Katalyst has identified that Bangladesh’s craft sector possesses a vast potential to contribute to women’s economic empowerment (WEE). . The ‘Empowering Women in Craft’ publication shows how an innovative partnership between Katalyst and BRAC-Aarong provides new perspectives for independent producers and women artisans in the craft industry.
This booklet describes some recent, stand-out innovations and achievements that are the fruits of this future-oriented partnership, fully supported by the Katalyst project. As Katalyst is in its third phase of operations, some of the milestone achievements of the project are reviewed. The project expects to expand on these successful models to be implemented throughout Bangladesh.
Voices of Change brings you stories that are representative of the wide range of Katalyst’s work across Bangladesh. The project uses the market development approach, which is an indirect way of working to change the existing market systems as a means to benefit the poor people. In these stories, the beneficiaries share with you the constraints they faced as well as the solutions they found to bring about radical changes in their lives.
In 2014-2016, Katalyst project and the Bangladesh Crop Protection Association (BCPA) extended their work by training farmers, women, retailers and pesticide spray men on the safe and judicious use of pesticides (SUP). This initiative improved the ability of farmers to select the right types of pesticide, and to use them appropriately with the correct dosage.
Building on this potential, Katalyst’s Women’s Economic Empowement (WEE) sector designed an intervention to provide training in modern prawn cultivation techniques and input and create linkages between feed and aqua-chemical companies with women prawn farmers of the Jessore-Khulna Bagerhat Satkhira Narail belt. Through this intervention, 22,170 women farmers have improved access to quality inputs and relevant know-how.
In order to bring about sustainable transformation and business orientation into the Indian Agriculture sector, there have been schematic interventions to promote unique forms of social capital for farmers, called Farmer Producer organizations (FPOs). Many stakeholders, particularly NGOs, are involved in promoting and handholding these FPOs in a target-driven mode by promoting a large number of such institutions across the country.
The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) financed the second Cordillera Highland Agricultural Resource Management Project (CHARMP2), in areas where poverty is most severe among indigenous peoples in the highlands of the Cordillera Region in northern Philippines. The aim is to reduce poverty and improve the livelihoods of indigenous peoples living in farming communities in the mountainous project area. The indigenous peoples consist of many tribes whose main economic activity is agriculture.
Green Extension is an umbrella term used to describe rural advisory services which support the scaling up of sustainable agriculture. This encompasses a range of methods to promote various types of content. What these approaches have in common is a process of socio-ecological learning, i.e., supporting farmers to analyse local problems and opportunities, and test alternative practices under local conditions.
Holding a vision of Lifestyle for Environment (LiFE), and with a target of net-zero carbon emission by 2070, India plans to usher in a green industrial and economic transition through a movement with an environmentally conscious lifestyle. One of the credible options for a continuous, predictable, accessible and cost-free green energy source is solar power. In the agricultural sector, one of the key innovations in promoting solar irrigation was the initiation of the world's first ever Solar Cooperative - Dhundi Solar Energy Producers' Cooperative Society (DSEPCS) - in Gujarat, India.
The ‘Licensing Fish Brood Import’ mini case study shows how Katalyst facilitated the linkage between local hatcheries and international brood sources and together with the Department of Fisheries established a standard operational procedure for brood import