Action Aid  an international development organisation based in United Kingdom. Since its establishment in 1972, it has continued to work with children, families and communities in over 30 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean to alleviate poverty. Action Aid Bangladesh was established in 1983 with the objectives of changing the capacities of people and groups whose rights have been denied and violated in obtaining justice. The organisation supports anti-poverty initiatives and works to improve sustainability of development interventions to create a confident and responsible nation. It works with poor and marginalised women and men, girls and boys to eradicate poverty by overcoming injustice and inequity that cause it.

Action Aid seeks to address the immediate distress of poor people, especially girls and women. More specifically, its target groups include adolescent girls, young women and children in the streets, disabled people, indigenous communities, landless groups, men at greatest risk of contracting and passing on sexually transmitted infections and HIV, and sexworkers. One of its major objectives is to provide basic education, by which people can change their lives and improve the environment in which they live. Its programmes are aimed at strengthening people's ability to predictably manage incomes, to secure control over productive resources and to retain incomes. Action Aid is committed to providing for poor women and girls experiencing the greatest marginalisation and to prepare them to defend themselves from actual and anticipated violence as well as to seek justice.

Action Aid now operates in the districts of dhaka, chittagong, khulna, jamalpur, netrokona, bhola, galachipa, bogra, rangamati, satkhira, manikganj and chandpur. At present, its programmes are implemented with support from 17 long-term and 35 short-term partner organisations. The programme coverage in 2000 was 73,141 households with long-term partners and 38,385 households with short-term partners. [Shamsul Huda]