Social Assessment Maximizing Inclusion of Indigenous Beneficiaries

1. Within Bangladesh, there are more than 45 distinct indigenous communities (Adivasis). Though exact figures are not known due to insufficient identifiers in the population census, there are approximately 2 to 3 million indigenous people in Bangladesh. The largest concentration is in the Chittagong Hill Tracts but other areas in which these communities live include Chittagong, greater Mymensingh, greater Rajshahi, greater Sylhet, Patuakhali and Barguna. Indigenous peoples mainly live in remote hills and forest areas. Indigenous people are some of the most disadvantaged and vulnerable people in the country. While the incidence of vulnerability and socio-economic isolation is so high among this group, the Government does not have any systematic development strategy targeted to the needs of indigenous people.

2. Out of the 121 upazilas in the Bank-funded project area under FSSAP-II (which will be the same project areas funded under the new stipend project), only 19 upazilas have indigenous households. Out of the total population of about 36 million in the 121 project upazilas, the indigenous population is about one percent. Thus, most of the project area is outside of the major indigenous population settlements. Despite this fact, the project will take key measures to maximize benefits to indigenous children that make up for about 2 percent of the total secondary school enrolments. As seen in table 1 below, the share of students from tribal indigenous households is 1.6 percent among the girls and 2.9 percent among the boys.

Table 1: Tribal Indigenous and Total Enrolments in Secondary Schools in 19 upazilas

Upazila	Girls			Boys
	Tribal	Total	Tribal %	Tribal	Total	Tribal %
Moheshkhali	13	7,704	0.2%	16	4,362	0.4%
Teknaf	15	2,618	0.6%	74	2,418	3.1%
Fulbaria	5	17,978	0.0%		14,137	0.0%
Haluaghat	385	7,666	5.0%	793	6,643	11.9%
Durgapur	377	5,701	6.6%	370	3,034	12.2%
Kalmakanda	237	4,964	4.8%	417	4,464	9.3%
Nalitabari	39	6,470	0.6%	98	4,582	2.1%
Kaharole	28	6,601	0.4%	92	9,790	0.9%
Kalai	5	6,337	0.1%	10	5,222	0.2%
Manda	91	14,973	0.6%	65	17,112	0.4%
Tetulia	3	5,639	0.1%		4,014	0.0%
Godagari	748	13,570	5.5%	624	11,077	5.6%
Tanore	123	10,136	1.2%	96	9,227	1.0%
Gangachhara	9	10,394	0.1%		7,373	0.0%
Kamalganj	145	7,264	2.0%	18	6,472	0.3%
Dharampasha	27	3,228	0.8%	849	3,503	24.2%
Dowarabazar	2	3,306	0.1%	38	3,087	1.2%
Companiganj	13	1,649	0.8%	9	1,968	0.5%
Gowainghat	8	4,364	0.2%	21	4,186	0.5%
Total	2,273	140,562	1.6%	3,590	122,671	2.9%

Implementation Action Plan for Greater Inclusion of Indigenous Children.

3. Poverty-targeting will be at the core of the new stipend project. The poverty-targeting mechanism will include: a) proxy-means testing (PMT); and b) selection of poor households by the community. While PMT will help to ensure that the poverty targeting is based on transparent criterion reflecting the actual asset-base of households, having room for community-based identification of the poor allows for flexibility to further include poor and ultra-poor households which are know to the community.

4. Most of the indigenous families are poor. Provision of stipends and other incentives, such as support for buying books, for students may help to overcome some of the financial obstacles and encourage them to attend classes. The student application form will include a field for whether or not the child is from an indigenous household. All indigenous households with secondary school going age children, who apply for the stipend, will be eligible for the award regardless of their poverty status, provided they meet the required educational criteria. In order to ensure a culturally sensible environment for indigenous applicants, representatives from the indigenous community will be facilitating the application process by being present at the application booths.

5. A study on facilitating access of indigenous children to the stipend program was commissioned to an expert consultant of indigenous affairs (and General Secretary for the Indigenous Peoples Forum of Bangladesh), who worked in consultation with key stakeholders and institutions. The report identified several indigenous people’s concerns regarding sending their children to schools, as well as bottlenecks in access and service delivery, and limitations on recruiting of indigenous teachers. On the basis of suggestions and recommendations made in that report, and emerging from the consultative process that underpins it, the project will implement the following measures to ensure compliance with OP 4.10:

6. A consultation and awareness raising program targeting indigenous households.

A. General Awareness Raising Campaign: This will include (a) specific messages about the inclusion of indigenous children in the program, and (b) sensitization campaign aimed at the general local population to exercise acceptance and reduce discriminatory biases.

B. Targeted Consultation/Awareness raising among specific groups: This will include holding information dissemination and discussions with:

i) Elders, and parents of prospective indigenous students to:

a) Inform them about the benefits of the program through dissemination of project information;

b) Allay their fears regarding discrimination in the selection process by informing them about the eligibility of all indigenous children;

c) Discuss their concerns regarding discrimination in schools and other barriers to access;

d) Demonstrate how secondary schooling paves the path to attaining higher education, better jobs etc. by upholding exemplary cases, presenting outcomes of successful programs abroad.

ii) Women and mothers of prospective students, to:

a) Inform them about the empowering affects of attaining secondary level certificate by demonstrating successful case studies;

b) Sensitize them about girl’s attendance of secondary schools by using female indigenous leaders, educationists as key presenters;

c) Demonstrate the drawbacks of early marriages by presenting the findings of relevant studies;

d) Establish a “drop-box” through which women can anonymously let their queries, concerns, suggestions etc be known;

e) Encourage them to discuss their specific concerns with local elected officials, particularly female ward members, who can then convey those messages to school management committees;

f) Encourage them to get more involved with PTAs.

iii) Social and religious indigenous institutions and traditional authorities to:

a) Understand social and religious norms relating to attitudes about allowing children to attend secondary school, especially with regards to girls through discussions with these groups separately and then together;

b) Find commonalities between their aspirations and the objectives of the program, and build on those through an on-going process of consultation;

c) Find ways to more effectively and meaningfully reach indigenous throughout the duration of the project.

iv) Teachers (indigenous and non-indigenous), to:

a) Sensitize non-indigenous teachers to the concerns and apprehensions of indigenous through open discussions;

b) Elicit information and build on the experiences of indigenous teachers for project design, monitoring and implementation.

The Consultation will be in keeping with the cultural sensitivities, religious and societal norms of indigenous; appropriate language and approaches will be used to tailor the messages to address indigenous audiences and stakeholders.

7. Application Booths to register all Indigenous Children as Eligible

The PMT administrator will ensure that all application booth representatives are given the unambiguous directive that they have to certify eligibility to all indigenous applicants. Furthermore, booth representatives should devote particular attention towards assisting indigenous applicants in filling out all necessary forms and ensure that they are given appropriate information on how to follow-up with the application process (e.g., where the eligibility list will be published, when to register the child in school, etc).

8. Recruitment of indigenous teachers and teaching aide