Communities for Gender Equality (CGE) Activity under Addendum to JRS APS: 7200AA22APS00007

The goal of the CGE activity is to improve the capacity of local communities and the GOB to better prevent and respond to GBV, in particular violations against women and girls, and to improve gender equality for Bangladeshi citizens.If communities, civil society, and the GOB work together to support gender equality and prevent, mitigate, and respond to GBV, AND If at-risk populations (particularly women and girls) and GBV survivors have increased access to comprehensive services and protection mechanisms, Then, gender equality will be improved and the prevalence of GBV will be reduced.Objective: To improve gender equality, reduce the prevalence of GBV, and support at-risk populations and survivors of GBV. IR-1: Improved community advocacy for gender equality and prevention of violence for at-risk people and GBV survivors. This focuses on improving the enabling environments for gender equality and GBV prevention, mitigation, and response, including facilitating, developing, and implementing effective remedies to address violations and abuses to ensure non-recurrence. This intermediate result is expected to include engagement with family members; mainstream and religious (Islam and other faiths) school students; youths; religious leaders; social community workers; teachers; service providers; and local authorities. This is intended to help empower people to know, use, and shape the law in their daily lives to prevent and address GBV. The activity will work with the stakeholders through community-led dialogues and other interventions to build social support for GBV survivors. From the prevention perspective, the activity will facilitate change against harmful cultural and social norms that perpetuate GBV. Men and boys are also victims of GBV, which are mostly under-reported due to social stigma. The CGE activity is anticipated to specifically target men and boys to promote positive masculinities and champion gender equality. The activity will activate GoB led committees to prevent child, early, and forced marriage and GBV at the local level to prevent these rights violations and protect the rights of the victims. This may include improving legal literacy and civic education on GBV and gender equality. Community level work will provide support to already married girls including access to comprehensive services. It will also work with youth on the safe use of social media platforms to address Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence (TFGBV) programs, as this is a new avenue for harassing women and girls (which also restricts their free expression). The activity will work with the private sector (business enterprises and educational institutions) to create awareness on GBV, gender equality and create access for victims to response mechanisms to ensure violence free and safe workplace. This way, a diverse population will increase their ability to shape systems and services, and at-risk, disadvantaged, marginalized, and vulnerable communities will be assisted and have better protections. The potential awardee will do a baseline survey to accurately measure efforts to reduce GBV, in particular for at-risk populations. The activity will conduct periodic evaluations, Political Economy Analysis (PEA), Risk Analysis, Rights-focused gap analysis, other analyses and research with Bangladeshi universities to understand the trend and magnitude of issues. This research can also be used as tools in future for informed/evidence-based advocacy with governmental and non-governmental stakeholders. The activity will also strengthen advocacy with like-minded civil society organizations to monitor and report on the existing GBV and child marriage laws to prevent and protect the rights of the survivors. IR-2: Increased ability of public and private service institutions to protect and respond to GBV survivors as well as those most at-risk of GBV. The activity will enable both at-risk women and girls and GBV survivors, and already married girls, to have access to comprehensive support services, including shelter, safe spaces, livelihood and life skills training, health support, access to legal remedies, case management and MHPSS. The applicant may provide some services themselves, work through local partners, and/or strengthen referral networks, improve quality of services, and sensitivity to the needs of survivors or at-risk groups.Livelihood and life skills training will target women and adolescent girls and is anticipated to include market driven support, training, and small-scale machinery. For example, training might include financial literacy; livestock management (no actual livestock will be purchased or distributed); homestead gardening to improve nutrition and economic resilience; growing saplings in existing homestead areas; on business development; and other market driven skill development training/capacity building to support the resilience of adolescent girls and GBV survivors. As for small-scale machinery procurement this might include sewing machines, toolboxes, computers, mobile repairs, etc and other input supplies needed to build beneficiary capacity and to support their start-up business initiatives. These services are often far more important to survivors than access to formal justice mechanisms - which can be very fraught and not necessarily yield positive results. The activity is expected to also provide life skill, livelihood, market linkage and financial literacy training for adolescent girls, victims of child marriage (CM) and GBV survivors. This will engage them in income generating activities to increase their value at the family level. It is anticipated that this IR will be adjusted depending on the locations availability of other USAID livelihood activities. Where possible, private sector partners will be engaged to make sure the skills are focused on local market needs. The activity is expected to link survivors participating in livelihood activities with public and private sector service providers.This IR may also strengthen Inter-governmental coordination on GBV prevention, mitigation, and response and overall governmental and non-governmental institutions and systems responsible for protecting and promoting citizens. Survivors decide to pursue (or not) judicial recourse if often contingent on being able to access these other services first in a sustained way - as they are more readily relevant to their immediate needs. Due to these factors, this activitys efforts are also expected to include access to the formal justice system in close coordination with the USAID Ain Shohayota activity to activate GOB-led local level legal aid committees to facilitate access to legal aid services to the GBV survivors. This may include improving coordination and collaboration between the justice system (formal and informal), institutions and actors, or improving justice seeker experiences and outcomes. The two activities could also work together to strengthen normative and legal frameworks. The activity will develop the capacity of justice sector actors-judges, lawyers, prosecutors; law enforcement agencies-police; journalists; civil society organizations; and other support groups to help prevent GBV and other abuses. It will also strengthen capacity and coordination among GOB and civil society organizations to improve institutional accountability and strengthen the system to advocate for the survivors of GBV. It will work with the justice sector actors to implement gender-responsive prosecution to protect the rights of all gender-diverse populations. The activity may explore opportunities to expand partnership with the Bangladesh National Human Rights Commission (watchdog) or other institutions to build their capacity and reporting mechanisms on rights violations. The activity will also work with the government led GBV support services to improve institutional accountability, strengthen the system and advocate for the victims of abuses. These services include one stop service centers, victim support centers, national trauma counseling centers, Police Cyber Support for Women and civil society organizations. This will also strengthen institutions to include, represent, serve and protect all people. The activity will build the capacity of CSOs and the private sector in documenting issues related to GBV. The activity will also build the capacity of activists, journalists, educators, private organizations, and others to advocate for the rights of the citizens and also provide rapid response support including safety and risk mitigation support to them as and when required.