Gender issue in South Asia represents a complex

challenge. There has been a greater recognition of the problem across the
region. In most countries women have experienced improved access to
services and credit markets. However, despite the recent economic
growth and changing social norms, dramatic gender inequalities persist in
South Asia. Addressing the inequalities will require greater voice of
women in the political decision-making of communities and states.

World Bank’s role in women’s development:

The World Bank’s countries Gender Assessments provide cutting edge
analytic work that in collaboration with clients- heightened awareness and
in- country debate as well as enhancing political implementation. For
outcomes to be successful, however, analysis findings must be
operationalized. The Bank projects and other policy support leading are
guided by the insights of analysis and the preparation process continues
to fuel debate that helps prioritize interventions.

However, these efforts require complementary government actions i. e.

creating appropriate institutional frameworks to support women’s training,
market linkages, access to credit and child care facilities and schooling
infrastructure. Ultimately, sustainable improvement of women’s welfare
requires strengthening their ability to influence decision-making both within
and outside the household.

Unless women are integrated into the political sphere as critical actors,
progress in south Asia will remain slow. This integration can occur by:
 • facilitating empowerment programs that seek to build women’s
networks and solidarity around issues such as micro-credit.
• integrating women’s voice into local governments.

World Banks report on Bangladesh:

Maternal and child morality:
Bangladesh has made rapid progress on child morality in the last two
decades. There are now only 66 infant deaths per thousand births. The
decline is mainly due to adult female schooling, delayed child bearing
among women and expanded measles immunization coverage.
Girls in school tripled in BD:
Girls’ enrollment in secondary school in Bangladesh jumped to 3.9 million
in 2005 from 1.1 million in 1991, including an increasing number of girls
from disadvantaged or remote areas. This has enabled BD to achieve one
of its Millennium Development Goals ahead of time – gender parity in
education.

World Bank’s report on India

Challenge
India has some of the poorest social indicators in the world. In the state of
Andhra Pradesh, these indicators are lower still: In 2000, 30 percent of
the population lived below the poverty line; malnutrition among
children aged 0-6 years was about 30 percent; and the female literacy
rate was 33 percent, one of the lowest in India. Decades of
government anti-poverty programs had failed.
Approach
The Andhra Pradesh District Poverty Initiatives Project and the Andhra
Pradesh Rural Poverty Reduction Project were designed to enable the
rural poor to improve their livelihoods and quality of life and to reduce
their vulnerability to shocks like illness, a death in the family, crop
 failure, livestock disease etc. To this end, the projects facilitated small
group organization and self management within rural communities,
with a particular focus on women. The design also envisaged
increased financial access for the poor by attracting private sector
interest to this potentially large but overlooked market. Key to the
management of risk was that poor women in self-help groups act as a
guarantee both for each other and for banks.

Result
Incomes increased for close to 90 percent of poor rural households,
including around 8 million women, in the state of Andhra
Pradesh.

Highlights:
- The number of households with access to credit increased to more
than 6 million in 2006 from less than 500,000 in the year 2000.
- A financial sector for the poor is emerging in rural Andhra Pradesh as
banks, now lending 20 times more to the rural poor than before the
project, have identified a vast new client base. Annual credit flow to
poor households increased from less that US$23 million in 2000 to
US$445 million in 2006. The cumulative credit flow from commercial
banks since 2000 is US$1.1 billion.
- Cumulative savings of poor households reached US$292 million in
2006.
- More than 1.2 million rural poor have death and disability insurance
coverage, up from less than 1,000 before the project.
- Nearly 8 million poor women in rural areas have been organized into
629,870 self-help groups and 28,282 village organizations. The project
is expected to organize all rural poor households by 2008.
- Some 20,600 young people were trained and offered placement in
the service and construction sectors through partnerships with private
 companies.
-The projects helped community organizations get better market
prices for their produce and services.
Idea contribution
- US$261 million since 2000.
- The strategy for IDA investments in Andhra Pradesh is to leverage
investments from the public and private sectors to enable the poor to
be risk-, credit- and investment-worthy. The projects invest on average
US$140 per household but this small amount leverages about
US$3,450 of investments in loans from commercial financial
institutions.
- IDA has provided technical assistance for institution building,
development of financial products, facilitating market linkages,
monitoring and evaluation;
- These programs build on the UN Development Programme South
Asia Poverty Alleviation Project and the State government’s decade-
long experience with women self-help groups.
Next steps
The implementation capacity of self-help groups strengthened by these
IDA projects has swung into action in areas of need outside the
immediate project. For example, about US$20 million were channeled
to help restore livelihoods affected by the tsunami, within six months
of the disaster, using community targeting and micro planning
established under these projects. Similarly, self-help groups serve as
franchises for various public programs including AIDS awareness.
To lift most poor households out of poverty and ensure that Andhra
Pradesh achieves the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) by
2015, about US$600 million is needed. This will help develop good
quality institutions and leverage more resources from commercial
banks and other financial agencies. Due to the success and scale of
these projects, there is a demand for similar operations in South Asia,
 particularly from the poorer states in Eastern India, Pakistan,
Afghanistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

