CPD RMG Study Stitching a better future for Bangladesh
The CPD RMG Study team shared their research activities with the Advisory Committee on 5th January 2017. The Project Manager & Senior Research Associate Mr Kishore Kumer Basak reported, after scrutiny of available datasets from DIFE, BGMEA, BKMEA, ACCORD, ALLIANCE, and National Initiative and applying a complex harmonisation process, the study team identified ‘unique’ RMG factories. He said, “CPD RMG Study found that currently there are 6,456 RMG factories in Bangladesh”.
Mr Basak explained how the study team have developed questionnaires in consultation with various stakeholders such as BGMEA, ILO, workers’ associations, trade unions, Accord, buyers, entrepreneurs, individual workers and visiting factories to get better understanding. The study team has prepared draft questionnaires both in Bangla and English. A total of five modules of questionnaires have been prepared for: GM/Operational head, Production & Marketing, HR/Social Compliance, Remediation of Factories and individual workers.
To identify the samples, the CPD RMG Study team followed three criteria: (a) factories must be operational; (b) factories must have information on its size, and (c) number of workers must be greater than fifty. Only 2,860 factories meet these criteria. It is important to note that a large number of BKMEA factories could not be considered for sampling due to their lack of information on size.
The following Members of the study Advisory Committee were present: Mr Mikail Shipar – Secretary Ministry of Labour and Employment, Mr Khondaker Mostan Hossain – Joint Secretary (Export Oriented Industry & IO), Ms Anne-Laure Henry-Greard, Operations Manager RMG and Ms Sohana Samrin Chowdhury, Monitoring Evaluation Officer – ILO Country Office, Dr Wajedul Islam Khan – General Secretary, Bangladesh Trade Union Kendra, Mr Syed Sultan Uddin Ahmmed – Assistant Executive Director, Bangladesh Institute of Labour Studies (BILS), Mr Basirun Nabi – Communication and Public Affair Manager, H&M, Ms Majeda Haq – Programme Officer, Development Co-operation, Embassy of Sweden, Mr Pieter De Vries, First Secretary Economic Affairs & RMG and Ms Mohua Karim, Policy Advisor, Economic Affairs & CSR – Embassy of Netherlands, Ms Munira Rahman, Senior Policy Advisor and Ms Mehzabin Ahmed, Advisor – German Development Co-operation (GIZ), Mr Shadhan Kumar Das – Programme Coordinator, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) and Mr Md Rafiqul Islam – Senior Assistant Secretary, APS Office Bearers, BGMEA.
In addition, CPD Executive Director Professor Mustafizur Rahman, Distinguished Fellow Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya and Project Director RMG Study Project & Additional Research Director Dr Khondaker Golam Moazzem were also present.
