Collaborative Partnership

Steps is committed to build learning sharing collaboration between public institutions and civil society from local to national level for influencing policy and increasing responsiveness at practice level. Collaborative partnership among the stakeholders and different advocacy initiatives helps to influence the policy makers to work on increasing effectiveness of legislation, policies, national action plans and accountability systems to prevent and end VAW/G. Steps build collaborative partnership with different Ministries and Government mechanisms e.g. local government institutions, Local Administrations, WID sub-committee, Women Development Forum, Nari Nirjaton Protirodh Committee etc. as well as political parties and media in national at local level.

Steps has many such previous examples where it worked in local level through networking and collaborative partnership approach for building knowledge and awareness on different women human rights issues as well as link the experience at national and global level for advocacy for policy formulation, policy influence and policy change. For example, while working on birth registration, marriage registration, women’s political participation, gender responsive budgeting, sexual harassment, gender based violence and other women’s rights issues and instruments, Steps always followed these strategies and achieved commendable success.

Briefly, with the support of the networks, organizations and committed people, Steps is committed to building a system of learning collaboration from local to national level. These learning collaborations exist between and among civil society, media, service providers and community people. It required establishing collective platforms at both national and local level. These collective platforms have developed facilitators and social actors within civil society, professional groups, people’s representatives, students and women activists. At national level, it has developed collaborative partnership with MoWCA, ERD, finance, education, health and LG ministries for considering gender issues in their respective fields. At local level Steps has partnership with different service providers and govt. institutions (e.g. kazi office, health centers, schools) to make them responsive towards establishing a just society.

List of some collaborative partners Steps Towards Development worked with:

1. With Government Ministries and Institutions

    • Ministry of Women and Child Affairs (MoWCA)
    • Ministry of Education
    • Ministry of Home Affairs
    • Ministry of Local Government
    • Ministry of Social Welfare
    • Ministry of Labor and Employment
    • Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock
    • Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs
    • Ministry of Finance

2. Government institutions

    • Local Government Engineering Department (LGED)
    • Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET)
    • National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB)
    • Planning Academy
    • IMED of Planning Ministry
    • PLAGE II
    • National Institute of Population Research & Training (NIPORT)
    • IFAD EP-1
    • Directorate of Non-Formal Education (DNFE)
    • Directorate of Primary Education -DPE
    • Mymensingh Aqua Culture Extension Project, Small Enterprise Development Project
    • Birth registration District Task force
    • National Nutrition Programme (NNP)
    • Department of non-formal education
    • Department of Primary Education
    • Bangladesh Public Administration Training Centre (BPATC)
    • Bangladesh Bank

3. With United Nations Bodies

    • UNICEF
    • UN Women
    • UNDP
    • UNFPA

4. With Development Partners and International organizations

    • USAID
    • ILO Bangladesh
    • Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC)
    • International Republic Institute (IRI)
    • CARE-Bangladesh
    • Action Aid-Bangladesh
    • PLAN International Bangladesh
    • Save the Children
    • OXFAM Bangladesh
    • World Vision Bangladesh
    • VSO Bangladesh
    • DanChurchAid
    • H&M Hennes & Maurtiz AB

5. Community Organizations and NGOs

    • Steps worked with more than 120 local level NGOs and community organizations