Poor Women’s Role in Global Trade:

To assist poor women’s producers organizations to upgrade their

capabilities, access credit, and penetrate global markets, the World Bank
supported a consultation entitled “Poor Women’s Role in Global Trade”
between Indian government officials and representatives from women’s
grassroots organizations from across the country.

The consultation, held in New Delhi on August 21, 2006, was jointly
organized by the Ministry of Commerce & Industry and the Self Employed
Women’s Association (SEWA), a union of poor self-employed women with
over 700,000 members mostly from the rural areas.

Participants in the consultation included representatives from the

Commerce Ministry, the corporate sector, producer’s organizations,
women’s self help groups, and development experts.

Deliberations from the conference will form part of the wider civil society
discussions on September 15, 2006 as part of the World Bank-IMF Annual
Meetings at Singapore.

Today, globalization has drawn millions of women across the developing

world into paid employment - especially in labor–intensive industries. In
India, poor women make up more than half the workforce that turns the
wheels of India’s expanding export sector.

However, most of these women work in unorganized, informal sector jobs.

Unaware about the real value of the goods they produce, how and where
to market their products or secure fair prices, they are open to exploitation
from traders and middlemen at all stages of the production and marketing
process.

With no access to bank credit, they finance the purchase of raw materials
with loans from moneylenders and traders at exorbitant rates of interest. If
unable to repay, they often part with their produce at throwaway prices,
ending up with little income or none whatsoever.

Influence of micro- credit in women development:

Micro- finance programmes targeting women have become a major plank

of donor poverty alleviation strategies in the 1990s and funding is set to
further increase into the next country under initiatives by CGAP and
member donor agencies this expansion is dominated by the financial self
– sustainability program. This program is dominant inspiration behind the
micro-credit summit campaign in competition with other private sector
banking institutions and able to raise funds from international financial
markets rather than relying on funds from development agencies.

Consonant with the financial sustainability, accumulating evidence of

women’s higher repayments rates has led many programmes to target
women. Increasing women’s access to micro- credit id assumed to initiate
a series of various spirals of economic empowerment, increased well
being for women and their families and wider social and political
empowerment . The underlying assumption is that these mutually
reinforcing spirals of empowerment can occur following women’s access
to micro- finance without explicit support for women to increase their
incomes to defend their interests within the household or for wider social
and political changes in gender or class relations.

Political Participation:
The region of South Asia has had the largest number of women leaders
who have been heads of the nation (Indira Gandhi, Sheikh Hasina,
Benazir Bhutto, Srimavo Bandaranaike and Chandrika Kumaratunga). The
first female head of any nation in the world, as early as in 1960, was from
South Asia, in Sri Lanka. The general level of political participation among
the South Asian women does not reflect similar trends. Even in pockets
where the political awareness among women may be higher, their actual
participation is often limited by the constraints laid on their mobility and
roles based on the socio-cultural perceptions. Therefore, in spite of the
visibility of women at the higher echelons of government, the overall public
participation of women remains low for the region. There is no data on
female membership for most political parties and only a few of them are
given tickets to stand for elections.

