Highlighted Project Archive

State of the real economy: A Study on Household Economic Realities and Policy Options Towards Strengthening Economic Democracy

The State of the Real Economy project, undertaken in 2025, examines how macroeconomic pressures are translating into the everyday realities of households across Bangladesh. Commissioned by the Finance Division, Ministry of Finance, the study is based on a nationally representative survey of 8,067 households. It covers income, employment, expenditure, financial resilience, social protection, remittances, digital participation and aspirations. The findings highlight emerging vulnerabilities alongside sources of household resilience, providing evidence for policies aimed at strengthening economic security and economic democracy.

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Bridging Gaps in the Public Health System of Bangladesh: A Rapid Assessment of Expenditure Efficiency towards achieving Universal Health Coverage

The Bridging Gaps in Bangladesh’s Public Health System study was undertaken in 2025–2026 as a rapid assessment of expenditure efficiency in public health facilities, with a focus on identifying operational and financing bottlenecks affecting progress towards Universal Health Coverage. The study examined issues such as utilisation of allocated funds, availability of essential medicines and diagnostics, and the use of medical equipment within public facilities. It aimed to generate practical evidence on how existing health resources could be used more effectively to improve service delivery. The findings informed policy discussion on strengthening accountability, resource utilisation and efficiency across the public health system.

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School-Level Improvement Plan (SLIP) Effectiveness Study

PPRC’s 2025–2026 SLIP Effectiveness Study, undertaken with UNICEF Bangladesh and the Directorate of Primary Education (DPE), examined how School-Level Improvement Plan resources are planned, allocated and used in primary schools across Bangladesh. The study assessed whether SLIP is strengthening school-level planning, improving the use of resources, promoting equity and supporting greater local accountability. It also explored implementation challenges and differences in how schools translate allocated funds into practical improvements. The findings provide evidence to strengthen decentralized school management and improve the effectiveness of public spending in primary education.

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Tiny Targets Survey 2025: Tobacco Marketing and Sales Around Schools

The Tiny Targets Survey 2025 examined the tobacco retail environment surrounding schools in Bangladesh, with particular attention to the exposure of children and adolescents to tobacco products and marketing. The study covered 121 schools and 666 points of sale, assessing cigarette availability, single-stick sales, product displays and other retail practices. Findings revealed the widespread accessibility and visibility of tobacco products around educational institutions. The evidence supports stronger implementation of tobacco-control measures designed to protect children and young people from tobacco promotion and access.

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Analysis of WASH Budget Allocation and Expenditure

PPRC, in collaboration with WaterAid, has been working on a project analyzing trends in budget allocation and expenditure on Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) related projects. Secondary data on annual government WASH budget allocation was used to report on efficiency and gaps related to this issue.

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Surveillance Study for Measuring the Financial Hardship Caused by Healthcare Expenditure and the Determinants of such Expenditure in Bangladesh​

The PPRC Surveillance Study on Measuring the Financial Hardships Caused by Healthcare Expenditures was conducted during 2022–2024 to examine how healthcare costs affect households across Bangladesh and what factors drive that financial burden. Commissioned by the Health Economics Unit of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the study followed a nationally representative panel of around 10,000 households over four survey rounds covering December 2022 to November 2023. It captured direct and indirect healthcare costs, health-seeking behaviour, household economic capacity, and catastrophic health expenditure. The findings provide evidence for health financing reforms and stronger financial risk protection on Bangladesh’s path towards Universal Health Coverage.

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PPRC-UNFPA Partnership on Accelerated Realization of ICPD 3 Zeroes Agenda

PPRC has embarked on a four-year strategic advocacy partnership with UNFPA Bangladesh between 2022-2025 to generate new momentum on the 3 zeroes agenda after the Covid-19 hiatus. The ICDP25 3 Zeroes Agenda is a transformative call to action on the critical issues of UHC, women’s empowerment and fulfillment of youth potentials. Right after the Nairobi summit, Covid-19 struck and for three years the issues of the 3 Zeroes Agenda could not be addressed in earnest. To re-energize the commitment and attention, PPRC in partnership with UNFPA organized a multi-stakeholder national workshop on September, 2022 in Dhaka A set of roundtables to deepen focus and strengthen understanding and priorities on specific dimensions of each of the 3 zeroes has been planned.

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Improving The Role Of Urban Local Governments In Labor-intensive Public Works

Public works has traditionally been deployed as a strong short-term measure to counteract the economic vulnerability of the poor with the creation of community assets as an additional goal. The focus of public works has so far mostly been on rural areas. With the severe economic impact of Covid-19 on the urban poor, adoption of an urban labour-intensive public works (LIPW) programme has become an important policy option. The World Bank is supporting the Government of Bangladesh in rolling out a Covid response recovery program through urban local governments with a major emphasis on urban LIPW. PPRC had undertaken a research project to prepare appropriate guidelines for such an intervention based on primary and secondary research.

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Universal Health-Care Coverage as Social Protection: Promoting a Sustainable Agenda for Bangladesh

The project elaborated a health-care eco-system approach in which household health-care financing solutions was embedded within a broader solution package. It was a multi-component policy advocacy effort covering policy-makers, health professionals, political actors and development partners.

