House 75, Road 12/A
Dhamnmondi R.A.
PO Box 2242 Dhaka -1000
Bangladesh 1209 or
34/1 Pallabi
Dhaka-1216
Tel: 880 29114195
Fax: 880 28110533
Contact: Muhammad Kamal Uddin

Mission

ARBAN is committed tow ork with the disadvantaged and powerless people for their socio-economic, cultural and political empowerment by promoting and practicing democratic values and participatory processes at all levels leading to the realization of basic needs and environmentally sustainable develo-ment, establishment of fundamental human rights and equity and equality of women and men in society.

Vision

ARBAN envisions a just society based on social justice, human dignity, equity, equality, democratic and secular values free from exploitation, poverty, disparities, misrule, corruption and gender inequalities leading to freedom and emancipation of disadvantaged powerless people irrespective of caste, creed and religious beliefs.

Established in 1984, ARBAN strongly believes and advocates for land reform both in rural and urban areas to achieve balanced development, increased production, and effective use of land. Its development activities are spread over 11 districts.

ARBAN, like many other civil-society organizations in Bangladesh, was set up to respond to these critical concerns of land for landless labourers in rural areas and slum/shanty dwellers in urban areas in as much as 70 percent of the 130 million people in Bangladesh, are landless agricultural workers, sharecroppers and slum dwellers. Twenty percent do not even own their homesteads.

ARnet

Initially established based on the slogan 'Education for Emancipation', ARBAN has since been mobilizing the urban and rural poor by equipping them, among other things, with literacy and numeracy skills. Aside from its agrarian reform thrust, ARBAN assists the poor and powerless to secure their right to food and livelihoods in Bangladesh through various socio-economic development programmes and activities.

Documenting local experiences. ARBAN has been focusing its agrarian reform (AR) activities on documenting and analysing the experiences of landless agricultural labourers in their struggle to secure fair wages to provide information to other civil society organisations in Bangladesh engaged in agrarian reform concerns.

Building organizations of the poor and networking with the poor. ARBAN has also made relentless efforts to build up strong local organizations called People's Development Organizations (PDO) of the landless, agricultural labourers, day workers in different trades who live in the slums of towns and villages in Bangladesh as they are the most neglected and deprived in society. With 20-30 members per PDO, these organizations now number over 1,800 in 10 districts of the country. ARBAN also networks with the Landless Agricultural Workers Union.

Bringing grassroots knowledge to policy making. Through these different activities, ARBAN has achieved greater understanding of the kinds of problems and issues confronting landless agricultural labourers, including the varied strategies they employ and the constraints they face in their struggles. Using this learning, ARBAN is then able to raise local and national level awareness on the issue, aiming to create an impact on national policy-making.

Landless rural workers
Urban slum dwellers
Networks of civil-society organizations in Asia
Agricultural Workers
Farmers
Fishers
Forest Users/Dwellers
Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities
Landless
Pastoralists
Women
Peasants
Resettled People/Refugees