PROJECT DIGEST

EKTEE BARI EKTEE KHAMAR (ONE HOUSE ONE FARM) PROJECT

AN INITIATIVE FOR e-FINANCIAL INCLUSION AND POVERTY

ALLEVIATION THROUGH HOUSE HOLD FARMING

Prosanta Kumar Roy Ph.D.

Additional Secretary to the Govt. of Bangladesh
&
Project Director, One House One Farm (OHOF)

RURAL DEVELOPMENT AND COOPERATIVE DIVISION

Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development & Cooperatives
www.ebek-rdcd.gov.bd

- -1-
1. Introduction
Bangladesh is a developing country with 6-7% average GDP. It achieved
independence in 1971through a nine-month armed revolution. The Father of the
Nation, the great leader Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman dreamt the freedom of
the poor as a right to development. He dreamt for a nation where deprivation,
discrimination, and human rights violation would not be happened. Unfortunately,
before materialization of the dream, Father of the Nation was assassinated brutally.
Present government headed by Ms. Sheikh Hasina, the daughter of the father of the
nation, has introduced different safety-net programs along with specific projects for
development through utilizing human and economic potential of the society. One
House One Farm project is one of the important rural development programs for
poverty reduction through ensuring capital formation and skill development of the
poor followed by livelihood ( agro farming) which are exclusively their need based
economic activities.
2. Background of the project:
Bangladesh is opting for poverty eradication & elimination of inequalities leading to
achieve MDG-1 along with other MDGs in time. The key consideration is the
eradication of all types of poverty from the society to achieve sustainable and
equitable development. Out of 25.35 million rural households 84% households are
small farming families (0.05-2.49 acres). They are producing the lion share i.e. nearly
70% of the agricultural production of the country. The majority small households or
families in Bangladesh are ensuring food production, food security and food safety
themselves. So, the best option for Bangladesh is the optimum use of arable land
indigenously by smallholder farm families ensuring maximum food production
keeping the resources potential for future use. More investment to smallholder and
marginal farmers is now our strategic policy. From that viewpoint One House One
Farm project was taken where the investment is BDT 31620 million i.e. USD 400
million covering 2.43 million small and marginal farm households (with land 0.05 -
100.00 acres).

3. Vision & Mission of the project:

Vision:
 Poverty alleviation and sustainable development through fund
mobilization & farming
Mission:
 Assistance to capital formation of the poor farm families
 Sharpening their skill by training & motivation
 Allow them to sit together at courtyard meeting

- -2-
  Enable them to take decision independently
 Enabling them to develop need based small family farms
 Ensure marketing facilities for their product

4. Specific Objectives:

To achieve the goal, the project took the following specific objectives with precise
target and time frame to-

The specific objectives of the project are to

a. Formation of 81,000 cooperatives involving all the small & marginal farm
families by 2016
b. Ensure optimum use of local human and natural resources sustainably by 2018
c. Provide possible assistance to all smallholders in fund mobilization by 2017
d. Provide assistance to all small farmers in investment in family farming by 2018
e. Skill development and Empowerment of the poor farmers in particular the
women by 2016
f. All activities through e-financial management and cooperatives by 2016
g. Develop marketing centres at Sub-district & union level ensuring online or e-
marketing facilities for the farmers by 2018.
h. Develop food processing and cold storage facilities at sub-district level for the
producers/farmers by 2020.

5. Major activities:

Major activities under the program are:

 Selection of the poor and under privileged farm families

 Formation of cooperatives with 60 small farm families (40 female and 20 male)
 Involve them in fund mobilization through electronic device i.e. e-financial
inclusion
 Enable the poor farmers for savings BDT 200 (USD 2.50) per household per
month and the project provides the same amount BDT 200 (USD 2.50) per
month as bonus/incentive
 Provide revolving fund BDT 150,000 (USD 1920) annually to each of the
cooperatives
 Provide them training in related fields of agriculture and farming
 Enable them taking decision independently about farming & development
sitting in the evening courtyard meeting
 Enable them developing small farms according to their needs/choice

- -3-
6. Strategies and steps
The basic strategies and steps of the project implementation are:

6.1 Beneficiary selection committee:

The first strategy/step is the Committee formation for selecting beneficiaries. Upazila
Nirbahi Officer i.e. the sub-district Executive Officer commomnly known as UNO
would form a beneficiary selection committee headed by an Upazila (sub-district)
level Officer i.e. Tag officer for the Union concerned. Upazila Coordinator of the One
House One Farm Project is being working as the Member Secretary of the
committee.

