Confessions of a Fieldworker–How I stratified a Rural Population

SUMMARY This article takes as its point of departure an earlier paper which attempted to assess the accuracy of various relatively rapid means of stratifying a rural population in Bangladesh. The argument advanced is that this exercise was premature; and that little progress can be made towards improving the efficiency with which succeeding generations of fieldworkers conduct their enquiries, until more is known both about the way in which existing practitioners have divided their time between different activities, and about the considerations behind these allocative decisions. As a modest step in this direction, the author offers an account of how he stratified a rural population in Bangladesh in the course of his own fieldwork, and of why he proceeded as he did. RESUMEN Confesiones de un trabajador en el campo de acción: cómo llegué a encuadrar a la población rural en sus niveles sociales correspondientes Este artículo toma como punto de partida una disertación anterior en la que se intentaba la precisión de varios medios, relativamente rápidos, de asignar niveles sociales a la población rural en Bangladesh. Se aduce el argumento de que el ejercicio fue prematuro y de que se puede avanzar poco en lo relativo de aumentar la eficacia con la que las generaciones sucesivas de trabajadores en el campo de acción llevan a cabo sus pesquisas hasta que no se sepa más acerca de la manera en que los investigadores actuales han repartido su tiempo entre las diferentes actividades a emprender, así como la forma de enjuiciarlo que haya conducido a tal distribución. El autor avanza un pequeño trecho en esa dirección al narrar cómo encuadró en distintos niveles a la población rural de una región de Bangladesh en que se basó su modo de actuar. RESUME Confessions d'un home de terrain: Comment j'ai stratifié la population ruraie Cet article prend comme point de départ un autre article qui tentait d'évaluer la précision de divers moyens relativement rapides de stratification d'une population rurale au Bangladesh. L'argument avancé est que cet exercise est prématuré et qu'on ne peut guère espérer améliorer l'efficacité des générations successives d'hommes de terrain sans mieux connaître la façon dont les travailleurs actuels répartissent leur temps entre diverses activités et les considérations qui président à cette répartition. Dans cette perspective, l'auteur dit comment il a stratifié une population rurale dans le courant de sa propre activité de terrain et les raisons pour lesquelles il a agi comme il l'a fait

Agriculture and Nutrition in Bangladesh: Mapping Evidence to Pathways

Background: Although much work has been done on the theoretical links between agriculture and nutrition, there is limited understanding of the evidence from observational and experimental research studies on the impacts of agriculture programs on nutrition outcomes. Objective: To assess the emphasis of the literature on different agriculture–nutrition pathways in Bangladesh. Methods: Twenty databases and Web sites were searched, yielding more than 2400 resources that were pared down through an iterative, eliminative process to 60 articles. These articles were then rated for quality and mapped to 1 of the 6 agriculture–nutrition pathways. Results: The body of evidence reveals gaps in knowledge in all of the pathways, but especially in the areas of agriculture as a source of livelihoods, and women’s role as intermediaries between agriculture and good nutrition and health within their household. Conclusion: More research is needed on the links between agriculture and nutrition in country-specific settings, particularly as regards the role of women. Nutrition-related outcomes, such as dietary diversity and women’s empowerment, need to be measured more explicitly when evaluating the impact of agricultural production systems and development initiatives.Department for International Development (DFID)UKAI

The Boys Left Behind: Where Public Policy has Failed to Prevent Child Labour in Bangladesh

Poor boys have been left behind by public policy efforts to expand school access in Bangladesh – the same policies which have succeeded in attracting girls to school. This article draws on original research to explore the failure to tackle the exclusion of poor boys from school, arguing that paid work has become more attractive in a context in which education is of poor quality and there are no social sanctions against child labour. Recently there has been a shift of policy attention towards poor boys, amidst concerns about security, militancy and Islamic education. Given steady economic growth, poor boys may not necessarily inherit deeper poverty, but in the absence of state or social sanctions against child labour, they are likely to inherit a position at the lower end of the social scale

Tenure security, human capital and soil conservation in an overlapping generation rural economy

We develop an overlapping generation model of rural agricultural households to examine whether tenure security and subsistence needs influence the choice between unexploited topsoil and investment in children's human capital as the mode of transfer of wealth. A unique dataset from Bangladesh finds that tenure security is associated with greater topsoil conservation and lower human capital investment. Therefore, there exists a tradeoff between these two modes of transfer. We suggest that increased public expenditure on schooling, which substitutes private expenditure, may lower the pressure on land and soil resources

Climate-influenced migration in Bangladesh: the need for a policy realignment

Recent research into migration in Bangladesh has highlighted that people migrate for better livelihoods, not necessarily in response to climatic stresses and shocks. If facilitated appropriately, internal and international migration can help build adaptive capacity to future environmental and climatic hazards. In this framing, migration happens in the context of a growing city-centred economy that promotes remittances to villages. However, a textual analysis of current and recent policies concerning climate change, development and poverty alleviation, and disaster management shows that the economic and adaptive roles of internal migration are often not included in policy framing. We argue that if migration works as a positive step towards adaptation, then the key challenge is to align the policies with this new understanding