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Comprehensive Assessment of Social Safety Nets in Bangladesh 2010

The findings of the comprehensive study were published in two volumes: Volume 1 containing review of issues and analytical inventory and Volume 2 containing detailed assessment of ten selected programs.

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Bangladesh Urban Strategy Studies 2009-2016

A three-phase urban study to address the limitations in Bangladesh urban agenda and foster a scaled-up engagement on urban issues and enhancing the capacity of urban poverty statistics

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Bangladesh Recession Impact and Response Options Study 2009-2010

The study was undertaken to provide qualitative and quantitative assessment on direct and indirect impacts of the global economic crisis on human development outcomes, livelihoods, poverty and vulnerability in Bangladesh.

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Impact of Food Price Hike on the Poor 2009

This policy study sought to look at the impact of the food price hike of 2007-08 and identify policy responses for the future.

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Scaling up Comprehensive Monga Mitigation: Research Study of Four Districts 2006-2007

The project produced a unique and comprehensive household and community-level data-base of the monga-affected population.

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Governance and Social Trends Study 2004-2007

The study initiated a comprehensive re-thinking on governance indicators and developed a contextually-rooted analytical framework broadening the discourse to issues of institutional, interface and civic quality. The report was published in 2007 based on national-level survey and extensive qualitative analysis in selected thematic fields. An intense participatory process was undertaken to develop the survey instruments. A total 4,530 respondents were surveyed across the country.

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Promotion of Grass-Root Research Capacity and National Advocacy on Primary Education 2004

This capacity-building and advocacy study was completed. A network of eight grass-root NGOs were trained and a national advocacy platform Shushikkha Andolon formed

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Purposive Study to Assist Poverty Analysis in PRSP 2004-2005

Panel re-survey of 62 villages and selected policy studies to assist poverty analysis in the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP)

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Study on Community Capacities and Local Governance 1997-1999

This study was of an action research nature focused on local governance. The two key components of this study were: 1) “Best practices” in local governance. 2) Development of a municipal report card

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Informal Governance and Local Development Study 1997-2003

This project included three separate studies: i) Noakhali Participatory Governance and Local Dev Project ii) Informal Governance Study iii) Study on Graam Sarker Decentralisation Strategy making

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Road Safety in Bangaldesh 2013-14

A holistic Causal Analysis on road safety to inform an appropriate advocacy strategy on safety on the road.

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PPRC-BIGD RAPID RESPONSE COVID-19 PANEL RESEARCH INITIATIVE

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh since March 2020 has seen the simultaneous unfolding of an unprecedented health and economic crisis affecting the entire society but with particularly adverse consequences for the poor and the vulnerable. Power and Participation Research Centre (PPRC) and BRAC Institute for Governance and Development (BIGD), two Dhaka-based research centres, have undertaken a large-scale household panel survey through telephonic interviews to generate real-time evidence on household-level economic realities in urban and rural Bangladesh. Five rounds of the survey were conducted and PPRC was generously supported by the World Food Program (WFP) for the third and fourth surveys.

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Rapid Gender Assessment of Road Safety

PPRC with the support of the World Bank has carried out a Rapid Gender Assessment for the proposed Bangladesh Road Safety Project. This was a qualitative study based on in-depth consultation with a wide range of stakeholders including groups of female road and transport users. Findings from the study were shared through a policy webinar in December 2021 titled “Towards a Gender-Sensitive Road Safety Agenda”.

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Urban Governance Services for Women and Children

PPRC, in collaboration with Unicef, conducted a study on the “Governance of Urban Services for Women and Children”. Findings from the study contributed to a background paper for the 8th Five Year Plan of the Government of Bangladesh. The study addressed the critical challenge facing a rapidly urbanizing Bangladesh of transforming the cities into drivers of equitable economic opportunities and quality living. This is especially challenging for women and children who face endemic structural and social inequities in their access to urban services as well as in their routine social and economic existence.

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Safety Nets Process Monitoring (Spot Check)

Given the scale of the poverty challenge in Bangladesh and newer risks emerging from rapid processes of urbanization, global economic integration and climate change, extending the reach of Social Safety Nets and ensuring their greater efficacy remains a policy priority. PPRC has been entrusted by MoDMR to do a third party assessment of these programmes. Using a mixed-method approach that combines qualitative and quantitative techniques, PPRC will carry out performance monitoring, create beneficiary profiles, recommend specific operational steps, generate qualitative insights on project dynamics and identify reform opportunities.

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Defining the excluded groups, mapping their current situation and strengthening their capacity and partnerships

A three and a half year project launched in February 2016. Under the project, a combination of research, investigation, dissemination of knowledge products, sharing skills and efforts to promote participation and representation of the socially excluded groups of Bangladesh is applied to effectively map the communities and focus on their specific predicaments and requirements. The project is a participatory initiative.

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Prerona- Promoting Multi-Stakeholder Engagement on UHC through Innovative Grass- root Advocacy

The central activity of the project was regional dialogue series on innovative UHC advocacy The overall objective was to disseminate core UHC messages to regional constituencies while also eliciting grounded ideas about sustainable paths towards realizing UHC goals.

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