods on a snowy evening” (the title of the poem that he quotes is “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”). He could have taken “the one less traveled by” and that could have “made all the difference” (the last two lines of Robert Frost’ another poem, “The Road Not Taken”) – says the think tank to metaphorically refer to the context of the proposed budget.

The fiscal strategies must take account of the circumstances of inflationary pressure caused by new VAT policy-induced declining real wages, rising joblessness in the midst of productive capacity-expansion-less growth and dwindling social sector spending in the milieu of institution-wrecking structural diseases, driven by political expediency.

The UO notes that the political expediency has not only caused cost-overruns, scams, and capital flight, but the reign of uncertainty that kept the ratio of private investment to gross domestic product (GDP) stagnated over the years, slowed down growth in manufacturing resulting in underperformance in external sector.

The service sector is facing a critical shortage in supply of skills.  The huge outflow of capital and declined levels of inflow of remittances are serious causes of concern. The country’s job growth is the slowest in two decades.

The research organization further notes that the youth unemployment rate in Bangladesh is higher than the regional South Asian average, with a huge sizeable youth population languishing in as NEET (not in employment, education or training).

Pointing to the underachievement of NBR tax revenue collection in recent years, the UO doubts that the target of collecting NBR tax revenue of Tk. 248190 crore may not be feasible in FY 2017-18, whereas a gap of Tk. 18152 crore has been found between the budget and revised NBR tax in FY 2016-17.

In addition, breakdown of NBR tax shows that Tk. 85176 crore will be collected from taxes on income and profit whereas Tk. 91254 crore will be collected from value added tax (VAT), meaning that the burden of the tax on the poor and low income groups is much higher that on the rich and high income groups. Higher rate of VAT would lead to price hike hurting livelihood of the poor, adds the research organization.

“The tax structure is ridden with low base, avoidance and evasion. There is huge missing of distributive justice, characterized by widening income, spatial and male-female inequalities, driven by jobless growth. As a result, need for a pro-active state that would ensure social protection through innovation in social policies is pressing,” adds the Unnayan Onneshan.

The UO cautions that financing strategies for the proposed fiscal deficit of Tk. 112276 crore – domestic borrowing of 60352 crore, foreign borrowing of 46420 crore and grants of 5504 crore – is likely to challenge fiscal management by reducing investible funds, increasing interest payments.

In addition, if the government has to stick to its planned size of 400266 crore in expenditure, in most likelihood which would not be the case, the government might have to borrow more from the domestic sources, as targeted revenue collection of 287990 crore and projected disbursement of 51924 crore in foreign loans and grants might not be realised, adds the UO.

Referring to the poor implementation of annual development program (ADP) in FY 2016-17, the research organisation warns that the ADP allocation of Tk. 153331 crore in the FY 2017-18 may remain underutilised as only 54.56 percent of total ADP allocation of Tk. 110700 crore in FY 2016-17 has been implemented until April 2017.

Observing institutional fragility in the banking sector due to monumental rise in writing off of loans, meteoric rise in the default loans and nose-dive in risk and capital adequacy ratio, the research organization comments that the public in general has to pump their tax money to rescue the stripped nationalized commercial banks through recapitalization due to loots in these banks.

In addition, lack of adequate capital formation due to large scale illicit capital outflows every year causes national savings and investment not to rise significantly. Highest estimates by the Global Financial Integrity suggest that during the period of 2005 to 2014, illicit capital outflow amounted to USD 7.5 billion every year on average. As the latest count shows that the amount of illicit capital outflow from Bangladesh was USD 9 billion in 2014.

Taking account of slow implementation against the planned duration of the infrastructure development projects, the UO comments that increase in allocation implies rising cost induced economic rent which has made the public investments inefficient. For instance, Bangladesh spends Tk. 59 crore (proposed) to build one kilometer of 4-lane highways whereas China and India spend Tk. 13 crore and Tk. 10 crore respectively.

Growth in real sector, particularly in the industry, has remained sluggish for long. Industrial growth rate declined from 11.09 percent in FY 2015-16 to 10.50 percent in FY 2016-17. Agricultural sector, however, grew slightly from 2.79 percent in FY 2015-16 to 3.40 percent in FY 2016-17. Service sector also exhibited a slight increase from 6.25 in FY 2015-16 to 6.50 percent in FY 2016-17.

Pointing to the fact that Bangladesh lags behind its South Asian counterparts in social sector spending, the think tank expresses concern over inadequate development expenditure on health, education, and social security and welfare, and calls for channeling adequate resources into social sectors that give particular impetus to the improvement in human development.

Health expenditure has declined of late resulting in high out-of-pocket expenditure in the sector. Development expenditure on health stood at 9.7 percent of the total development expenditure in FY 2009-10, which declined to 7.5 percent in FY 2011-12, 6.8 percent in FY 2012-13, 5.3 percent in FY 2013-14, 5.3 percent in FY 2014-15, 5.4 percent in FY 2015-16, 5.5 percent in FY 2016-17 and 6.1 percent in FY 2017-18.

