As a land of extreme rural poverty and illiteracy, Bangladesh needs to consciously promote, develop, and support local institutions and participatory leadership, involving local people in the planning, development, and implementation of developmental policies. Begun in 1959, the Comilla experiment constitutes the rationale for institutional planning, emphasizing local planning participation via local organizations, governments, and co-operatives working with governmental agencies that supply training and materials. Depending heavily upon systematized nonformal training programs, the Comilla experiment identified, trained, and educated natural rural leaders to act as change agents. Bangladesh's formal education system has traditionally emphasized the humanities, producing"gentlemen" contemptuous of labor and virtually unskilled. As the biggest institutional framework in Bangladesh, the formal school system has a great potential for providing basic education at the primary level and for "vocationalizing" secondary education. However, the immediate needs of literacy and production suggest that Bangladesh focus upon a strategy for nonformal education that includes: multisectoral community action programs; decentralized planning and implementation; a national policy to coordinate activities; integrated development; self-reliant financing; maximum use of existing institutions and resources; research and evaluation; and target specific priorities. (JC).

The resilience of food systems and security to emerging challenges and threats, especially in the context of environmental and climate risks and global pandemics such as the Covid-19 crisis, is currently gaining growing importance in research, policy, and practice. Based on this, the core focus of this book, as a part of a series of CERES publications, consists of identifiying and exploring the best ways to overcome such challenges and shocks and to build resilience in the Global South. More precisely, the book analyzes current dynamics and trends related to the climate resilience of food security and assess the relevance of emerging approaches such as climate-smart agriculture, new roles of agriculture extension, smart farming, and climate adaptation of farming systems.The book includes both conceptual and empirical research reporting lessons learned from many geographical, environmental, social, and policy settings while focusing on Africa, Middle East, and Asia. It also provides research and policy-oriented inputs and recommendations to guide change processes at multiple scales.

Five years of the Integrated Rural Development Programme, government agency for community development in Bangladesh; a review of the activities from 1972-73 to 1976-77 published on the occasion of the fifth founding years.