Structure of the Committee

One Upazila level Officer (tag officer) - Convener
Assistant Upazila Rural Development officer - Member
Ward members of respective Union Council - Member
Family welfare Assistant of Respective ward - Member
Answer and VDP Team Leader - Member
Respective Village Police - Member
Respective Field Organizer/BRDB Field worker - Member
Concerned UCCA Field worker - Member
PDBF Field Officer/worker - Member
Upazila Co-ordinator, OHOF project - Member Secretary

6.2 Criteria for Selection of the poor smallholders:

The Second strategy/step is the selection of 60 beneficiaries (i.e. the poor family
heads) from each village forming Village Development Organization (VDO) i.e.
village cooperatives. Out of 60 members 40 would be female & 20 male as per set
criteria of the beneficiaries under the project. The priorities are:

Women headed poor household i.e. family with 0-50 decimal land.

Poor household with 0-30 decimal land.

Poor household with 0-50 decimal land.

Poor household with 0-100 decimal land in river eroded char & hilly
area.

- -4-
6.3 Selection Process:

This selection of poor and marginal farm families is being done by a committee (under
section 6.1) in an open meeting at village level in presence of all the sectoral people of
the community involving the local administration, local government representatives,
and community representatives. The selection steps are:

a. Respective Tag officer would request UNO, concerned UP chairman and

respectable persons of the village to attend such meeting.
b. This Committee in each village would convene a general meeting with all
tiers of people including peoples representatives and respectable
personalities. This committee would also explain the project in details and
thus select 60 households (including 40 female-headed families) according
to priorities.
c. With these selected families Village Development Organization (VDO)
would be formed. Interested absentee land owners of the village (maximum
3) and benevolent persons and persons in social welfare (maximum 3) could
be adviser members and honourable members respectively.
d. If any breach of principle arises regarding selection of beneficiaries the
Upazila implementation and supervising Committee would finalize it
through discussion according to rules.
e. Selection Committee would arrange a special general meeting with the
selected household heads as members. After detailed discussion an Ad hoc
Committee of Village development Organization would be formed that
would be finalized through election according to the procedure written in
the project manual. Members of the VDOs deliberately choose a chairman
either from the members or a benevolent personality of the village willing
to be the head of the Village Development Committee. There would be a
manager cum accountant and other members those would be selected or
elected by the general members according to the instruction of the project
manual. Thus a Managing Committee would be formed with 11 members as
given below:

Chairman 01
Vice-Chairman 02
Accountant / Manager 01
Members 07

f. It is mandatory, at least half of the members would be female and at least

one among Chairman, two Vice-Chairman and Accountant / Manager
would be female in the Management Committee to ensure female
participation in decision making & empowerment.

- -5-
 g. Concerned UP member and female UP member would act as adviser to the
village development organization. Two or three advisers might be included
from interested absentee land owners of the village who provide their lands
to the poor farmers for cultivation.
h. Managing Committee would be of 2 years term (in case of Ad hoc
Committee 1 year).
i. Rules and Procedures regarding Organization Management, savings, loan
sanction, repayment with instalments etc. would be supplied from the
Project which in some cases might be changed according to local
conditions. But any change therein would have to be done through
consensus of majority members in the Annual General Meeting (AGM).
This would have to be communicated duly to the project authority for final
approval.
j. After inclusion of selected members primary data, survey forms duly filled
in would have to be sent to PD through UNO concerned through online.

