PAC Bangladesh
Practical Action Consulting Bangladesh offers high quality and responsive development consultancy services to various clients including governments, NGOs and international agencies.
Training on Participatory Market System Development (PMSD)
Date : 17-20 October, 2016
Time : 09:30 am to 05:00 PM
Programme:
Day 1 : Basics and approaches of markets
Day 2 : Market Mapping: Basics and PMM Exercise
Day 3 : Field visit & problem solving matrix
Day 4 : Intervention design and monitoring tools
Training Venue:
Conference Hall, Practical Action Bangladesh
5th Floor, House-28/A, Road-5 Dhanmondi,
Dhaka -1205
Registration Fee: BDT 16,000/-** per participant
(equivalent to USD 200)[for non-residential only]
News and reports
Smart Villages in Bangladesh: Dhaka Workshop Report
The Smart Villages Initiative continued its engagement in South Asia with a workshop held in Dhaka, Bangladesh on 26 August 2015. The aim of the workshop was to learn from Bangladesh’s experience in providing energy to off-grid rural communities through home-based electricity systems, in particular solar home systems (SHS), and solar/solar-hybrid mini-grids. The workshop also focused on the role of these off-grid solutions to stimulate livelihood generation.
Participants in the workshop were informed about the work of the Infrastructure Development Company Limited (IDCOL), a government-owned financial institution under the Ministry of Finance, which continues to play a central role in promoting private sector financing in the infrastructure and renewable energy sector. Funding for the company comes from a number of stakeholders including the Government of Bangladesh and international donors. IDCOL works with partner organisations that are involved in the sale, installation, and maintenance of solar home systems. The company has also supported the installation of solar mini-grids for remote off-grid communities in the country.
Bangladesh has one of the highest rates of installation of solar home systems in the world, however, there are a number of challenges to the continued sustainability of these systems in the country, including: developing a competitive low-cost solar home system manufacturing industry locally to reduce dependence on imports, developing and ensuring quality standards for these systems, and creating more sustainable business models. For solar mini-grids, challenges that emerge from the discussion include continued government support for mini-grids in areas where there is no grid expansion planned for the foreseeable future, financial barriers, and affordable tariffs for rural consumers.
Despite the challenges, there are a number of opportunities to further develop the off-grid energy sector. Innovations like solar DC nano-grids can help the development of a truly bottom-up electricity system that is controlled and operated by local communities. The productive use of electricity can be promoted in areas where there are solar mini-grids. This can have a positive impact on local income generation in these areas. There are also opportunities to develop alternate sources of power generation including through biogas systems that use locally available biomass.
Source : http://e4sv.org
Practical Action, Bangladesh
House 28/A, Road-5
Dhanmondi, Dhaka - 1205
Ishrat Shabnam, PAC Bangladesh Manager
Ishrat Shabnam is a Civil Engineer (BSc from BUET) with an MBA (Dhaka University). She brings with her 9 year experience of working in different fields including multinational companies such as Grameenphone, Central Bank of Bangladesh, World Bank but also international NGO (Christian Aid). She has developed her expertise in a range of areas from foreign exchange policy, energy sector in Bangladesh, public-private partnership, gender, governance, social exclusion, e-commerce and pro-poor market development. In every role, Shabnam has developed and implemented a communication strategy for the organization with internal and external stakeholders. With Christian Aid, she has successfully developed and delivered programmes funded by European Commission, DFID and Scottish Government. Shabnam has immense interest in research and mapping and she has co-authored a number of publications in Christian Aid mostly on issues of livelihood, gender and social exclusion.
Muntazera Khan, PAC Bangladesh Consultant
Muntazera Khan completed her Undergrad in Environmental Science and Management from North South University. Currently, she is pursuing her Masters at North South University where she has dedicated a considerable amount of time researching on Climate Change Mitigation Policies of Bangladesh. Before joining Practical Action, Muntazera worked at Water Aid as an intern and also as a Program Officer. Muntazera’s knowledge and key expertise include areas like Climate Change, Women and Gender Issues, Sustainable Development and Urban Environmental Management. Muntazera developed many of her skills working at Water Aid which included quality paper writing, research papers, project reports and project writing. Muntazera has a lot of interest in doing meaningful development work and research in the coming years.