The experience of India's amendment to its Constitution (the 73rd and

74th Amendments introduced in 1992), reserving one-third seats for
women in its local governance structures, generated tremendous interest
in the other countries of the region. In 1997, both Nepal and Bangladesh
introduced women's reservation in local bodies. While it was 20 per cent in
Nepal, in the case of Bangladesh it was one-third seats in all four tiers of
local government. In Pakistan also, one-third seats are reserved in local
bodies, which is visible in the current figures of women's political
participation.

As an outcome of women's movements in many of the South Asian

countries, the demand for positive intervention in the form of reservation of
seats for women in the governance structures has been met to some
extent. This policy has clearly assisted women's participation, which would
have been denied given the deep-rooted patriarchal traditions
wherein men wield power.

Table: Women in Parliament (%)

Country/Region Percentage Women
Maldives 6.0
Sri Lanka 4.4
 India 9.3
Bhutan 9.3
Bangladesh 2.0
Nepal 7.9
Pakistan 20.6
Source: HDR 2003.

Prior to the phase of recognizing the need for reserving seats for women,
there was an assumption about women's passivity regarding their interest
in, and understanding of, political matters. Subsequent to the amendments
and provisions being made, the debates have focused extensively on the
inabilities of women, given their illiteracy and lack of understanding
regarding political matters (Mazumdar, et al., 2001). In India, as
elsewhere, there is substantial propaganda against such reservation on
the pretext of misuse (Buch, 2000; ISS, different years). Women also face
a backlash in the form of violence,

Participation and representation of women in politics:

In National Politics:

Historically, women’s voting right was established long ago but women’s
participation in the political and national movement has been negligible. At
present both the Prime Minister and the leader of the opposition in
Parliament are women. However, their high positions in politics do not
reflect the whole scenario of women’s position in politics. Both the Prime
Minister and the leader of the opposition come from political families. The
Prime Minister’s father was founder and first Prime Minister of
Bangladesh, while the husband of the leader of the opposition led a
military coup and was subsequently elected as President. Women are still
subordinated to men in many cases but they are coming out. Gradually
women’s participation is increasing.

The increasing political involvement has inspired women to contest for the
Rural Union Council and Urban Municipal election (there are 1/3 seats
reserved for women) more than before. In the last union council election
(1997) nearly 48000 women contested for the member post. Directly
elected women councilors/members are demanding for their defined
responsibilities and jobs.

Number of votes National Parliament

Year Female Male

1996 28,759,994 28,956,941
2000 36,239,491 38,436,258

Source: Election commission office

National Parliament Local Government

Year Female Male % Female Male
1960
1970 15 300 4.8
1980 32 298 9.2
1990 35 295 10.6
2000 37 293 11.2 887 2661

Source: 1. Journal of Public Administration by - PATC, Vol-15, June 2000.

Dhaka;

2. List collected from ministry of local government (Please note here four
city corporation was not included in this list). Ratio of four city corporation-
M: F=190:63 (Source: BBS 1998.)

There are 300 seats in the national parliament; out of these 15 were
reserved for women in 1970. In 1980 the seats reserved for women were
doubled to 30. The rest of the seats are contested in direct elections. In
1980 two women were directly elected, increasing the total number of
women in parliament to 32. In 1990 five women were directly elected and
in the 2000 election seven women were directly elected, increasing the
number of women in parliament to 35 and 37 respectively.

Number and
Percentage of Women
in Federal Number of Percentage of Women Mayors
Year Cabinet/Executive
Branch
No % No %
1960
1970 02 4
1980 06 6
NIL
1990 04 3
1992 03 5
2000 04 16

The country was under military regime from 1975 to 1990. There was no
democratic practice at all during the martial law government. After the fall
of the martial law government in 1990 democracy was established in
1991. The prime minister and the leader of opposition are women. At
present Sheikh Hasina is the prime minister and Khaleda Zia is the leader
of opposition. Khaleda was prime minister in 1991 and Hasina was then
leader of opposition. Though both main political parties are under the
leadership of women, this has not as yet resulted in massive participation
by women in politics and government.

