Women’s right and the right to food 2013, para. 28

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Paragraph text: Under asset transfer schemes, productive assets, such as small livestock, are provided to poor households to support their income generation activities. Bangladesh's Challenging the Frontiers of Poverty Reduction - Targeting the Ultra Poor (CFPR) programme, launched in 2002 by the non-governmental organization Building Resources Across Communities (BRAC), demonstrates the benefits of adopting a gender-sensitive approach. For instance, it takes into account the fact that female-headed households are often more labour-constrained (both due to "care" responsibilities of women and the lower ratio of income earners to dependents in those households) and provides assets, such as poultry, which require less labour to maintain and become a source of income. BRAC also seeks to strengthen the beneficiary's capacity to use the assets productively, and encourages the political empowerment of the poor. The programme provides for the establishment of seven-member Village Poverty Reduction Committees, comprising representatives of BRAC, beneficiaries of CFPR, as well as respected individuals drawn from the landed and wealthy elites of the local community. Instead of aiming to reduce the power of the local elites as part of the priorities of poverty-reduction interventions, the programme seeks the active involvement of local notables in order to enlist their support.

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Person(s) affected