Today, the world faces its worst refugee crisis since the Second World War. The number of forcibly displaced people globally has hit a historic high, with half of them being children. Most refugees seek shelter in neighboring host countries where they encounter barriers to accessing their fundamental right to education, resulting in the emergence of refugee-led educational initiatives. The 4A framework coupled with Nussbaum’s list of capabilities guides our analysis by applying the criteria of - availability, accessibility, acceptability, adaptability - and assesses the potential of refugee-led education among the Rohingya community. Building on a case study of education amongst displaced Rohingyas in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, this research adds to the existing literature on refugee education. This study comprises semi-structured interviews with Rohingya refugees and humanitarian workers from Cox’s Bazar’s education sector as well as academic and grey literature to triangulate the findings. Situated within the academic subfield of migration studies, it contributes to ongoing peace and development efforts, highlighting the importance of global refugee education. The research finds that while refugee-led education initiatives in Cox’s Bazar demonstrate greater availability, accessibility, and adaptability to the Rohingya community’s context compared to traditional models, challenges remain in ensuring full capability development due to limited resources and government restrictions.

This thesis addresses urban sustainability from an ecological footprint viewpoint to make cities inclusive, safe and livable in Bangladesh under the SDG-11 of the Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals-2030. Previous empirical studies on Bangladesh do not focus on Ecological Footprint (EF), and Naryanganj City’s (NC) EF has yet been explored. Previous studies also focused on only specific dimension of sustainability. This study aims to meet these gaps by linking the existing facilities and required initiatives under all dimensions of sustainability, e.g., social, economic, environment and institutions. Both secondary and primary data were used. Secondary data were collected from the World Bank and Global Footprint Network. Primary data were collected by a survey of 500 households in NC and twenty in-depth semi-structured interviews with experienced urban experts from academics, NGOs, government, voluntary and independent urban research organizations in Bangladesh. STIRPAT model was used to analyze the secondary data, and interview data were analyzed following theoretical thematic analysis. The empirical findings suggest that Bangladesh can still afford more urbanization. However, the high EF of NC is a concern of this affordability. The interview data analysis indicates that the government can promote the current opportunities for a relatively quick result for urban sustainability without imposing any extra burden on citizens. A sustainable urban development framework (SUDF) and based on this SUDF, a set of policy recommendations is also proposed. Further research options and limitations of this study have also been identified.

Not available / text

This thesis is framed within the research area of Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D), which is concerned with how ICT can make a difference to the lives of the poor. This study focuses primarily on mobile phones and how they can be used as part of an Agriculture Market Information Service (AMIS) in order to provide crucial information to farmers in Bangladesh. AMIS principally collect, manage and disseminate agricultural market prices and related information through various processes and media. These services are mainly used by farmers. The research question of how mobile phone-based AMIS can be designed and deployed in order to improve opportunities for farmers in Bangladesh is investigated through a design science research approach in four steps; understanding the scope and challenges related to AMIS in least developed countries; diagnosing the situational realities of farmers of Bangladesh; understanding the process of adopting mobile phones and investigating market information practices and preferences in a rural context; and finally designing and implementing a mobile phone based AMIS and evaluating the efficiency and effectiveness of it for the farmers of Bangladesh. In this thesis, development is viewed in terms of bringing about an in-crease in farmers’ capability set directed towards the utilization of resources for the purpose of production and trade. Information and knowledge are important drivers of development and poverty reduction: ICT can create new opportunities to expand the availability, exchange, and impact of information and knowledge. This thesis contributes to ICT4D research and practice through empirical findings, the design of an AMIS, test results, and the development of analytical tools. Its major contributions include an increased understanding of farmers’ attitudes and preferences towards the use of technology in general, and mobile phones in particular, and a broader understanding of ICT for human development in the context of poor rural regions. / Informatics or ICT4D