WOMEN’S PARTICIPATION IN URBAN LOCAL GOVERNANCE:

Women’s participation in urban local government Before the Gazette

notification (the Pourashava Ordinance 1977, Ordinance No.XXVI of 1977
which was amended on 1998, July and Gazette Additional copy
22/3/1999) for municipalities and city corporations respectively, female
ward commissioners were appointed by selection. For the first time Dhaka
City Corporation elected 19 female ward commissioners (elected by male
commissioners) for reserve seats in 1994. With a view to promote
women’s participation in urban local government, the Pourashava
Ordinance and City Corporation Ordinance have been introduced which
are mandatory for every Pourashava and City Corporation. These
ordinances stipulate that whatever the number of ward commissioner,
depending on the area of the

Pourashava and City Corporation; there should be reserved seats,

exclusively for women equivalent to one third of the number of
commissioners fixed by the government. The women ward commissioner
will be elected directly. The span of responsibilities for ward commissions
has been well defined in the government gazette. But there is no definite
responsibility narrated in such a Gazette for women ward commissioners.
The government Gazette notification has described the nature of
meetings, panel chairpersons etc. So the status of women ward
commissioners (reserved seats) has been undermined. Still there is some
confusion and misunderstanding between commissioner and women ward
commissioners.

Every political party has a women wing to encourage women to join

politics either at national or local level. Women’s participation in politics
has no doubt increased tremendously. All NGO’s, women’s organizations
and civil society organizations are very active in this regard. Recently
there has been a phenomenal change. During the last 1998 local
government election (Union Parishad) more than 12,000 women members
were elected directly for reserved seats. In the near future, after
completion of municipal election, another 887 women ward commissioner
will be directly elected.

Contesting for reserved seats, women’s participation in elections will have

a positive Bangladesh Report impact on women’s political consciousness.
Beside this, the media are playing a vital role educating women. The total
number of women voters enrolment has increased compared to the
previous enrolment.
Women & ICT

Information technology (IT) has become a potent force in transforming

social, economic, and political life globally. Without its incorporation into
the information age, there is little chance for countries or regions to
develop. More and more concern is being shown about the impact of
those left on the other side of the digital divide- the division between the
information "haves" and "have nots." Most women within developing
countries are in the deepest part of the divide further removed from the
information age than the men whose poverty they share. If access to and
use of these technologies is directly linked to social and economic
development, then it is imperative to ensure that women in developing
countries understand the significance of these technologies and use them.
If not, they will become further marginalized from the mainstream of their
countries and of the world. It is essential that gender issues be considered
early in the process of the introduction of information technology in
developing countries so that gender concerns can be incorporated from
the beginning and not as a corrective afterwards. Many people dismiss the
concern for gender and IT in developing countries on the basis that
development should deal with basic needs first. However, it is not a choice
between one and the other. IT can be an important tool in meeting
women's basic needs and can provide the access to resources to lead
women out of poverty.

Women Entrepreneurship:

Credit for Women

Governmental and NGO programmes which provide collateral free loans

have assumed tremendous importance in providing credit to poor women
in Bangladesh. A few examples are:
 1. The Bangladesh Rural Development Board's Women's Programme
covers 190 thanas and has provided credit to 100,830 members
through 5,915 societies. 200 million Tk. was disbursed in 1996 of
which 120 million was from the bank and 80 million from the
women's savings (up to end 1996).
2. . The Palli Karma Shahayak Foundation (PKSF) has disbursed
about 600 million Tk. through 100 NGOs, which has reached
167,027 women and 22,293 men (up to June, 1994).
3. The Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) has
disbursed a cumulative amount of 11,714 million through 4.25
million Tk. loans to 45,542 women and 3,364 men (up to June
1996).
4. Grameen Bank (GB) has disbursed a cumulative amount of Tk
65,509.8 million to 1,937,348 women (as of December 1996).
5. The Association for Social Advancement (ASA) has disbursed a
cumulative amount of 3,411 million Tk. 495,423 women and 348
men as of June 1996.
6. Women's Entrepreneurship Development Programme (WEDP) The
objective is to develop women as entrepreneurs by providing them
training and credit facilities to establish small scale manufacturing
and service units. The project has so far assisted thousands
women entrepreneurs to set up independent business enterprises.

