The Core Program

In all areas of its development projects, COAST implements a concept of core programs, the appropriate blending of micro finance, institution building, good governance and development education. The concept has been developed on two premises:

1. The organization will not develop any service which is available among state agencies at local level, rather the organization will mobilize the poor to put and mediate their legitimate claim on those agencies, aiming to facilitate the promotion of responsive and accountable operation.

2. All the components of these core programs will run from the income generated by a progressive, people-centered micro finance operation.

The concept has been developed and tested since 1995. There are sets of sustainable indexes being used for the entire project; so that in the course of time, project management will graduate from the operational dependency of external funding (e.g. at the end of a period of 18 months, units are fully operationally sustainable).

Micro Finance

COAST is not minimalist in its micro finance (MF) programs. The organization does not exclusively support income enhancement leading to greater empowerment. It has a set of policy directions in this regard, entitled "Giving Human Face in Micro Finance". These are:

I. MF programs should be tailored to provide greater contribution to poverty reduction and social welfare.

II. MF is not only a service; it is a socially responsible business.

III. MF programs must be appropriated to livelihood activities of the locality.

IV. MF programs should be part of a holistic approach of empowering people i.e., facilitating capacity on realization of their rights as active citizens.

V. The poor should have savings for their own capital accumulation and also to meet the expenses during crisis period.

VI. MF management should be transparent, accountable and participatory - especially to its clients.

VII. There should not be any compromises with respect to maintaining standard professionalism in MF management.

Good Governance

The human rights and governance programs in COAST have several components:

I. Awareness and mobilization on Democracy, human rights and reform agenda

II. Social mobilization to mediate legitimate demands of the poor

III. Facilitating access to the local government

IV. Institutionalizing democracy

V. Advocacy for policy and behavioral changes (to minimize gaps between policy declaration and policy implementation especially of the state agencies)

VI. Networking between fellow local NGOs to take position on pro-poor issues at a national to generate influence

Institution Building

Institutional building is carried out in the formation of Peoples Organizations (PO), and leadership development among the poor at different levels - groups, Union, Upazila, project and central management of COAST. The POs are not only social mobilizers for legitimate demand mediation, they also operate in areas of participation and consultation within the management of the programs and organization. POs participation in organizational matters has been systematically integrated.

Development Education

There are weekly sensitizing lessons within the groups as part of the development education program. This has been prepared in view of functional and program objectives, and the lessons are also integrated to provide space for practicing literacy by the newly literate member participants.

Non-Core Programs

Non-core programs are a set of need responsive programs that provide customized support towards sustainable development issues within the project areas. The programs operate either on part cost recovery basis or are fully supported by external funding. COAST emphasizes on cost recovery and gradual diminishing of external dependency.

The non-core programs are:

1. Nutrition Incomes and Food Security (NIFS)
2. Education
3. Disaster Management
4. Community Health Care
5. Self Sustained Embankment Maintenance Project (SEMPP)
6. Promotion of Appropriate Rural Technology
7. Adarsha Gram Project

1. Nutrition Incomes and Food Security (NIFS).

During 1995, around 40% of the Revolving Credit Fund was found to be overdue in bad debt. We realized that the reason for the bad debt, along with loans, is there was no input for income capacity building. Taking this into consideration, a separate section has been opened with the view to raising the family income, centering on agriculture, fisheries, poultry and livestock farming at the household level. Since then, bilateral donor supported programs on different agricultural activities have been implemented in COAST program areas.

By integrating experiences from the donor-supported projects, we have developed an integrated agricultural project, NIFS. NIFS works on raising a family’s income, nutritional intake at household level - particularly for pregnant mothers and children below 5, and also on preservation of soil fertility, maintaining ecological stability and coastal bio-diversity. It also helps to establish moral economy through the practice of value-based farming rather than dependence on commercial markets.

2. Education

COAST emphasizes support to community initiatives on education, so that in stages the local education institutions are solely run by the government. In Bhola, 25 such schools have been taken over by the government so far, and in COAST supported projects around 10 schools. There is also a pilot project on promoting community accountability for quality education, which will become part of the governance program, working to integrate mainstream education in religious educational institutions.

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3. Disaster Management

Disaster is a regular phenomenon in the coastal areas of Bangladesh, particularly the southeast and south central coast. COAST has played a role in relief and rehabilitation activities in the aftermath of the ' 91, '95, '97 cyclones. Almost all the COAST staff and member participants are well adapted to disaster preparedness and management activities since majority of the staff, including the executive director, come from disaster-prone coastal districts. This helps the organization when taking appropriate measures in disaster management and preparedness activities.

In principle, we are facilitating the community to build sustainable disaster response and disaster mitigation capacities so that they can face the problems independently, rather than relying on external relief and rehabilitation support only. In this regard COAST has taken three strategies:

1. Fund creation and policy for its use
2. Integration of disaster response activities in core program
3. Emergency response strategy, i.e. community awareness and capacity building

4. Community Health Care Services

Through the long years of development effort, both of ActionAid and COAST, we have achieved several tangible successes in the health care approach at the community level. However, in the coastal areas, the mortality of pregnant mothers and children is higher compared to the national average. The remote localities are difficult to access for government and private health care services.

