Sweden works with the Government of Bangladesh and other development partners in sector programmes in Bangladesh. One way to ensure a poverty focus within the programmes is to complement regular monitoring and evaluation with so called Reality Checks.

The Reality Check initiative was started in 2007 with the overall goal of listening to and understanding the perspectives of people living in poverty. In Bangladesh, the focus lies on the national health and primary education sector programmes. The idea is to contribute to an evidence-based dialogue, based on results achieved which benefit poor people.

The immediate vision is to further engage the Government of Bangladesh, development partners and other stakeholders in a reference/advisory group in order to inform and influence both policy and programmes, as well as with time make reality checks an integrated part of sector monitoring and evaluation.The approach used in the reality check has evolved from the Swedish development policy, which aims to ensure that poor people's perspectives on development, as well as a rights' perspective, are integrated in the development assistance.

A dialogue based on equality
The country strategy for Sweden's cooperation with Bangladesh tries to apply the two perspectives mentioned above, and has enhanced this effort under the Bangla-APPA (Applied Perspectives and Principles in Action) programme. Bangla-APPA outlines an approach to ensure dialogue from above (development partners, Government of Bangladesh), from within (the sector programmes), and from below (NGOs and poor men and women).

The Reality Check study in Bangladesh constitutes an important element of a bottom-up approach and applies a range of participatory methods. The Reality Check should ensure that the problems, needs and interests of people living in poverty will continuously influence the planning processes and the policy dialogues of the two sector programmes.

Voices that lead the way
The Reality Check initiative is structured as a five-year qualitative 'listening' study. It aims to demonstrate how results are felt by people living in poverty. It gathers their experiences, opinions and insights. These complement the more conventional monitoring and evaluation mechanisms of the health and primary education sector programmes.

This approach provides an opportunity to reveal the faces and give voices to the numbers, as well as some answers to 'how' and 'why' the sector programmes provide, or fail to provide, poor people with services based on their needs.

It deliberately explores the range of experiences of poor people and consciously embraces context-specific differences. The study focuses on households and their neighbours rather than on public fora, in order to include voices which are rarely heard such as those of the elderly, young, people with disabilities and minorities.

Practical results and suggestions
From the study, we can draw the following policy implications and lessons learnt for these two areas:

Education:
The contact time between teachers and students can be increased by simple policy decisions like changing teachers' duties, eliminating excessive days off, and making the school year more flexible.
School should be more enjoyable, both regarding the actual instruction, and by emphasing playing, singing and other such activities
Minimise additional expenses for parents, the many "small" fees add up to considerable costs.
Greater emphasis on finding competent headmasters, as this means a great deal to the reputation of a school.
Examine scholarships and school management committees, and make them more efficient.

Health:
Improve the management of health facilities.
Regulate the relationship between the private and public sectors
Human resources for health: Collaborate with, and upgrade, informal providers.
Create a system to meet emerging relief health costs.
Look into outreach service providers, financing mechanisms, and health messages to reach the extreme poor.
Adjust the opening hours of the local health clinics so that they suit the needs of people living in poverty.

A challenge to get involved
This tool is only the beginning of a process. The challenge is to integrate it into a good method for monitoring, discerning trends which have policy implications, and to identify collaborating partners on the scene.