Employment for Rural Women:

Several ministries of have programmes targeting rural women and

employment. Below is a sample of the activities in this area.

The Agro-Based Development Programme for Women aims at developing

women's skills in poultry raising, vegetable cultivation and small scale
fisheries through practical training. Women are also given training in family
planning, literacy, child care, health and nutrition etc. and credit support
for income generating activities. The programme is implemented by the
Department of Women's Affairs

a. The Rural Maintenance Programme employs over 50,000 rural women

to maintain 60,000 miles of earthen roads. In the programme, women are
employed as laborers and supervisors for a period four years, during
which they are given training and assistance for self-employment after
completion of the contract. Implemented by the Local Government
Engineering Department, in collaboration with CARE International and
Union Parishads, the programme has contributed to improved rural
communication and marketing.

b. The Population Control through Women's Cooperative project began in

1974 to develop rural women's cooperatives. The project, implemented
through the Bangladesh Rural Development Board, offers family planning
motivation and services integrated with income generation activities. Ten
training cum production centres have been established to develop
women's vocational skills, where women cooperative leaders are trained
at thana (sub-district) level, and then act as trainers for their group
members. By 1992, the project covered over 3,000 women's cooperative
societies.

c. Started in 1975, and popularly known as the "Mothers' Club", the Use
of Rural Mother's Centres for Population Activities project integrates
population activities with human development efforts. The project involves
women in self-employment activities and seeks motivate women towards
establishing a small family norm. Skill development training to help women
develop self-employment opportunities, functional education on maternal
and child care, nutrition and family planning are all integrated parts of the
project, which is administered by the Ministry of Social Service.
Women entrepreneurs not banking on loans:

According to Times Report on18 Mar 2004 by Vandana Shukla

CHANDIGARH region may top many indexes when it comes to using

consumer goods, but the graph take a dip as far as promoting
entrepreneurial skills goes.

At least that’s so in case of women. Compared to states like Maharashtra

and Tamil Nadu, the states of Punjab and Haryana and also Chandigarh
have not done well in distributing loans to women entrepreneurs.

They do not even stake claim to the mandatory 5 per cent of the total
money advanced to entrepreneurs. In 2002, of the total Rs 9,788 crore
advanced by banks, only Rs 25 crore was given to women beneficiaries in
Haryana. In Punjab things are worse. This despite the fact that women
have proved to be better payers than their male counterparts in many
countries, including Denmark, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Kenya and in rest of
India.

“Compared to women customer’s share in the total bank deposits, the

share offered to women beneficiaries as loans is significantly low in the
region,” says an RBI official. So, where lays the problem? “The first reason
is people are relatively well off in the region.

Secondly, women do not get family support when they think of starting a
business. Parents and spouses believe women should work in secure
environs of an office, rather than visiting places to market their product,”
says SN Yaligar, manager, Canara Bank. “I tried getting a loan from many
banks but all of them asked for guarantor and collateral. If I had security of
Rs 1 lakh why would I apply for a loan of Rs 50,000? No one would stand
guarantee these days,” says Anupam Puri, a beneficiary of Can Mahila
scheme. Anupam is one of the few entrepreneurs from the city who has
taken advantage of special loan schemes for women.

Anupam was finally helped by CED, a special cell to help aspiring women
entrepreneurs at Canara Bank.