A cluster-randomized, placebo-controlled, maternal vitamin a or beta-carotene supplementation trial in bangladesh: design and methods

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>We present the design, methods and population characteristics of a large community trial that assessed the efficacy of a weekly supplement containing vitamin A or beta-carotene, at recommended dietary levels, in reducing maternal mortality from early gestation through 12 weeks postpartum. We identify challenges faced and report solutions in implementing an intervention trial under low-resource, rural conditions, including the importance of population choice in promoting generalizability, maintaining rigorous data quality control to reduce inter- and intra- worker variation, and optimizing efficiencies in information and resources flow from and to the field.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>This trial was a double-masked, cluster-randomized, dual intervention, placebo-controlled trial in a contiguous rural area of ~435 sq km with a population of ~650,000 in Gaibandha and Rangpur Districts of Northwestern Bangladesh. Approximately 120,000 married women of reproductive age underwent 5-weekly home surveillance, of whom ~60,000 were detected as pregnant, enrolled into the trial and gave birth to ~44,000 live-born infants. Upon enrollment, at ~ 9 weeks' gestation, pregnant women received a weekly oral supplement containing vitamin A (7000 ug retinol equivalents (RE)), beta-carotene (42 mg, or ~7000 ug RE) or a placebo through 12 weeks postpartum, according to prior randomized allocation of their cluster of residence. Systems described include enlistment and 5-weekly home surveillance for pregnancy based on menstrual history and urine testing, weekly supervised supplementation, periodic risk factor interviews, maternal and infant vital outcome monitoring, birth defect surveillance and clinical/biochemical substudies.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The primary outcome was pregnancy-related mortality assessed for 3 months following parturition. Secondary outcomes included fetal loss due to miscarriage or stillbirth, infant mortality under three months of age, maternal obstetric and infectious morbidity, infant infectious morbidity, maternal and infant micronutrient status, fetal and infant growth and prematurity, external birth defects and postnatal infant growth to 3 months of age.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Aspects of study site selection and its "resonance" with national and rural qualities of Bangladesh, the trial's design, methods and allocation group comparability achieved by randomization, field procedures and innovative approaches to solving challenges in trial conduct are described and discussed. This trial is registered with <url>http://Clinicaltrials.gov</url> as protocol NCT00198822.</p

English for communication in Bangladesh: baseline research to establish the pre-existing environment for the ‘English in Action’ project

Although Bangladesh is largely monolingual, English is increasingly important for international communication. The English in Action project was established to enhance the use of English as a tool for better access to the world economy. Interventions in three sectors (primary education, secondary education and adult learning) aim to improve the teaching and learning of communicative English over a 9-year period. At the outset of the project a range of baseline studies was undertaken to collect relevant data to develop a detailed representation of the communicative environment for English in Bangladesh. The main focus of this article is formal education contexts. Data collection for these studies involved various methods including interviews, surveys, classroom observations and desk research of existing sources. This article describes the nature of those studies and presents some of the key findings. Together, the studies create a rich picture of the circumstances that bring about a generally low level of competence in communicative English, despite individuals experiencing many years of compulsory study of the subject within formal education

Bans of WHO Class I Pesticides in Bangladesh –Suicide Prevention without Hampering Agricultural Output

Pesticide self-poisoning is a major problem in Bangladesh. Over the past 20-years, the Bangladesh government has introduced pesticide legislation and banned highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs) from agricultural use. We aimed to assess the impacts of pesticide bans on suicide and on agricultural production.We obtained data on unnatural deaths from the Statistics Division of Bangladesh Police, and used negative binomial regression to quantify changes in pesticide suicides and unnatural deaths following removal of WHO Class I toxicity HHPs from agriculture in 2000. We assessed contemporaneous trends in other risk factors, pesticide usage and agricultural production in Bangladesh from 1996 to 2014.Mortality in hospital from pesticide poisoning fell after the 2000 ban: 15.1% vs 9.5%, relative reduction 37.1% [95% confidence interval (CI) 35.4 to 38.8%]. The pesticide poisoning suicide rate fell from 6.3/100 000 in 1996 to 2.2/100 000 in 2014, a 65.1% (52.0 to 76.7%) decline. There was a modest simultaneous increase in hanging suicides [20.0% (8.4 to 36.9%) increase] but the overall incidence of unnatural deaths fell from 14.0/100 000 to 10.5/100 000 [25.0% (18.1 to 33.0%) decline]. There were 35 071 (95% CI 25 959 to 45 666) fewer pesticide suicides in 2001 to 2014 compared with the number predicted based on trends between 1996 to 2000. This reduction in rate of pesticide suicides occurred despite increased pesticide use and no change in admissions for pesticide poisoning, with no apparent influence on agricultural output.Strengthening pesticide regulation and banning WHO Class I toxicity HHPs in Bangladesh were associated with major reductions in deaths and hospital mortality, without any apparent effect on agricultural output. Our data indicate that removing HHPs from agriculture can rapidly reduce suicides without imposing substantial agricultural costs