Taking the geographical limitations into consideration, COAST has launched a new approach of community health care services to the outreach islands. In this regard, women who will stay permanently in their locality are given training on essential health care services and render low paid service support to the community. COAST has also developed satellite clinics in several islands and a central diagnostic center. The center has expert doctors available to treat complex illnesses. In the long run, we have plans to establish a well-equipped hospital near by Bhola district.

5. Sustainable Embankment Maintenance through Promoting Settlers’ Rights

Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB) has constructed a total of 10,000–km embankments to reduce the vulnerability of coastal areas to flooding, tidal surge and salinity intrusion. Building embankments and flood control gates involves a huge expenditure, and just maintaining 1 KM of embankment each year costs BWDB 15,000Taka.

The government was looking for an embankment maintenance approach that lowers costs and is sustainable. To integrate peoples’ participation into embankment maintenance and to rehabilitate the existing settlers, a technical team of Euro Consult and BETS, with the assistance BhIP-II and BWDB, conducted a study in Bhola. The study investigated the causes and nature of problems of the settlers, and recommended a few experimental projects. Based on their recommendations, an experimental project entitled ‘ Self- Sustained Embankment Maintenance Pilot Project (SEMPP) was under taken for one and half years, with the consideration that SEMPP might be expanded later based upon the project evaluation.

COAST piloted this project at 119-128 km point in CharManika in the southern coastal belt of Bhola Island from June 1996 to December 1997. During the project period, a total of 480 families were involved as the project beneficiaries. Each family was responsible for routine maintenance on specific portions of the embankment; in return the BWDB-owned land was leased in their favour for agriculture and aquaculture. Through this project the government not only saved much money, the socio-economic condition of the settlers also improved.

External support of this project has been withdrawn from December 1997, but COAST continues the following activities from its own micro finance income:

o Training on different IGAs and social development issues
o Micro finance operation
o Support in legal affairs
o Support to 10 NFPE schools
o Fish culture and tree plantation

6. Promotion of Appropriate Rural Technology

Coastal areas are endowed with plenty of natural resources, but they are vulnerable to frequent natural disasters. COAST has developed several projects to improve peoples' capacity and coping strategy basing on the resources they have.

The projects are:

a) Promotion of solar electrification system to generate power.
b) Introduction of appropriate housing technology, combining existing research and peoples' ideas, which are more durable even in natural disasters.
c) Introduction and popularization of an improved stove, to reduce amount of firewood used.

It is a continuous endeavor of COAST to integrate appropriate technology into its regular programs, in order to build peoples' capacity in disaster mitigation and eco-friendly livelihood development.

7. Adarsha Gram Project

Introduction of Adarsha Gram Project
In 26th November- 1998, an agreement was signed between the Ministry of Land, Govt. of Bangladesh and European Commission (EC Project# No ALA 97/411) in order to rehabilitant landless and homeless. After the agreement housing project started in the government khasland with the financial assistance from European Commission. The first phase of the project stated with establishment of infrastructure, while second phase is working for socio-economic development of the stakeholders through NGOs. As a part of the second phase program, an agreement is signed amount the EC, Govt. of Bangladesh and COAST Trust on November 2004. The main objectives of the second phase program are: ensuring housing for landless and homeless, knowledge and skill development, and to make them as self-reliant community through income generating program.

Present situation of Adarsha Gram Project
With the objectives of joint collaboration of the Ministry of Land of Bangladesh Government and European Commission, COAST Trust has been implementing the program for developing 4763 families in 84 Adarsha Grams (AGs) in Bhola district, since November- 2004. While started implementing the second phase program, it was found that AGs were not made as per the plan. In stead of Govt. Khasland, some housing were sporadically made in the personally owned land of the people. Community centers are still to be made in 38 Adarsha Grams. Additional land is not there in the houses for IGA implementation. Most of the families were found to be not intersted in self initiatives but relief dependant. Therefore, COAST Trust believes that livelihood condition of the AG members can be enhanced through training them on IGA and imparting them into credit program. This may also lead to the sustainability of the project.

Activities of the AGP-II

-                      Adarsha Gram Baseline study survey

-                      Group formation and awareness rising

-                      Participatory Rural Appraisal

-                      Assessment of Training needs, Preparation of Training needs, and Training to the Beneficiaries

-                      Leadership Training

-                      Establishment of Savings schemes

-                      Adult and Child Literacy

-                      Tree plantation and environmental protection

-                      Family planning, health protection, nutrition, mother and child care, and immunization

-                      Women in development

-                      Mainstreaming the settlers

-                      Cultural and sports activities

-                      Preparation of Adarsha Gram Training Plan/ Module for skill development and income generating activities,

-                      Implementation of Training Plan/ Module,

-                      Micro Credit Program,

-                      Provision of Guidance to the settlers in obtaining title deeds and user rights,

-                      Upgrading and maintaining the physical condition of Adarsha Gram,

-                      Integration of the Adarsha Gram with the surrounding village and settlements

-                      Establishment of a Village Nursery

-                      Establishment of a workshop to make improve stoves