BANGLADESH: Overview
Bangladesh Overview | Current Projects | Publications | Feature Stories
 Extensive Experience
Pathfinder has been a leader in the reproductive health and family planning movement in Bangladesh since the early 1950s. Since that time, through more than 30 projects, Pathfinder has played a key role in helping Bangladesh develop and integrate its national family planning and maternal-child health programs, reach underserved populations, improve quality of services, and build the capacity of more than 60 Bangladeshi partner NGOs. During this time, population growth and total fertility have decreased by half, leading to improved health outcomes for families in Bangladesh.
Current Conditions
Despite the successes in reducing total fertility, Bangladesh remains one of the most densely populated countries in the world. With more than 2,500 people per square mile, many Bangladeshis are landless or forced to live on, and cultivate, flood-prone land. About a third of the country floods annually during the monsoon rainy season, hampering development efforts. Bangladesh is also currently experiencing a nationwide shortage of trained health personnel with one doctor for every 5,530 people. Access is further restricted because more than 30 percent of doctors and nurses are located in the urban districts, which are home to only 14.5 percent of the population.
Pathfinder supports major reproductive health and family planning projects with a particular focus on:
Through these varied projects in reproductive health and family planning, Pathfinder continues to lead improvements in health services for Bangladeshi women and families.
Current and Recent Projects in Bangladesh
Mayer Shasthya (Mother’s Health): A one-year community-based intervention to address postpartum hemorrhage and save mother’s lives in rural Bangladesh.
Grameenphone Safe Motherhood and Infant Care Project: In 2007, Pathfinder began work focused on reducing maternal and infant deaths and enhancing accessibility to and awareness of services for the poorest of the poor in Bangladesh.
The NGO Service Delivery Program: Beginning in 2002, Pathfinder was the lead partner in the USAID-funded NGO Service Delivery Program (NSDP), which worked to enhance the quality of essential services provided by NGOs at the clinic and community level. NSDP partnered with 35 NGO’s whose 318 “Smiling Sun” clinics continue to work in both remote rural areas and urban slums to offer a range of essential health care services to more than 20 million people.
Raising the age of Marriage for Young Girls in Bangladesh: From 2003 to 2006, Pathfinder administered a project designed to raise the age of marriage for girls, primarily through an emphasis on education.
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