SOME SCHEMES:

Banks and financial institutions offer various schemes to finance women

entrepreneurs Stree Shakti Package - For women to put up small-scale
industry

Mahila Udyam Nidhi Scheme -Supported by various state governments

and banks for tiny and small scale industry

Annapurna scheme - For financing women to establish food catering units

Priyadarshini scheme -Offers up to a loan of Rs 25,000 to women

entrepreneurs

Contribution of women in food processing sector:

Women are the main workers in the food processing sector and hence
most subject to the impact of trade liberalization and globalization. In
October 2000, WIEGO (Women in Informal Empoyment: Globalizing and
Organizing), UNIFEM (United Nations Development Programme for
Women) and the Government of Nepal, organized a regional policy
dialogue on women in the informal economy with financial and technical
support from IDRC and the Aga Khan Foundation. Following up on the
workshop, this grant will allow the South Asia office of the Intermediate
Technology Development Group (ITDG) to undertake a study aimed at
understanding the differential impact of globalization on women and men
in the food processing sector, with a view to establishing a detailed
program of research and action for the region. The study will focus on
spices, cashews, sesame products and fish/shrimps. Researchers will
highlight data and studies that show how women workers and producers
fit into global commodity chains, and how their position in these chains is
changing as a result of globalization. The overall goal of the project is to
assist women working in food processing industries in South Asia to
minimize the negative effects of globalization and to seize new economic
activities.

Women’s contribution in agricultural development:

Rural women form a very significant part of the productive work force in
the agriculture sector in India and most of the developing countries.
Women are central to the selection, cultivation, preparation and harvest of
food crops. Women farmers also possess a unique knowledge of dairying,
animal husbandry and fish farming and handle most of the work
associated with it. About 80 per cent of all economically active women in
the country are engaged in the agriculture sector. Also, about 48 per cent
of India’s self-employed farmers are women. There are 75 million women
engaged in animal husbandry as compared to 1.5 million men. A pilot
Time Use Survey conducted by the Central Statistical Organization
indicates that 51 per cent of the work of women that should qualify for
inclusion in GDP is not recognized as such and it remains unpaid.

Women today are engaged in diverse farm and non-farm activities such as
cultivating cereal crops, secondary crops, dairying, animal husbandry,
fisheries, forestry, post-harvest technology, etc. However, policy and
programmatic support is needed to improve efficiency of women’s
involvement in these diverse activities. As mentioned earlier, the
contribution of women is often not recognized in computation of the GDP.
A large part of women’s contribution in agriculture is unpaid. Enforcement
is required to be stepped up to ensure that women workers receive equal
wages. The lack of economic opportunities causes migration of both male
and female workers.

A specific thrust has been provided for promoting equity and strengthening
socio-economic status of women in watershed development programmes
being implemented by the government. It includes promotion of women’s
groups and preferential allocation of usufruct rights over produce from
developed common lands. The watershed development team – a group of
technical persons to guide watershed development committee/
association-necessarily includes a woman member. Similarly, the
watershed committee is to include two women members to facilitate active
involvement of women in natural resources management.

Trends of development in ICT indicate that it is following the usual paths

towards inequality and exclusion, putting women and girls at a
disadvantage with regard to securing better livelihoods and other rights. A
few women are producers, programmers, designers, inventors, or fixers of
computers. In addition, women are also conspicuously absent from the
decision-making structures in information technology in developing
countries. It is often argued that the concern for gender and ICTs in
developing countries is not a compelling one, and should be secondary to
meeting basic needs. This contention, however, doesn’t quite hold, as it is
not an ‘either’ ‘or’ situation, and both need to be addressed
simultaneously. Information technology is making a significant contribution
in the empowerment of women. The women SHGs and their members are
using ICT approaches in both farm and off-farm activities. The government
institutions are also engaged in the development and popularization of
gender friendly tools and equipments. While ICTs can offer significant
opportunities for girls and women, including those in rural areas, their
ability to take advantage of these opportunities is contingent upon many
things. Extension of infrastructure, particularly wireless and satellite
communications, to rural areas and semi-urban areas is vital to increasing
women’s access to information technology.

The Common Minimum Programme provides that the government should

ensure that at least one third of all funds flowing into panchayats should
be earmarked for programmes for the development of women and
children. Village women and their associations should be encouraged to
assume responsibility for all development schemes relating to drinking
water, sanitation, primary education, health and nutrition. It also provides
that complete legal equality for women in all spheres should be made a
practical reality especially by removing discriminatory legislation and by
enacting new legislation that gives women equal rights of ownership of
assets like house and land.

