4. Asia Child Marriage Initiative (ACMI) Research: Bangladesh
Mst. Sanzida Parveen, Research and Evaluation Coordinator, Plan
Bangladesh
Asia Child Marriage Initiative (ACMI) of Plan Asia has been identified as
one of the flagship programmes that aim at preventing child marriage and
mitigating its negative consequences on girls, families and communities in
countries of Asia. ACMI Research aimed to assess the country responses to
address child marriage. International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW)
partnered with Plan Asia for ACMI research and facilitated a process of
research and reflection to develop more effective program and advocacy
strategies with the expectation that the robust ACMI program will effectively
prevent, mitigate and ultimately end the practice of child marriage in Asia
region. The findings of the research in Bangladesh show that the child-
centred approaches, practiced in Plan’s child marriage interventions, have
contributed to increased awareness and created certain level of knowledge
of the issue within families and communities. For instance, almost all the
respondent knows the negative consequences of child marriage and what is
the legal age at marriage both for girls and boys. As a result, there has been
remarkable reduction in incidence of child marriage in the Plan intervention
areas. Through Child Organization (CO), Plan has created a model where
children and youth are empowered to contribute to delaying or preventing
child marriage in their communities. Beyond family and community levels,
Plan’s programming and advocacy work has created good examples of
preventing individual cases of child marriage and has set good practices that
are helping to foster local ownership. For instance, there are unions which
are declared as child marriage free union. The findings also suggest that
although successes have been made, there are certain challenges to be
considered to bring an end in the practice of child marriage; for instance, the
intricate nature of societal perceptions, poverty etc. These issues need to be
addressed if we want to stop child marriage.
Agriculture
1.Problems in developing agro machinery sector in Bangladesh
and its solution
Md. Masum Talukder, Chief Executive, INSTITUTE OF SME
This paper highlights the problems in developing agro machinery sector of
Bangladesh and strategies to overcome the same. As the country’s
population continues to increase and amount of cultivable land to decrease,
the only way to ensure food security is to adopt agriculture mechanization
10 4th National Knowledge Convention