Referring to the declining allocation for social security and welfare, the UO evinces that development expenditure on social security and welfare stood at 5.4 percent of the total development expenditure in FY 2009-10, whereas the allocation was 5.3 percent in FY 2011-12, 4.5 percent in FY 2012-13, 4.7 percent in FY 2013-14, 4.5 percent in FY 2014-15, 3.8 percent in FY 2015-16, 3.4 percent in FY 2016-17 and 2.8 percent in FY 2017-18.

Pointing to failure of economic growth to create employment, the research organization notes that unemployed population increased to 2.6 million which is highest since 2000. More than 70 percent of the total unemployed population is youth. To ensure distributional fairness in the economy, employment-friendly budgetary allocations for productive sectors is necessary.

If not dealt with effectively, income inequality together with inequality in access to health and social security, multidimensional poverty, and joblessness particularly among the youth may undermine the development already achieved by the county, comments the UO.

Calling for prudent and farsighted fiscal management, the research organisation states that proposed actions are inadequate to bring fiscal discipline in the management of revenue, deficit and debt one the one hand and to establish an inclusive society in the absence of distributive reforms in the tax system on the other.

The post “The Road Not Taken” appeared first on NGO News, Latest NGO News, Fund for NGO, NGO News Update.

Aid & International Development Forum’s Head of Marketing Alina O’Keeffe said to NGO News, I think it might be useful to many professionals working in the aid and development sector. I strongly believe webinar on Advice & Trends in Emergency Procurement and Humanitarian Aid is an important event.

Title: Advice & Trends in Emergency Procurement and Humanitarian Aid

Date and time: 29th June 2017
4pm BST / 3pm GMT / 11.00 EDT

Benefits for private sector:
• AIDF webinar for (potential) supplier of the UN, NGOs and development banks, and learn about business opportunities with World Bank and Millennium Challenge Corporation
• How to do business in the aid & development sector? Webinar with World Bank and Millennium Challenge Corporation
• Buying needs and priorities in the humanitarian aid and development sector. Hear directly from World Bank and Millennium Challenge Corporation in AIDF’s webinar on 29th June

Benefits for procurement professionals:
• Benchmark purchasing processes and procurement strategy with World Bank and Millennium Challenge Corporation. Join the AIDF webinar on 29th June!
• Discuss sustainable procurement best practice with World Bank and Millennium Challenge Corporation and a variation of new and established product and service providers to the aid and development sector

General Benefits:
• Procurement priorities and sustainable purchasing in the aid and development sector, hear from World Bank and Millennium Challenge Corporation
• Join AIDF webinar on “Advice & Trends in Emergency Procurement and Humanitarian Aid” taking place on 29th June

Link to registration: https://www.aidforum.org/events/event/webinar-advice-trends-in-emergency-procurement-and-humanitarian-aid

The post Webinar on emergency procurement trends & advice appeared first on NGO News, Latest NGO News, Fund for NGO, NGO News Update.

Aid & International Development Forum’s Head of Marketing Alina O’Keeffe said to NGO News, I think it might be useful to many professionals working in the aid and development sector in the region. I strongly believe Procurement Advice for Southeast Asia’s Aid & Development Sector is an important event.

Title

Procurement Trends in Southeast Asia’s Aid and Development Sector

Date and Time

Wed, Apr 26, 2017 9:30 AM – 10:30 AM BST

Description

Join our live webinar on ‘Procurement Trends in Southeast Asia’s Aid and Development Sector’ taking place on 26th April 2017 at 9:30 GMT BST / 15:00 MMT / 15:30 ICT

The webinar is aimed at private sector companies looking to supply humanitarian aid and development programmes and doing business with UN, bilateral and government agencies in Southeast Asia.

It will provide an update and refresher on the tender process, vendor registration and evaluation criteria.

Key procurement divisions in the international aid and development sector will offer first-hand insights and guidance. Plus there will be an opportunity to submit questions.

Speakers:
• Peter Batchelor, Country Director, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
• Niiara Abliamitova, Chief Procurement officer, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN-ESCAP)

Who should attend?
– Representatives of private sector companies currently supplying humanitarian and development programmes, or who are interesting in getting involved
– Procurement professionals at NGOs, UN agencies, donor and government agencies

• Update on UN procurement
• Eprocurement, tendering process, criteria
• Procurement trends and business opportunities in Southeast Asia
• Good Practice in Sustainable Procurement
• Addressing Common Contracting and Compliance Pitfalls

The post Procurement Advice for Southeast Asia’s Aid & Development Sector appeared first on NGO News, Latest NGO News, Fund for NGO, NGO News Update.