7. Participatory fund mobilization & micro savings instead of microcredit:

The poor farmers are suffering from a number of constraints like shortage of fund,
probably the most important problem they need to address. In this project mutual or
participatory fund mobilization through micro savings and government grants has
been introduced to encourage them in savings and establish ownership to the fund as
well. This fund mobilization is done in two major steps: self micro savings followed
by government incentives and grants as revolving fund to the organization. Thus the
mobilized fund would be their permanent capital and would be used in farming
sustainably generation after generation. So, literally this is micro savings with
ownership instead of traditional microcredit.

7.1 Micro savings and incentives from government:

After formation of the village organization, savings BDT 10-50 per week i.e. BDT 40-
200 per month per member should start sitting in the evening house meeting. The
incentives- equal/same amount of the monthly savings of the individual member but
not exceeding BDT 200 per month from the project (government) would be given i.e.
BDT 200 x 12= BDT 2400 per farm family per year. The individual annual
participatory capital would be BDT 4,800 (self-savings BDT 2400 + contribution
from government BDT 2400). Thus the individual capital would be BDT 9,600 in two
years that would be more or less BDT 10,000 with bank interest.

- -6-
7.2 Revolving fund as grant from the government:

The second fund BDT 150,000 per year would be given from government to each of
the Village Development Organization as revolving capital. This is also grant to the
poor and small farm families. This fund will be merged with their individual savings
and bonus from the government. Yearly the integrated and cumulative fund would be
BDT 450,000 (individual savings BDT 150, 000 + bonus from government BDT
150,000 + BDT 150,000 as revolving fund from the government). Thus the total
capital of the village group i.e. VDO (60 members) would be BDT 900,000 within
two years.

8. Skill development training programs:

The Chairman and Manager of each VDO would be trained up on organizational

management. Five people from the 60 members of the Village development
Organisation would be given long training on five farming livelihood activities:
agriculture, nursery, fishery, poultry and livestock activities to make them specialized
volunteers with a view to establish five exhibition farms in each village. The skilled
volunteers will provide training and assistance to other members to organize new
family farms accordingly.

9. Livelihood agro-farm selection at evening meeting:

The members should sit in the weekly and monthly village development meeting and
identify their needs for livelihood and farming activities. After identification of their
needs, each of them will apply for fund (BDT 10,000-20,000 for individual farming &
BDT 100,000- 200,000 for group farming) from the common fund (BDT 900,000) of
the Village Development Organization i.e. the cooperative. After long discussion with
different aspect of fund use and repayment to their fund the management committee in
presence of all the members approves their proposal of assisting them in family
farming. After getting fund with due approval and sanction of the project office they
will do their farming and thus each household of Bangladesh will become a unit of
agro farming activities within the next 4 years.

10. Repayment of the money to the common fund:

The fund getting as loan from the common fund of village development organization
(VDO) would be refunded to the common fund following specific instalments along
with some service charges which would be also the part of their common fund, so that
profit or benefit would be gone to the member families. Fund raise, sustainability of
fund mobilization and use of the same may be ensured in this way.

- -7-
11. Significance of the project

The One House One Farm (OHOF) project has been designed exclusively for the poor
agro farming families. The theme is that a man is poor because he has no purchasing
power (while food and essential commodities are available in the market) i.e.
inaccessibility to market due to lack of money. The person has no money because he
has no income due to lack of work as livelihood. It is thought that poverty would be
alleviated if the real poor would get the opportunity to use their potential ensuring
regular work as farming and other livelihood, if possible. The intrinsic philosophy is
that sustainable poverty alleviation may possible when sustainable livelihood through
agricultural farming would be ensured without compromising the future resource use.

From the above view point the OHOF project has been approved by the government
taking it one of the means of poverty alleviation through livelihood security using
local resources and family farming. Project people have been instructed to select the
poor and form village development organization (VDO), train them up i.e. develop
their skill and sharpening their human potential. To ensure their participation in self-
development and community development project authority allowed the poor villagers
to sit together and find their needs to maintain their livelihood. So that individual and
community farming activities will be taken by the poor people according to their
living pattern (i.e. culture, food habit and environment), expertise and profession. We
took initiative to build their capital through micro savings instead of micro credit;
government has been giving monthly incentives to them against their individual
weekly/monthly savings. In addition to that government allotted revolving fund for
them which all are grants. So the theme of the government is to

Do the participatory financial or fund mobilization with their ownership

Do the fund mobilization, if possible on-line i.e. e- financial inclusion
Use the huge human potential in production through transformation of
the unskilled and unutilized human resources to skilled assets
Ensure their participation in farming and development
Let them sit together and allow them to take decision themselves
Help them in sustainable resource use for enhance agro production

- -8-
12. Progress of the project activities:

The project was started in 2010-2011with BDT 11970 million for 9,640 villages that
scaled up to 17,300 villages with BDT 14920 million and finally the DPP has been
revised on 30-7-13 with BDT 31630 million for 40,527 villages.

12.1 The project progress under the DPP up to June 2013 was:

a. In the mean time 17,300 village development organizations (VDO) were

formed along with 1,038,000 households. 114,294 poor people were trained up
on different trades/types of agro economic farming and out of 1,038,000
households 600,000 households have developed 6,80,000 mini income
generating farms investing BDT 9000 million. All the achievements in brief are
given below:
Number of beneficiaries (smallholders) selected 1.38 million
Developed 17,300 Village Development Organizations
Savings deposited by the beneficiaries BDT 3550 million
Bonus given by the project BDT 3550 million
Grants from government BDT 6220 million
Total savings fund or capital formed BDT 13320 million
Skill development training provided to 114,000 people
Total investment BDT 9000 million for 680,000 mini family farms
Income increased BDT10,921 per household/year
Number of households under financial e-inclusion is 5.00 million

13. Frequencies of different types of Farming:

Out of 680,000 livelihood projects 28% i.e. the highest percentage is for livestock ,
27% for poultry, 14% for fisheries, 07% for kitchen gardening , 06% for nursery and
18 % for others livelihood projects (table-1).
Table-1: Livelihood farming with trade wise distribution
Investment Number of
SL. No. Farming types Percentage
(Million BDT) Family Farming
1 Fisheries 1290 92,100 14
2 Poultry 1830 182,800 27
3 Livestock 3350 186,600 28
4 Nursery 440 43,600 06
5 Kitchen 580 48,400 07
6 Others 1510 126,500 18
9000 ($115) 680,000 100
Source: Annual report of the Project

- -9-
14. e-financial inclusion & online Banking

Project with its principal objective has taken initiative for e-financial inclusion of the
poor households, the beneficiaries through electronic management. At present this e-
financial inclusion is going on in 51 districts of Bangladesh. The number of e-
financial included beneficiaries is 7.4 million and the amount of huge money has
already been transacted BDT 7700 million.

Fig-1: Dash board of e-financial transaction software

To ensure the transparency and easy management we started online financial
transaction under the project that includes the deposition and with- drawl of the
money of the poor beneficiaries. Sanction of loan and deposition of the installments
are also going online. The specialty is that each and every deposition or withdrawal of
money is communicated to the beneficiaries by SMS. In the meantime more than
1,000,000 data of the beneficiaries are inscribed online. All the official correspondents
of the project with all the districts and upazila offices have been going online i.e.
project is now running without papers; it is practically a paperless green office now.

15. Success Stories of the Project (with photographs)

15.1 betel leaf gardening changed the life of Md. Monzila Pramanik:

Monzila Pramanik is a member of One House One Farm Projects Norshinghpur

Sarbik Village Development Organization under the Bagmara Upazila of Rajshahi
district. He formed the Norshinghpur Sarbik Village Development group comprising
60 poor people of the village with the assistance of One House One Farm Project
officials. Regular savings of the members, incentive bonus from the project and post
training assistance have been the source of capital of the organization. Taking a loan

- - 10 -
amount of BDT 10,000/- from the project, he started the betel leaf garden on a 10
decimal of land. Over the time, Mr. Monzila achieved the goal of success. Now he
earns BDT 3000/- per week i.e. BDT 12000/- per month or BDT 1, 44,000/- per year
from his betel leaf garden. He can save a considerable amount of money after all
expenditures of his family.

Monzila Pramanik is in his betel leaf garden

So,he became happy with the income. He regularly saves and pays the installments of
loan. Today, Mr. Monzila leads a happy life with his two daughters and two sons. He
bought two calves, some hens and ducks. He has made a nursery beside his house
after receiving training on nursery. He has sanitary latrine and tube-well at his house.
One House One Farm Project made his life full of joy and resourceful.

15.2 Self reliant Suchitra by Banana cultivation:

Suchitra, a woman from the Darla village of Tala Upozila under Satkhira district, first
came to know about One House One Farm Project from a local Inspector of
Bangladesh Rural Development Board. She enrolled as a member of Darla Village
Development Organization and continued to remain regularly present at the Uthan
Boithaks.

Suchitra is with her banana garden

- - 11 -
Under the project she got training on social awareness, tree plantation and
vegetable cultivation. She was planning to change the wheel of her life. She
made a plan and took a loan amount of BDT 10,000/- from Darla VDO and
planted 85-90 banana trees at the outskirt of her house. Now these banana trees
are full of fruits each weighing as much as 25-30 kilos. The market price of
each bunch of banana is BDT 400-500/-. It means now she has earned about
BDT 40,000 A part from that she has cultivated egg-plant on 10 kathas of land
which is expected to return her BDT 30,000. She can learn about health care
and nutrition in the Uthan Boithaks. Her family members drink safe water from
tube-well and use sanitary latrines. Now Suchtra is a pioneer in the struggle
against poverty.

15.3 Motiur Rahman Sana is a successful farmer

Mr. Motiur Rahman Sana, a member of the Narayanpur VDO of Keshabpur
Upazila under Jessore district, received a cow from One House One Farm
Project. He along with his wife has been fostering the cow with much care. In a
year, the cow delivered a calf. So their luck began to change. The cow was
giving 10 litres of milk a day from which they earned BDT 450-500 per day.

Motiur Rahman Sana is a successful livestock farmer.

This is how Motiur earns BDT 13-15 thousand per month. This earning helped Mr.
Motiur and his family being gradually relieved from the curse of poverty. Now he is
possessing a resource of BDT 100, 000/- including the cow and the calf. His children
go to school regularly. They take healthy and nutritious food. So, Motiur Rahan
became self reliance by One House One Farm Project.
15.4 Josna Paul, a self-confident woman
Josna Paul is a member of Sanchadanga VDO of One House One Farm projects
Chowgachha Upazila under Jessore district. Her family had to pass their days in
severe poverty. After being member, she continued to save BDT 200 per month
despite hardships. They were professionally potters but it was very difficult to run the
business for want of money. Josna Paul applied for a loan amount of BDT 15,000/-
informing her problem in the Uthan Boithak (Courtyard Meeting). Members were also

- - 12 -
aware of her poverty.So they accepted her application and after details scrutiny the
UNO gave final approval to her desirous loan amount of BDT 15,000/-. With this
money her family started their specialized income generating activities like pottery to
overcome the poverty. Besides cooking utensils, they also began to make rings for
slab latrines and wells. Now she is self reliant with her family profession. She earns
BDT 4000-5000 per month that is added to her husbands income helping the poverty
alleviation. Children go to school and help their mother during free time. They have
sanitary latrine in their house. They drink safe and clean water. Now she is planning to
reconstruct her abode.

Josna Paul is seen at her pottery making unit.

15.5 Ahmed Nabi is a Successful Farmer

Ahmed Nabi is the manager of Muslimpara VDO under One House One Farm Project
at Sadar Upazila of Bandarban district. Due to fund constraint, he could not cultivate
his lands properly. This caused a continuous poverty in his family throughout the year.
He regularly saved money after having membership of One House One Farm Project.
When loan distribution started, Nabi applied for a loan amount of BDT 10,000/- for
tomato cultivation. After completion of scrutiny from project office, loan was
sanctioned after UNOs final approval.

Ahmed Nabi is happy with his successful Tomato production

- - 13 -
With this money he made effort to change his life. He planted tomato and made a
profit of BDT 16,000/- from the selling proceeds. His children go to school, take
nutritious food and use sanitary latrines. This additional income helped him improving
his familys living condition. He told that in his 60 years life none had come with such
a facility like One House One Farm Project. He took it as a blessing of the almighty.

15.6 Kalyani Tripura is now self Reliant by Turmeric cultivation:

Kalyani Tripura became the manager of South Thakurchhara VDO formed under One
House One Farm Project at the Sadar Upozila of Khagchhari district. Her husband was
a turmeric trader, so she planned to cultivate and supply him turmeric. She had her
own capital BDT 10,000/-.

Kalyani Tripura became self reliant by Turmeric farming.

She took loan BDT 10,000/- from VDO. With this total amount of BDT 20,000/- she
cultivated turmeric in between the litchi plants aging 4-5 years. She totally spent BDT
15,000/- and now she calculates that she would be able to make net profit BDT
20,000/- after all expenses. She bought two pig kids by the remaining money. She
expects to make profit BDT 10-12 thousand after 11 months when the pig kids grow
up. Now she has the savings of BDT 2,600/-. Every month she saves BDT 200/-.
Kalyani hopes after repayment of loan BDT 10,000/- she would take another loan of
BDT 20,000/- to undertake more projects. She feels very proud for being able to help
her husband economically in addition to her daily works. For this solvency, she
unhesitatingly acknowledges the contribution of One House One Farm Project, a
concept of the Honorable Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

16. Impact of the Project

A number of impacts have been made through the initiatives. Major impacts are:
a) Hassle free e-banking or on-line financial management where near about
one million women are benefited.
b) Secured capital of BDT 13320 million developed through e-financial
inclusion of the underprivileged 1.38 million households

- - 14 -
 c) More than 5 million poor people including 3.5 million women are
empowered through courtyard meeting for self decision making.
d) 680,000 family farming units have been developed by the members
investing BDT 9000 million. Out of 680,000 family farms number of
Poultry is 182,000, Livestock is 186,000, Fisheries 92,100, Nursery is
43,600, Kitchen Garden 48,400 and other farms is 126,500.
e) Huge amount of investment in rural economy has been made.
f) Agricultural production has been boosted up significantly.
g) Income increased by BDT 10,921/HH annually.
h) The number of poor households has been reduced rapidly to 3% from 15%
within two years under the project area
i) Comparatively solvent households increased up to 31% from 23% within
two years in project area

17. High lights of the Mid-term Evaluation Report:

October, 2012 government has set up 07 members inter-ministerial Mid-Term
Evaluation Committee to evaluate the project activities. Committee members
visited different areas across the country for this purposes. They visited
numbers of Village Development organizations, attended Uthan boithaks,
shared ideas with the beneficiaries and collected data in the prescribed form.
Important findings of the study are;
o 95% beneficiaries are happy with the innovative participatory fund
mobilization and online support of the project.
o 96% Beneficiaries comment that the service charge (8%) is very
reasonable.
o Loan without collateral & repayment after production is appreciated by
84% beneficiaries.
o It was found 60% beneficiaries of the project are women & most of the
income generating activities was implemented by them.
o Out of 106420 trainees 50% i.e. 52,000 are women.
o Presence of women representatives in the meeting of the VDO is
encouraging.
o Voluntary participation of the women was seen during group discussion
i.e. they can raise their voices in decision making with courage

- - 15 -
18. Specialty of the project:

This is for the first time government is giving money to the poor people and village
organization directly as grant for their primary capital to use it as revolving fund. The
second specialty, the poor are taking decision themselves i.e. development is
participatory and bottom up instead of top down approach. The 3rd specialty, the total
process of project management and fund management has been done electronically
using ICT. The savings of the poor would be done through on-line & mobile banking
system instead of manual operation. The electronically digital monitoring may reduce
both delay and corruption ensuring transparency and accountability as well. Most
interestingly, the budget for the project is BDT 31620 million while the savings
capital of the beneficiaries would be BDT 36000 million within two years i.e. 20%
higher than the proposed expenses.

