Implication of Employment Generation Programme for the Poorest (EGPP) to Reduce Disaster and Gender Vulnerability

Abstract

A critical aspect of the study is the selection of districts and upazilas, so that they are representative of the universe and provide a good data base. Though Bangladesh is a small country in size, it is not homogeneous. There are plain land, hilly areas, coastal belts, char and haor areas, etc. Some of the districts are affected by Aila/Sidre (vulnerable to frequent cyclone/tidal bore), some are flood prone and affected by river erosion, while some districts have problems of water logging for a significant part of the year. As a result, poverty level varies by district and even by upazila within the same district. Prior to sampling, the domain of sampling was assessed on the basis of hydro-geological properties of the districts-i.e. districts in the coastal belt region, presence of hilly areas vis-à-vis low laying watershed areas. All these factors are likely to have direct influence on livelihood of people of the area. The study covered 20 districts. In each district, the sampling frame comprised one upazila and two unions. Thus, a total of 20 upazilas and 40 unions from the 20 sample districts were covered. Evaluating the true impact a program requires drawing a representative sample of treatment and control groups. In order to be able to assess the impact of the program on the beneficiaries, we have also covered respondents from ‘non-beneficiary group’. The purpose of this filtering is to net out the true impact of the EGPP on the beneficiaries. From each union 50 beneficiaries and 20 non-beneficiaries were interviewed. The control groups/ non-beneficiaries were selected in such a way that they belong to similar socio-economic category as that of the program beneficiaries, but having no involvement with EGPP program. Thus, in the process of covering 20 upazilas and 40 unions, we have interviewed 2000 beneficiaries and 800 non- beneficiaries.