Handicap International (HI) launched their 3rd phase of Inclusive Livelihoods Project-“Taking Successful Innovation to Scale – Pathways for Disability-Inclusive Graduation out of Poverty” at Spectra Convention Centre the city on Monday.
This 4 years (2018-2022) project aims to enhance livelihood security and sustainability by graduating extreme poor households of persons with disabilities and promote access to services by providing comprehensive support to disability and livelihood, with a specific attention to women and girls along with women headed households.
This project is a continuation of HI’s inclusive poverty graduation model, part of 3rd phase, where extreme poor households are graduating to poor, above poverty level. This project is jointly funded by UK-Aid and HI with a CSR contribution by Bangladesh Steel Re-rolling Mill (BSRM).
Director General of NGO Affairs Bureau KM Abdus Salam thanked HI for implementing disability inclusive graduation project, which is also SDG of Bangladesh Government. “We must work together to improve the situation of people with disabilities by increasing access to better and more competitive, sustainable livelihood opportunities in order to eradicate the poverty from Bangladesh” -as stated by the DG, NGO AB.
He emphasized on accountability of all service providers and pledged to work closely with local government as they are the local authority to influence any policy. He again thanked Handicap International to use appropriate scientific method to select beneficiary, which is remarkable – left no disable people behind. Lastly he urged to minimize data gap in national level, he thus requested to work on policy level.
Yousuf Rafique, Lead Advisor – Development Results and Evaluation, DFID, Md. Syed Nuruddin Ahmed, Managing Director, Maxwell Stamp Ltd. honored the ceremony as special guests and Ferdaus Ara Begum, CEO, Business Initiative Leading Development (BUILD) attended as a Guest of Honor.
More than 100 personnel, both from corporate and development sector along with different donors and Disabled People’s Organization (DPO) members and both electronic and print media attended the ceremony.