<p>The aim of this thesis was to explore the impact of physical, sexual and emotional violence against women of reproductive age and the level of controlling behaviour in marriage on child health and survival in two different cultural settings: Bangladesh and Nicaragua. </p><p>Data were acquired from four quantitative community-based studies. In two studies, a cohort including a prospective two year follow-up of 3164 mother-infant pairs in rural Bangladesh was investigated. A third study was a case-referent study in Nicaragua including mothers of 110 cases of under-five deaths and 203 referents, and in a forth study an other cohort of 1048 rural Bangladeshi women and their 2691 children was followed until 5 years of age. </p><p>Maternal exposure to any form of violence, including physical, sexual, emotional, and controlling behaviour was independently associated with lower body size at birth, increased risk of stunting and under-weight at 24 months of age, slower growth velocity during the first two years of life and a higher incidence of diarrhoeal episodes and respiratory tract infections. In the Nicaraguan setting, the children of women who experienced any history of physical violence had a two-fold increase in risk of death before the age of 5 years, and those whose mothers experienced both physical and sexual violence had a six-fold increase in risk of death. In Bangladesh, an association between violence against women and under-five mortality was found among daughters of educated mothers who were exposed to severe physical violence or a high level of controlling behaviour in marriage. In all four studies, lifetime violence experience among participating mothers was high (37-69%), and the timing was less relevant than the exposure to violence <i>per se</i>. </p><p>In conclusion, this investigation revealed that violence against women severely affects child health and survival. The findings are especially relevant in a context of high level of child under-nutrition, morbidity and under-five mortality. Efforts for protecting women from all forms of violence are needed as part of the interventions for improved child health.</p>

雖然政治學界廣泛地討論水資源安全的問題, 可是迄今為止絕大部分的研究採取合作衝突相兩者互排斥的分析方法。有些學派主張水資源短缺一定導致衝突, 而制度主義學派認為在大多數情況下水資源安全推動國際合作。環境安全與衝突研究中的科學共識認為水資源不是衝突的起因而是合作的理由, 於是繼續提倡合作衝突兩者相互排斥的概念。筆者認為如今的非黑即白分析尚未能夠正確描述水資源安全的衝突合作相互作用的實際。碰到了這個研究空白的問題, 筆者應用 Naho Mirumachi發展的「TWINS」架構來檢視印度-巴基斯但與印度-孟加拉關係中的水資源安全。「TWINS」架構讓我們深入地檢視「1996年12月12日印孟簽署分享恆河水條約」與「1960印度河水域條約」這兩個條約。新世紀增長需求跟耗盡水資源的問題越來越清楚地標明, 根據這兩個條約，水資源的供水與解決衝突能力有限。雖然被視為跨界河川合作的成功故事, 可是這兩個條約不足消除潛在衝突, 而進一步表明衝與合作是同時存在的。最近印度政府表明關於水資源的政策改變, 比如最佳地利用1960印度河水域條約的規定或清拆法拉卡堰。為了防止安全化過程升高, 立即開展有意義的對話至關重要。 關鍵字: 印度-巴基斯但、印度-孟加拉、水資源安全、TWINS

Le défi face aux changements climatiques ne consiste pas seulement à gérer les conséquences déjà existantes, mais aussi celles à venir. Les déplacements de population représentent sans aucun doute l’une de ces conséquences, pour laquelle nous devons réfléchir sans délai puisque les déplacements ont déjà débuté. Le Bangladesh est le symbole des déplacements de population reliés aux changements climatiques. Une configuration géographique propice aux désastres naturels, une densité de population élevée, une forte dépendance aux ressources naturelles et d’autres facteurs socio-économiques, constituent les raisons sous-jacentes à la vulnérabilité du Bangladesh. Les médias ont tôt fait d’alarmer la communauté sur les répercussions des changements climatiques sur la société civile et le droit international s’y attarde de façon plus sérieuse. De quelles protections bénéficient ces déplacés climatiques? Cette question fait d’ailleurs surgir de nouvelles problématiques juridiques. Nous nous rendrons vite à l’évidence que les déplacements, qu’ils soient à l’intérieur ou l’extérieur des frontières, ne sont susceptibles d’aucune protection internationale. Face à ce vide juridique, plusieurs propositions ont été envisagées et analysées par les chercheurs. Fuir ou rester : voici les deux choix de la population. Nous verrons que ces choix peuvent être largement influencés par les décisions gouvernementales. Cela nous amènera à nous questionner sur la perception du Bangladesh face à la migration climatique. Ce pays considère-t-il la migration comme une stratégie ou plutôt comme un échec à l’adaptation? / The challenges wrought by climate change involve not only managing existing consequences, but also future ones. It is no surprise that population displacements are one of those consequences, and one that must be addressed as quickly as possible since those displacements have already begun. Bangladesh is a prime example of population displacements linked to climate change; its geography is conducive to natural disasters, it is densely populated and strongly reliant on natural resources. These and other socioeconomic factors are the underlying reasons of Bangladesh’s vulnerability. It did not take long for the media to raise the alarm in the international community about the impacts of climate change on civil society and international law is paying more and more attention to the problem. What protections are available for these climatic exiles? The question raises new legal conundrums. We will quickly discover that such displacements, whether they are domestic or international, have no legal international protection. In light of this legal vacuum, several options have been considered and analyzed by researchers. To go or not to go, that is the question that must be answered by the population. We will discover that this choice can be greatly influenced by government policy. This will shed light on the perception of Bangladesh’s choice in the matter; does the country consider the migration a coping strategy or a failure?

