Legal Status:

Association for Integrated Development-Comilla (AID-COMILLA) is a national level development organization founded in 1995. We are providing long-term development support and carried out a wide range of development activities such as agriculture market linkage, value chain, assist farmers in smart agriculture, formation of farmers cooperatives, Combating Gender Based Violence, livelihoods, emergency response, justice, human rights, child development, education, prevention of child marriage, countering violent extremisms, countering gender based violence and much more including CSO women leaders development in term of  good governance, empowerment of women, access to justice, disaster risk reduction initiatives and humanitarian response for affected communities in regions such as Rangpur, Rajshahi, Khulna and Chottogram for more than 28 years, We have successfully assisted in meeting the social and economic needs of the most vulnerable and marginalized; responded to the fight against violent extremism, CGBV, women leadership development, emergency needs of people and communities displaced by conflict and disasters; exposed and challenged the root causes of poverty, and supported the building of local agency.

Our mission is to act as a national movement of people to respond in practical ways to alleviate suffering; to expose and eradicate misuses of power; and to work for sustainable and long-lasting change, guided by the values of dignity, love, justice and equality. Our core interventions consist of gender, power and inclusion, voice and governance, community health, tackling violence and building peace, humanitarian emergencies and disasters, resilience and climate change.

We have been working in Bangladesh since 1995 and are recognized for addressing the needs of and strongly advocating for the empowerment of excluded and vulnerable communities including women, adolescent girls, refugees, internally displaced persons, landless, Dalits and other ethnic minorities through an intersectional lens in some of the most hard-to-reach areas like remote Chars of Kurigram District. AID-COMILLA has worked to claim their rights, entitlements and expand their power in social and economic spaces using integrated and inclusive approaches both directly and with 04 international funding agencies partners in 10 districts across Bangladesh.

Nationally we operate through local offices across 10 districts and have extensive experience managing and monitoring thematic areas such as CVE, Justice for All, Livelihoods, CGBV, and climate change along with focused project on gender, inclusion and human rights. A total 236 skilled staff including 35% female and 65% male are managing the programme and projects.

Operational structure: AID-COMILLA’s project ways of working follows a matrix model horizontally’ across the traditional ‘vertical’ silos of functions. The team will be led by a designated Project Manager/Budget Holder and all team members under his/her leadership will have clearly defined roles using the RACIS (Responsible, Assists, Consulted, Informed and Sign off) tool.

Our approach: We promote inclusive and intersectional rights-based approach in all stages of development and humanitarian work. AID-COMILLA has significant expertise and experience of working with civil societies, advocacy platforms and coalitions, the private sector, the UN, and the Government of Bangladesh. Our work is guided by our Corporate Gender Strategy – ‘Gender Justice for All: Achieving just and equitable power relations between women and men’, which focuses on power relations.

We are a member of the Leave No One behind Coalition of the Sustainable Development Goals in Bangladesh.

AID-COMILLA’s Resilience Framework outlines a holistic, adaptive and integrated approach and at the core of this framework is the belief that individual and community resilience can be enhanced by empowering poor and vulnerable women and men, boys and girls to manage risks and improve their wellbeing so that they can live with dignity.

Key guiding principles of this framework include power, gender, inclusion, accountability, do no harm and community-led process in different contexts and translating evidence-based learning into the participatory decision-making process with

AID-COMILLA’s core principles are guided by feminist principles of inclusivity, equality and cooperative working. Our gender inequality and social empowerment visions is: systems of oppression that continue to discriminate based on gender, socio-economic status, religious belief, caste, race, disability and other identities are dismantled and equality of outcomes for all is achieved. We work to dismantle intersectional oppressions that compound marginalization of excluded communities. We recognize the multiple grounds of identity inter sectionality (ex. gender, caste, race, nationality, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation). We have designed a series of programme interventions that challenge the existing patriarchal structure that often puts women in a subordinate position in society. Through our project interventions we have been able to give voice to women who are often side-lined. Women are also able to break the cultural norm of restricted mobility, and are now actively participating in livelihood activity for example rowing; fishing, cultivation and marketing of products our women beneficiaries are now seeking justice from the informal and formal justice systems. We are also engaged in the women’s movement in Bangladesh through our partnership with organizations such as USHA and also member of the One Billion Rising Campaign to raise awareness and end GBV in Bangladesh.

Vision Statement : AID-COMILLA aspires for a society, free from exploitation and oppression, where every individual will be able to live in peace and harmony, and will get rightful shares of the resources belonging to the society

Mission Statement : Promote the socio-economic status of underprivileged men, women, children in urban and rural areas through motivation, organizing of people’s organization, non-formal education, training, resource mobilization, and implementation of other economic programs.

• Promote human dignity, fraternity and social justice in the process of its development endeavors.
• Alleviate poverty through the empowerment of the powerless people.

Management: AID-COMILLA has well infrastructure & decentralized organogram to ensure transparent management system and accountability. The entire department is leading by competent personnel having adequate academic background and professional skill. All most al the staff is working for long time with AID-COMILLA. Key positions are hold by the personnel having long outstanding experience in the development field and have adequate skill and knowledge. AID-COMILLA’s organizational structure comprises individual departments of Human Resource Development, Operation& Program, Training, Finance, Internal Audit, Training,  ICT and Documentation, Communication & Information unit.

Human Resource Development: HR Management is responsible for selecting and hiring candidates using various processes and tools. The department support to processing various categories paper for employees such as appointment, personal history, payroll management, tax management, compensation packages, safety and healthy working environment & legal issues. The department is cognizant of discriminatory practices that can exist in the workplace. These issues might pertain to ethnic background, race, sexual harassment and practices.

