For communities at risk from shocks, stresses and uncertainty, building resilience is an essential yet challenging development process. It r equires working on multiple fronts to: reduce people’s exposure and vulnerability; build their capacity to adapt; and transform systems to create an enabling environment for people to realise their rights.
Save the Children International (SCI) has been work ing in Bangladesh over the past three years; supporting girls and boys, their families, schools and local communities - in 36 rural and urban communities - to build their capabilities to adapt, prepare, and respond to disasters, climate change and sexual and gender based violence. Using a child -centred approach to design and implement Child Resilience Project, SCI along with its partners SEEP and Uttaran directly supported 14,076 girls, boys, women and men to build their resilience.
This report is the culmination of desk- and field-based work to evaluate the relevance, impact, effectiveness, participation and sustainability of the project. The author consulted over 120 internal and external documents, and the evaluation team engaged directly with 235 girls, boys, women and men using participatory approaches to gather the re levant qualitative and quantitative information. This report finds overall that the project has achi eved a good level of success across the five key areas of enquiry. It is relevant at all levels from community to national. It has demonstrated impact by increasing the knowledge, skills and resilience of project beneficiaries in schools and the community; as well as partner staff, and to some extent government. It has used approaches that are participatory, child-centred, inclusive and suited to the context; and these have been effective. In particular, the participatory, child-centred approa ch to community development, which recognises existing expertise in children, their families and the community, has contributed to the overall goal of building resilience and has been a strength of the project. The project has provided a good foundation for the continuation of project gains and longer te rm sustainability through different measures, including: enhanced capacities of children, school staff, community members and partners; increased local ownership of project interventions; and resources to support learning and action to date.
However, not all aspects of the project have worked optimally. The project may have been more relevant if it had discussed key interventions areas with government authorities during the design phase, to confirm the best use of resources. It may have had greater impact if it had undertaken more on-the-ground disaster mitigation actions and adapt ation activities to allow communities put into practice knowledge learned. It may have been more e ffective if it had used a theory of change to check the linkages between inputs, activities, outputs, outcomes and impact. And it may have better supported the continuation of project gains if it had partnered with government authorities, as well as worked at a policy level to advocate for a great er allocation of government resources for community-based risk reduction.