Education harbours some of the most pervasive contradictions in contemporary India. While it produces world famous human capital enhancing the country's rising competitiveness as a global ‘knowledge economy', millions of children still lack access to basic education. In Kerala, a state famous for the success of its educational achievements, the benefits of education that can be gained by those in the lower strata of society continue to be marginal regardless of policies of positive discrimination. Focusing on youth at the higher secondary school level (grades 11-12), ‘the primary bottleneck in the education system today' (World Bank 2012), this thesis seeks to understand the social processes that go into making education a key resource to the (re)production of inequalities. Based upon a year's ethnographic fieldwork in and around two schools in Ernakulam, South India, this thesis examines the ways in which two distinct groups of youth – one attending a top end private English medium school at the heart of a city and the other educated in an institution at the bottom of the schooling ladder – inhabit their final year of schooling and generate future projects and aspirations. I located their experiences at the intersection of the two educational sites par excellence: the school and the house. In the city, middle-class schooling and parental regimes attempt to orient youth's lives towards the acquisition of multiple competences aimed at enhancing their individual prospects towards becoming competitive professionals, depicted as garnering maximum amounts of wealth and prestige in today's globalised economy of paid employment and migration. At the fringes of middle-class urban life and the quest for professionalism, youth are becoming subject of an increasing ghettoisation: only the educationally, financially and socially poor are left to attend their school. In that stark scenario, education emerged as central to both youth performances of class, status and gender. They constructed and embodied identities based on education and more generally with ideas of competence. This creative work revealed an overtly hierarchical field formed of distinctive peer groups engaged in overt practices of exclusion and inclusion according to imagine futures: mostly elusive fantasies that reveal the youth marked by uncertainties in a time shaped by rising expectations and increasingly intricate and unequal paths leading to them.

Background: As overnutrition rises along with nutrition transition in low- and middle-income settings such as Bangladesh, evaluating metabolic risk factors using overnutrition measures in adolescents is important. Before doing such evaluation, a preliminary step should be taken to attest the independence of overnutrition measures from total height. Moreover, sitting height measures are recognized as important metabolic risk indicators. This study aims to understand the association of attained height –total and sitting– with overnutrition measures including body mass index (BMI), percent body fat (PBF), fat mass index (FMI) and fat free mass index (FFMI) and to assess modification by sex. Methods: Cross-sectional analysis of the MINIMat study’s 15-year follow-up data from October 2017 to December 2018 was undertaken. The associations of attained height –total and sitting– with each of the overnutrition measures were analysed using multiple linear regressions. Results: Overnutrition measures were non-independent of total height among male adolescents. The taller they were, the higher their BMI would be. This increase of BMI along with the height would have been contributed relatively more by the increase of fat free mass (FFM) than that of fat mass (FM). When total heights of both sexes were kept equal at the median, female adolescents had lower lean mass (FFMI) and higher fat mass (FMI) than the males although there was no difference in BMI on average between them. Sitting height was associated with all overnutrition measures with varying extents depending on the sex. Conclusion: When assessing overnutrition measures, it is important to examine beyond BMI and into FMI and FFMI. Again, when assessing the metabolic risks using overnutrition measures among adolescents, normalizing those indices for height is important to be considered to avoid inferring the implication from growth as risks.

<p>A disaster always means a huge death toll, displacement and inconceivable destruction for a poor country such as Bangladesh. Recently, Bangladesh has taken a holistic approach to prioritising interrelated activities and the involvement of various organisations in disaster management. A number of disaster management committees (DMCs) have been formed to coordinate and implement risk reduction measures. But the levels of success of these organisations have varied in different regions. Improper consideration of local knowledge, corruption of actors, lack of coordination and capacity of actors, etc., are perceived as major causes of this. Primarily, this mini-thesis aims to measure the impact of self-organisation in disaster risk management.</p>