The Host Country Agreement (HCA)* for the extension of Strengthening Household Ability to Respond to Development Opportunities (SHOUHARDO) III was signed between the Government of Bangladesh (GoB) and CARE on 8 December 2019 at the Local Government Division (LGD) Conference room in the Bangladesh Secretariat, Dhaka. The signing ceremony was led by Md. Helaluddin Ahmed, Secretary, LGD, Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development & Cooperatives on behalf of the GoB and Mr. Berhanu Moreda, Assistant Country Director on behalf of CARE Bangladesh. This agreement complements the additional funding that SHOUHARDO III received from United States Government through the United States Agency for International Development/Office of Food for Peace (USAID/FFP), worth 21,983,012 USD. Based on the strong performance in its first three years backed up by the strong findings in the Midterm Evaluation (MTE), USAID/FFP approved a program cost extension. This extension will allow the program to continue implementation until September 2022 (i.e. two more years) and will be focused on building systems to ensure sustained impact for the participant communities beyond the program period. In this HCA, GoB confirms complementary funding to SHOUHARDO III fora total cost of 165,740,000 BDT or 2 million USD. Therefore, the total cost for the SHOUHARDO III program Extension period (October 2019 to September 2022) will be equal to Taka 1,987,472,212 or USD 23,983,012. This signing ceremony was graced by Mr. Amitav Sarkar, Additional Secretary, Mr. Numerizaman, Deputy Secretary and other officials from LGD and CARE SHOUHARDO III representatives led by Walter Mwasaa, Chief of Party, Ishrat Shabnam, Deputy Chief of Party, Iqbal Hossain Khan, Advisor GoB Liaison, and Zubaidur Rahman, Head of Partnership, Operations and Resource from CARE Bangladesh. *Host Country Agreement: The Host Country Agreement is a contract, may include a budget, between the host country and an Organization, which establishes a legal framework, defines aim or a set of objectives and the terms of condition both parties abide by and the agreement gets implemented in the territory of the host country.
December 31, 2019