The National Commission on Farmers set up by the government also has

its terms of reference recommending measures for credit, knowledge, skill,
technological and marketing empowerment of women, taking into
consideration the increasing feminization of agriculture and the proposed
conferment of right to land ownership. A National Gender Resource
Centre in Agriculture (NGRCA) has been set up in the Ministry of
Agriculture as a focal point for the convergence of all issues related to
women in agriculture. The department has also taken up a programme to
revamp agriculture extension in the country based on Agriculture
Technology Management Agency (ATMA) model. It provides for setting up
a decentralized institutional set up for undertaking demand driven
extension activities. Minimum 30 per cent resources of this scheme will
have to be utilized for the benefit of women farmers. Thus, a two-pronged
strategy has been adopted for supporting women’s role in agriculture. At
the policy level the NGRCA will work towards a more favorable policy
environment for the benefit of women farmers. At the programme level,
the ATMA scheme will provide necessary resources for providing
extension support to women farmers.

Empowerment of women through agriculture:

Women, as an independent target group, account for 495.74 million and

represent 48.3 per cent of country’s total population, as per the 2001
census. Empowering women as a process demands a life-cycle approach.
The country’s concern in safeguarding the rights and privileges of women
found its best expression in the constitution of India. To make the de-jure
equality into a de-facto one, the state has enacted both women-specific
and women-related legislations to safeguard the rights and interests of
women, besides protecting against social discrimination, violence and
atrocities and also to prevent social evils like child marriages, dowry, rape,
practice of sati, etc. The local elected bodies such as Panchayats and
Municipalities provide for 30 per cent reservation for women. The
organization of women into groups and increasing their access to credit
and other productive resources will significantly contribute to social and
political empowerment of women. While the impact of various
developmental policies, plans and programmers implemented over the last
few decades have brought forth a perceptible improvement in the socio-
economic status of women, problems like illiteracy, ignorance,
discrimination and violence continue to persist event today.

Women for Women in Bangladesh:

One of the most important women's groups in Bangladesh is Women for

Women: A Research and Study Group, located in Dhaka. It is a pioneer
non=government, non-profit, voluntary women's organization, engaged in
research and public education programs on gender issues with a view to
enhancing the status of women. It was established in 1973 by a group of
committed woman professionals, representing a variety of academic
disciplines. The Group strongly felt the need for developing a sound
information base for identifying the issues relating to the disadvantaged
status of women in Bangladesh and for creating public awareness with a
view to ameliorating the existing situation. Since then, Women For Women
has been engaged in research, information, dissemination, advocacy
awareness and motivational programs.

The objectives of Women for Women are:

1. To create awareness among people of Bangladesh, particularly policy

planners and public functionaries, about the need for enhancing women's
status and molding public opinion for action against the oppression and
exploitation of women.

2. To organize, undertake and promote research and study in all areas of

women's life in general, and to focus on the specific problems impeding
their integration in development efforts in particular, keeping in view the
national priorities.

3. To be a forum for effective advocacy for gender equity through

dissemination of policy-oriented research findings concerning women
through publications, research, seminars and exchange forums.

4. To inform and educate a wider audience about critical issues, current

concerns and to promote interaction through publications and national
conventions.

5. To establish and develop linkages and networking with similar groups at

home and abroad.
6. To create and develop gender-sensitivity among planners, public
functionaries, development agency personnel and program implementers
through relevant gender training programs.

7. To extend cooperation and consultancy services to the government as

well as to other national and international agencies involved in the area of
women and development.

The activities of Women for Women include seminars, workshops,

conferences, national conventions, library development, and publications.
 Bibliography

• Times.com
• World Bank report
• Different research paper
• Gender issues by Jan Jindy Pettman
• Different web sites
• Journal of Public Administration by - PATC, Vol-15, June 2000.
Dhaka;