EDIAIS : Conference papers

NGOs in Bangladesh provide many services mainly in the directions of micro-credit with the view of poverty alleviation and informal education & training for human resource development. Edwards and Hulme (1996) assert that both of these two patterns of functions allow a huge mass at least to make a thought for empowerment. For the poor, particularly women, group membership of NGOs creates an extensive grassroots network and is claimed to empower them. Their new skills acquired through training and access to investment of capital from microcredit is supposed to change their status in community. Women loanees of NGOs' micro-credit programmes may use credit as a bargaining cheap to allow them access to other opportunities available through credit organisations- opprtunities to congregate to other women, to have access to skills training and functional education or health inputs (Goetz and Gupta,1996). Several Bangladeshi NGOs under Human Resource Development provides micro-credit for poverty alleviation with a view of poor women's increasing entrepreneruship in exisiting as well as new areas which are used to be seen as men's domains. The questions that need to be examined in this regard are: how these programmes help poor women to perceive them as potential entrepreneurs, how do they find the avenues in individual and community level; how far NGO group members haveplayed a role in supporting women's entrepreneurships. While dealing with these inquiries I found that in impact assessment reseach a major concern is methodolofical issues which somehow most studies didn't focus. This paper examines the issues of suitability of a quick assessment vs an in depth anthropological research regarding this issue. The paper also focuses on the problems concerning defining and identifying the indicators in impact assessment studies. Data is derived through qualitative methods including participant observation alongside focus group discussions and in depth interviews. The paper provides a critical perspective of the issue on basis of empirical evidences.

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