Finance: This department ensure the adequate funds available to acquire the resources needed to help the organization achieve its objectives; furthermore it ensure costs are controlled; ensure adequate cash flow; establish and control profitability levels. One of the major roles of the finance department is to identify appropriate financial information prior to communicating this information to managers and decision-makers, in order that they may make informed judgments and decisions. Finance also prepares financial documents and final accounts for managers to use and for reporting purposes.

Internal Audit: Internal Auditors help Organizations to manage the wide range of risks facing them before they become a problem. Internal Audit’s primary duty is to act as eyes and ears for the Board, to which it should be accountable, usually via the audit committee. In providing “assurance” to the Board, Internal Audits job is to exercise critical analysis to express the real scenario & recommend how the organization would like it to be. Boards need to know that their Internal Audit team feels empowered to ask tough questions and challenge critical assumptions. Internal Audit’s role as a vital check and balance to an organization’s operations and governance has arguably never been greater.

Training: The training wing supports to provide an opportunity and broad structure for development of human resources through improving technical and behavioral skills, sense of team work, team spirit, and inter team collaborations. It helps to create a healthy work environment, improve capacity of the staffs to achieve organizational vision, mission and specific goals and objectives of the projects/programs.

Compliance issues of the Regulatory Authorities and Funding Partners:

Money Laundering: AID-COMILLA has a central based “Compliance Unit” led by a compliance officer is responsible for implementing the money Laundering Prevention Law. The officer is reportable to organizational Executive Director for his task.  A committee consists of  07 members have been provisioned at central and area level for implementation of the Money Laundering Prevention and Anti Terrorism Law. A training session has been organized to aware all the staffs and officers about the issues and they are very much committed to implement the law. The client has approved loan or deposit is 100,000 or more Bangladeshi Taka preserved personal information i.e. Name, renowned in the community, father/mother’s name, photograph, date of birth, nationality, occupation and present & permanent addresses, and accuracy of the information is guaranteed.

Practice of Virtues (Suddhachar) (MRA Circular 22):

As per the MRA guideline, AID-COMILLA formed a “suddhachar” committed and selected focal person, for the same and a person to deal with information as per the rights to Information Act. AID-COMILLA also displayed Citizen Charter in the Offices spaces. AID-COMILLA discuss Shddhchar related issues in its staff meeting at central and field level. AID-COMILLA is following Service Rules and Performance based management and punishment system for violation of organizational rules and policies.

Management of AID-COMILLA

The General Council of AID-COMILLA consists of 21 members who are considered to be the supreme authority of the organization.  An Executive Committee composed of 07 members is elected for a three-year period out of the General Council to create policies and direct the execution of programs.  All policies and programs duly approved by the Executive Committee are implemented by a modest number of staff headed by the Executive Director, who is accountable to the Executive Committee and is responsible for the effective implementation of programs, and management of all administrative and financial matters of the organization.

Monitoring and Evaluation System

AID-COMILLA established its own M&E Cell to serve as the Monitoring and Evaluation Unit of the organization to be able to objectively and effectively assess the progress of the projects, identify issues and concerns, and provide recommendations thereof.  With the creation of the M&E Cell, AID-COMILLA developed the capacity of senior level staff by giving them the opportunity to apply their knowledge and skills in M&E and communication.  The M&E Cell of AID-COMILLA is comprised of 7 senior level staff members conducting monitoring activities in all Project working areas.  AID-COMILLA believes that a good M&E system enhances credibility of the organization and therefore will lead to better services and relations to its participants, partners and donors.

Management Team

AID-COMILLA has a Management Team composed of Project Managers, Project Coordinators, and Managers which serves as a venue to express all management issues and concerns within the organization.  The Management Team is a clear manifestation of AID-COMILLA’s intention to improve its management systems to better serve its stakeholders

Ongoing Programs/Projects:

• USAID’s Promoting Peace & Justice , Lakshmipur, Feni, Cumilla & Kurigram
• Smart Agriculture through Digital Literature
• Rohinga Response (CGBV)
• Increasing Access to Justice in Bangladesh Rajshahi Project
• Combating Gender Based Violence
• Out of School Education Program at Cumilla City Corporation area
• Access to Justice for All through Arbitration
• Revolving Credit Fund
• Training and Resource Development Centre
• Combating Violence Against Women & Children
• Human Rights & Legal Awareness Program
• Rescue and Rehabilitation of Trafficked / lost women and Children Program
• Support to prisoners
  

Development Partners since inception of AID-COMILLA

AID-COMILLA has track record of  working with different local and international donor agencies such as International Rescue Committee-USA (2 project), Democracy International-USA (USAID- USAID fund-5 project ), NCSC (USAID- US Department of State fund-4 project) , , DFID/UKAid -7 project, UNDP-2 project, EU-9 project, Christian Aid-03 project , HelpAge-International-2 project, RELIEF-International/Start Fund/ DFID-1 project,  MISEREOR-Germany-6 project, DANIDA-2 project, Embassy of Japan-1 project , The Rabo Bank Foundation of Netherlands-8 project , ASIRP/DFID/GOB-1 project , Liliane Fonds of Netherlands-1 project, NORAD/DWA-1 project, DFID/CPP/NRI-1 project, CARE-Bangladesh-2 project, The Australian High Commission-1 project , UNICEF/GOB-3 project,  Winrock International of USA-2 project , BRAC-ESP-3 project, BRAC-GoB-1 project  etc.