Harewelle Archive

Extreme Poverty Eradication Day October 2009 - Making the Invisible Visible

One of the key objectives of shiree is to facilitate a lesson-learning platform on extreme poverty. The aim is to engage a wider audience (national and international) to a deeper understanding of extreme poverty in Bangladesh by generating evidence-based ideas, opening debate, challenging assumptions, beliefs and attitudes and testing policy ideas.

This year’s Extreme Poverty Eradication Day played a central component in shiree’s emerging overall advocacy and learning strategy. While the government observed International Poverty Eradication Day on 17 October 2009, shiree collaborated with the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) to organize a conference on extreme poverty on 18 October 2009.  The theme of the conference was ‘making the invisible visible’ (i.e. acknowledging and bringing extreme poverty into the public policy arena). In organising the event, we sought to make it as participatory and entertaining as possible, hence the breakout sessions and mela components. In the spirit of trying to incorporate something for everyone, we orchestrated a setup that allowed guests to move in and out of the main conference hall to participate in discussions and engage in slightly lighter matter by perusing the 25 or so display stalls spread throughout the conference centre. During the course of the day, over 1000 guests strolled through the Bangabandhu International Conference Centre and took part in the following activities:

• Speeches by DFID’s Jim McAlpine, Finance Minister AMA Muhith, Rehman Sobhan, Speaker Md. Abdul Hamid, Agriculture Minister Matia Chowdhury, Robert D. Kaplan and a public dialogue between 4 key stakeholders (donor, government, private sector, extreme poor).
• Video participation from Jeffrey Sachs and Amartya Sen.
• 4 separate breakout sessions chaired by Joe Devine & Geoff Wood, Atiq Rahman, Imran Matin and Zulfiqar Ali.
• Screening of shiree’s “On a Thread” documentary.
• NGO mela to highlight shiree’s scale fund partners and other extreme poverty programmes operating in Bangladesh.
• Handicraft mela showcasing goods produced by poor and extreme poor beneficiaries.

The day led to two visible and direct outcomes that were announced by the Speaker of the Parliament during the event’s closing ceremony:

• The announcement of the formation of an All Party Parliamentary Group on Extreme Poverty.
• The launch of a shiree-facilitated State of Extreme Poverty Report, an annual document that will assess government and society’s progress towards the eradication of extreme poverty in Bangladesh.

Extreme Poverty Eradication Day should not be seen as an annual stand-alone phenomenon. The attention and exposure the day generated must be leveraged now and our advocacy and communications efforts must continually build on event.