Journey of Steps

Steps Towards Development (Steps) is a leading multi-disciplinary national organization of Bangladesh with specialization in research, study, assessment and capacity building in relation with gender equality, human rights and good governance for supply and demand side both. Steps started its journey in 1993. Steps strive to create a better society through providing technical support to formulate policy and law, sharing result/findings of different studies and assess the project impacts, strengthening capacity of institutions, knowledge sharing in society. Its two decades of persistent efforts Steps acquired expertise and knowledge in various sectors including research, policy planning and advocacy, capacity building, different project and programme assessment from gender and rights perspective, Impact assessment considering gender and generations, different project implementations, IEC materials (Audio-visual and printing) development and organization/ institution analysis.

When it started its journey in 1993, initiated by a group of individuals motivated by the spirit of volunteerism, Steps realized that men and women do not get equal opportunities and benefits in the family, society, institutions and state. As a result, they cannot act as equal partners in development process and also personal life. As a result, women have less dignity, less participation in decision making process and cannot practice their rights in personal private and public life.

Steps also found that different sectors institution were not aware and sensitive to gender equality in its services and initiatives. For that very reason Steps started to work to sensitize human resource on gender and inclusive approach based on rights and good governance perspective. Before developing capacity building strategy of any institution/ organization Steps did study and assessment to identify the gaps and supportive existing practice related with gender conducive environment to suggest required inputs for improvement in this regard.

In the long journey of Steps Towards Development did conduct a number of studies, research, impact evaluation, in-depth monitoring, capacity building, awareness campaign, and assessment with various govt. and other agencies in the field of Education, Women Empowerment, Women in ICT, Health and Family Planning, Socio-Economic development, Infrastructure development, local governance, Climate Change, Disaster Management, Micro Finance and Entrepreneurship, Rural development, Agriculture and Information technology. Steps has allied with various mainstream human rights organizations as well as international human rights treaties and conventions like CEDAW, UPR, and Beijing PFA. It involved with various campaign and advocacy initiatives along with others to achieve national target including Sustainable Development Goal (SDG).