Economic Empowerment of the Poorest Challenge Fund (EEP)
The Economic Empowerment of the Poorest programme is a £65 million challenge fund designed to channel DFID funding to the NGO sector in Bangladesh, lift one million people out of poverty, and help the government of Bangladesh achieve Millennium Development Goals 1 and 2 by 2015. Harewelle International, with the support of its local subsidiary, PMTC Bangladesh, is providing a team of 1 long term international and 10 technical local staff (in fields such as finance and administration, management information systems, and media and communications), plus additional project support staff.
As a challenge fund EEP is responsible for the disbursement of considerable amounts of money through the allocation of competitive grants, and as such, takes into consideration financial accountability and transparency both within EEP and the organisations it funds. The management team within EEP have established a comprehensive management and due diligence system to effectively monitor how EEP grants are spent, managed and implemented. Specifically, the management team reports to a Challenge Fund Board, containing representatives from the Government of Bangladesh and DFID, Bangladesh. The team manages the process of soliciting and assessing proposals for small and large scale grants from NGO's (including micro-finance organisations) through 3 separate competitive tendering streams;
- A Large Scale Fund;
- An Innovation Fund; and
- A Lesson Learning and Research Fund
The nature of extreme poverty in Bangladesh means that the main concentration of EEP’s work is in rural areas. The extreme poor are asset less groups, who are often reliant on seasonal manual work and are often the worse hit by the effects of Monga. By helping the very poorest people in society to improve their economic situation, it not only directly benefits themselves but also local economies and businesses, which in turn will stimulate further economic growth. EEP recognises that it is women and children who are often the worst affected by extreme poverty and therefore special attention is being made to support projects that are gender sensitive. EEP is providing substantial funding for these projects and by making sure that the funds reach the beneficiaries it will give a massive stimulus to rural development in Bangladesh.
By channelling funds through NGOs and their existing programmes, EEP will provide significant economic stimulus to targeted communities, which in turn will strengthen local economies. This process is being carefully managed by the project management team who are working with the participating NGOs to ensure that this investment meets the needs of the beneficiaries. This process will incorporate both direct asset and financial transfers, which will help establish the foundations for sustainable and long-term economic development. The financial stimulus that EEP offers is considerable, and it is estimated that it will benefit 5 million people directly and indirectly.
The Management team will be responsible for monitoring and evaluating progress of all funded projects. It will give priority to lesson-learning, communications and experience-sharing across the Government of Bangladesh portfolio for the extreme poor, and with other development programmes. In addition, it will jointly develop a framework to ensure that a multi-dimensional understanding of extreme poverty is fully developed both in the Challenge Fund itself and externally. By providing this support EEP is helping to establish long term sustainable improvements to the way in which development organisations undertake programme management in Bangladesh, ensuring that those in need receive the support that they need.
EEP is an economic development programme, and its main purpose is to stimulate long-term sustainable economic development for some of the poorest sections of Bangladeshi society. Working through implementation partners, EEP is providing the investment, the training and the confidence to stimulate economic growth and create new jobs, particularly in rural areas. Rural job creation will have a major impact on reducing extreme poverty and will help reduce factors that lead to urbanisation. (2008 - 2016)
Specific information regarding programme developments and news can be found on the EEP website:
