Tags: Chars, development, settlement, coastal area
Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna Delta's "Chars", born of river sediments, offers land but not much else. With the absence of government, local power holders take advantage of residents. Surrounded by water and battling floods, they struggle for basic needs like education, healthcare, and clean water, making them among Bangladesh's most vulnerable groups.
To reduce the vulnerability faced in the char areas, the government initiated the Land Reclamation Project (LRP) implemented by the Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB) during 1979-91 with grant support from the Government of the Netherlands. Since 1994, the Char Development and Settlement Project (CDSP) has been initiated to improve life in the Char areas. Phases I, II, and III laid the groundwork, funded by grants from the Netherlands and Bangladesh. Building on this foundation, phase IV was brought in with the help of financial support from the United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). A bridging phase was underway until 2024, focusing on sustaining the benefits for 57,000 households (over 500,000 people) across 22 of the islands involved in earlier phases. The Project is a multi-agency collaboration under the leadership of the Bangladesh Water Development Board.
Learn more about CDSP from here.
To comprehensively evaluate CDSP's developmental outcomes and inform future initiatives, an ex-post impact assessment is being conducted, guided by IFAD's Development Effect Framework. This assessment will provide evidence on how CDSP is helping Bangladesh achieve its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially in reducing poverty (SDG1) and hunger (SDG2).
CDSP IV was implemented in two phases: the first term from 2010 to 2018, and the second, known as CDSP-Bridging (CDSP-B) or additional Finance (CDSP-AF), from 2019 to June 30, 2024. CDSP-B revisited some of the original islands from CDSP I, II, and III, and also invested in infrastructure on islands planned for a future CDSP-V. This means some communities have benefited from the CDSP for a long time, while others have received shorter-term support through CDSP-B.
The main target chars in CDSP-IV were Char Nangulia, Noler Char, Caring Char, Urir Char, and Char Zianuddin. However, Caring Char has since been lost to erosion, with its residents relocating elsewhere. This highlights the significant land loss happening each year, with approximately 32 square kilometers disappearing due to erosion.
Figure 1. Map of CDSP-IV chars (in color)
CDSP IV focused its activities on the development of five new chars: Char Nangulia, Noler Char and Caring Char (these three chars are contiguous to each other), Urir Char (an island) and Char Ziauddin (on the mainland but not contiguous with the other chars). The total extent of these chars was around 30,000 ha, with an estimated population of 155,000 in 28,000 households.
The CDSP-IV project aimed to help everyone living on the five selected "Chars." All residents benefited from improved flood protection, better drainage, new roads, clean water sources, cyclone shelters, and other essential infrastructure investments. Within these communities, the project also focused on providing extra support to vulnerable groups, including:
CDSP-IV had five main components:
To measure CDSP-IV's impact, a statistical method (Inverse Probability Weighted Regression Adjustment - IPWRA) is used to account for pre-existing differences and estimate the project's true effect on economic outcomes, through a comparison of participating households to similar households on nearby islands.
Evaluating the impact of CDSP-IV was difficult due to finding a suitable comparison group as the project reached most households on its target islands. Furthermore, many nearby islands had already benefited from the earlier CDSP projects, making it harder to isolate the unique effects of CDSP-IV.
To create a "treatment" group of project participants, the study combines data from two surveys conducted during CDSP-IV and its "Bridging" phase, focusing on areas where the project was active. Data from Caring Char were removed because it has largely eroded. To ensure manageable data collection, the number of households surveyed in each somaj (in Bangladesh, a somaj is a traditional, informal social community where members share a similar mindset and values) was capped at 20. This resulted in a treatment sample of 1,011 households across 61 villages, with about 28.5% located in areas that also participated in earlier CDSP projects. To address potential issues with sample size and over-representation of certain areas, the study plans to oversample initially, develop weights based on project data, and analyze results separately for the CDSP-IV group and the overall sample.
The initial plan is to use somaj in areas planned for CDSP-V as a control group.
The study team conducted a structured approach to assess the impact of the Char Development and Settlement Project IV (CDSP-IV) through a series of surveys. The process included a listing survey, a pilot survey, and the main impact assessment survey.
The listing survey (25 November 2024 – 6 December 2024) covered 80 Somajs (traditional social communities) across the project areas, with at least 25 households per Somaj. The team worked closely with Somaj Prodhans to gain permission and ensure accurate listing, ultimately capturing data on 2,580 households in total.
Following the listing, a pilot survey was carried out from 29 December 2024 to 04 January 2025 with 44 households across two Somajs to test the survey tools and refine the approach. While 4 households could not be surveyed, 40 successful surveys were completed, providing critical insights into survey flow and areas for improvement.
The Impact Assessment Survey was the main phase, starting on 21 January 2025 and ending on 18 March 2025, with a target of 2,000 household surveys, aiming for at least 20 surveys per Somaj. In total, 68 Somaj Prodhan surveys were also conducted. Some challenges were faced in the completion of surveys in three Somajs, with 20 surveys remaining incomplete. These gaps were addressed by conducting additional surveys in other Somajs. By the end of the survey period, 2,002 household surveys were completed. Each household survey took approximately 2-3 hours and included detailed questions regarding the project's impact. The team used insights from the pilot survey to streamline data collection, ensuring that the survey reached the necessary households and provided reliable data for the project evaluation.