Quiet revolution? Women’s collective empowerment and BRAC

ABSTRACT

BRAC’s focus on women and community organisations in the 1970s was lauded as bringing forth “a quiet revolution.” We explore the evolution of BRAC’s selected programs that built community forums and argue that while BRAC successfully retained its focus on women’s inclusion, its approach to collective empowerment is marked by contradictions. The shifts in funding structures that emphasised individual empowerment, the organisation’s emphasis on scaling up programs at the expense of investing in building community organisations, and the accommodation of patriarchal norms to prevent backlash from local actors – all resulted in trade-offs, limiting programming on collective empowerment.

KEYWORDS:

• Women’s collective empowerment
• social mobilisation
• Bangladesh
• BRAC

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 The interviewees were informed that data was being collected for a publication. They consented to be interviewed and quoted for publications, and their names and designations to be included in the script.

2 Case studies from three districts of achievements of CDO and women’s empowerment were also captured in a report by BIGD titled “Gender Mainstreaming in Selected Sectors: Good Practice Case Studies” which was prepared in 2019 under A 7997-REG: Strengthening Knowledge-Driven Development in South Asia (45282-001). https://bigd.bracu.ac.bd/publications/gender-mainstreaming-in-selected-sectors-good-practice-case-studies/