19. Perception and Prospect of the Project:

Poor people are happy having the incentives for micro savings followed by the
freedom of taking decision for livelihood project sitting in the evening meeting. They
feel that none came to them with such a benevolent program in the last 40 years of
independence. They realized the benefit of micro savings. They are going to be saved
from the money lenders & NGOs loan installment and burden of charges of interest.
All these generous actions of the government initiatives got high appreciation because
of keen interest to this poverty alleviation program. Dr. Abul Barkat, a renowned
economist and Professor, Department of Economics, University of Dhaka urges to
give BDT 100,000 million to EBEK that can eradicate poverty from Bangladesh
within 5 years if it is done properly and effectively. I believe this philosophy of fund
mobilization and poverty alleviation through livelihood security would be a model for
the developing countries of the world.

- - 16 -
20. Recognition of One House One Farm project in the International arena:
One House One Farm project of the government of Bangladesh has been significantly
contributing to poverty alleviation by engaging poor people in using ICT which is
being lauded in the national and international arena. Recently, the project has been
awarded the South Asia and Asia Pacific Manthan Award 2013. On December 06,
2013 the award was handed over in the ICT Fair held in Delhi, India. 167
organizations from 36 countries participated in this two-day long fair.

Dr. Prosanta Kumar Roy, Project Director of One House One Farm project is receiving the
South Asia and Asia pacific Manthan Award 2013(insight)

One House One Farm project received the award for its contribution e-financial
inclusion and poverty alleviation for involving the poor in using ICT. Indias Foreign
Minister Mr. Salman Khurshid was present as Chief Guest in the award giving
ceremony.

21. Road Map & Future Planning of the Project:

Ektee Bari Ektee Khamar (One House One Farm) is a top prioritized family farming
& poverty reduction program financed by Government of Bangladesh. On the basis of
its significant success government chalked out a plan for expansion it to all over the
country by phase in the next 4 years (10 million poor households i.e. 50 million poor
of the country will be adressed). To continue the e-finance and e-fund mobilization
government is going to establish a specialized online Bank for the poor named Palli
Sanchoy Bank i.e. Rural Savings Bank . Self decision making and bottom up
planning will remain continue under the program as a major and important activity. In
the mean time government approved the 2nd phase of the project covering all the
wards (i.e. 40,527 villages) of all the Union parishads of the country. The projected
outcome would be as follows:

- - 17 -
 Total 40,527 Village Development Organizations would be formed by
2014.
Selected beneficiaries would be 25 million by 2014 that scaled up 50
million by 2016. Savings deposition would be BDT 10160 million by June
2016.
Bonus will be given by the project BDT 10160 million by June 2016.
Grants from government as revolving fund BDT 10940 million would be
given by June 2016
Total micro savings or capital will be formed BDT 31260 million by June
2016.
Skill development training will be provided to 250, 000 people by June
2016.
Total investment would be BDT 27000 million for 2.5 million mini farms
by June 2016.
Income will be increased BDT 35,000-40,000 per household/year within
June 2016.
Low-income family in villages would be reduced to 10% from 33% in the
project area.
Number of comparatively solvent household would be increased up to 60%
from 31% in the project area
On-line money transaction would be BDT 36000 million.
Number of households under e-financial inclusion would be 10.00 million
by June 2016.

22. Conclusion
This is a unique initiative in addition to the common help to the small farmers by the
government. Fund constraint of the poor farmers efficiently addressed in this project.
Micro savings instead of microcredit, the theme of the project is a new and
exceptional initiative. Need based investment to the family farming ensures food
production, their livelihood and income leading to poverty alleviation. If the
livelihood sustain the income would persist leading to sustainable poverty alleviation.
The vision 2021 is a mid-income nation would be achieved if the project works
properly. This will ensure their right to work and right to develop them as enshrined in
the constitution of Bangladesh. If the project OHOF can be implemented successfully,
this model would be a universal and ideal practice of poverty alleviation for the poor
across the world in particular developing countries.

- - 18 -