A courtyard meeting in January 2025 in the Rangamati District brings together community members eager to improve their lives through access to government information. The following month, cuts to USAID funding forced the Carter Center project to stop services in this district, among others. (All photos: The Carter Center)
Champa was used to heavy burdens, economic and otherwise. As a Dalit, a term reserved for untouchables and outcasts, she was already struggling when she gave birth and was made to pay the health clinic more than she had. But then she found out delivery services are supposed to be free at her clinic. She learned how to file a complaint, fought for reimbursement, and helped change the clinic’s policy to protect other Dalit women.
Nurjahan, always curious, grew excited when she came across a training program that could teach her to drive. The only problem: she didn’t have an ID card, a requirement to register. She learned how to get one and is now poised to be one of the few professional female drivers in her region.
And then there’s Siriya, who discovered untapped government allowance funds that support disadvantaged people with disabilities. She set out on a mission to secure that money for neighbors and remained undeterred by officials who tried to stop her.
At the Annual Learning Summit in 2024, Champa overcomes her nerves to address a large audience and share her story about securing free child delivery services for women in her local health clinic. This was likely her first trip to Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital.
Having already completed her own driving training, Nurjahan, far right, visits the Women Technical Training Center in Rajshahi District to support others in submitting their own training applications.
Siriya, wearing the red headscarf, learned how to access government funds for neighbors with disabilities. She talks with other women, including Carter Center staff members, at the 2024 Annual Learning Summit in Dhaka, Bangladesh, where some 70 people came together to share tips and ideas.
“Information is what changed these women’s lives,” said Shammi Laila Islam, the Carter Center’s acting country representative in Bangladesh. “It empowered them to achieve more for themselves and the people around them.”
But the project that made each of these wins — and so many more — possible is a shell of itself since it lost funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development earlier this year.
The Advancing Women’s Right of Access to Information project in Bangladesh began in 2016. Then, in 2023, thanks to a five-year grant from USAID, it expanded to serve additional districts and advance key policies. It supported the most marginalized and underprivileged people in the country — individuals in remote areas who had no education and had never spoken to a government official or entered a government office.
With the assistance of local and national partners, Carter Center staff hosted courtyard meetings and what’s become known as information “booth camps,” catering to hundreds of women’s groups, and youth groups, to inform people of their rights under the country’s 2009 Right to Information Act and help them access resources.
This meant accompanying women to offices to help them ask for information and get what they deserved. And it meant meeting with and fielding questions from thousands of people like Champa, Nurjahan, and Siriya. Furthermore, the project built trust with local governments, helping them become more responsive to citizens by providing training and resources.
The abrupt cuts to USAID in February brought momentum to a screeching halt.
A representative from Bangladesh’s Department of Women Affairs answers questions and accepts applications for information at an October 2024 Right to Information “Booth Camp” in the Rajshahi District.
Women in the Nagaon District draw a community map, identifying places to start when trying to access information, such as schools and government offices.
Relationships with partners have been severed, and activities, often a lifeline to those attending, are no more. Instead of working in 10 districts, the project is now operating in just two. A Carter Center team of 15 is now a skeleton crew of four. Another two dozen individuals, appointed by partners to help women with office visits and applications for information, also lost their jobs.
“Termination of this project is not just affecting the women we are working for but also women leaders who are implementing this project. It’s silencing voices and stopping the development of communities,” said Nazmun Nahar, the Center’s program officer in Bangladesh.
Leaders of partner organizations say their credibility has been hurt, as initiatives have been left incomplete.
“The very people we aimed to empower in seeking information, exercising their rights, and holding institutions accountable are now left in limbo, feeling abandoned and demotivated,” said Abdus Sabur Biswas, executive director of Agrogoti Sangstha, a nonprofit that implemented access-to-information activities in the southwestern coastal region.
While the Carter Center’s reliance on USAID funding, overall, was much less than many other international nonprofit organizations, that’s of little solace to those who are now losing out — including Champa.
“Through courtyard meetings, we were taught many things. We could find out about job opportunities and other benefits,” she said. “Now that the project has ended, we don’t get any updates. We don’t know how things are working, and no one listens to us.”
The hope is that through fundraising the Center can revive the program before momentum is completely lost, key relationships are damaged, and the communities and people served suffer more than they already have.
In fact, Leanne Webster, director of the Center’s Rule of Law Program, which runs the project, sees this moment as a chance to reimagine what’s possible. Without the U.S. government and USAID working as an intermediary, she says, the Center can be more efficient and provide a direct line of support.
"We've seen what a difference these efforts make in women’s lives, and there’s more potential than ever for impactful work. We have the tools and partnerships, as well as the knowledge and the data, and we know how to scale up,” Webster said. “We are hopeful about finding the right funding partners. Together, we can do something magical."
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