This report assesses how Bangladesh is cutting gaps in gender equality and social inclusion (GESI) in financial services and shows how support for women entrepreneurs alongside better technology access can boost sustainable development. It explains the rapid growth of Bangladesh’s financial sector, analyzes policies, and explores how the rise of mobile financial services is improving inclusion for women and vulnerable groups. Outlining steps including better access to cheap mobile phones and internet, it shows how increasing credit to women-owned small businesses and targeting insurance products can help mainstream GESI and incorporate it into the design and implementation of ADB-funded projects.
This publication presents a gender equality and social inclusion (GeSi) analysis of six priority sectors in Nepal: agriculture and natural resources management, energy, skills development, urban development, transport and water, and sanitation and hygiene. The publication identifies practical ways in which gender equality, social inclusion, and women’s empowerment approaches can be integrated into each of these sectors. The diagnostic aims to inform the GeSi initiatives of the Government of Nepal, the Asian development Bank, and other development partners of the country.
Topics discussed in this collection include financial inclusion in under-served markets, financial inclusion products and services, financial inclusion for sustainable and responsible business, micro, small, and medium-sized business practices.
This paper considers various dimensions and sources of gender inequality and presents policies and best practices to address these. With women accounting for fifty percent of the global population, inclusive growth can only be achieved if it promotes gender equality. Despite recent progress, gender gaps remain across all stages of life, including before birth, and negatively impact health, education, and economic outcomes for women. The roadmap to gender equality has to rely on legal framework reforms, policies to promote equal access, and efforts to tackle entrenched social norms. These need to be set in the context of arising new trends such as digitalization, climate change, as well as shocks such as pandemics.
Over the last two decades, Bangladesh has made progress in women's participation in the labor force, gender parity in primary education, and women's political representation. Areas of concern include the high prevalence of violence against women, obstacles to women's access to resources and assets, unequal terms of their labor engagement, and impact of their overwhelming responsibility for care work. The Government of Bangladesh has made policy commitments toward gender equality and established an institutional framework to fulfill these. This publication intends to support the government in its attempt to address persisting gender inequalities and gaps through a multisector approach across policies, programs, and projects. It provides insights into gender issues in urban; transport; energy; and skills, vocational, and tertiary education, and gives suggestions for strengthening gender mainstreaming in projects.
Women have experienced significant changes in various spheres of their lives during the last decades as Bangladesh made economic progress. Yet women’s economic engagement and empowerment are subdued, as they cannot make sufficient choices for themselves. This book provides a comprehensive analysis of the economic developments in gender equality in Bangladesh. Through examining women’s participation in the labour force, ownership and control of household assets, use and control of financial assets, and opportunities for entrepreneurship, the authors have made concrete recommendations to overcome challenges that lie ahead for women’s economic empowerment. This book is an important contribution to the knowledge on interventions required by the policy makers and broader stakeholders towards narrowing gender gaps. --Fahmida Khatun, PhD, Executive Director, Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), Bangladesh The women’s story is central to Bangladesh’s economic and social transformation. There is an urgent need to deepen researched understanding of the multidimensional pathways of women’s economic empowerment and extent of real progress made. Voices to Choices is an important contribution to this story. Surely, the journey of women’s economic empowerment remains a long and challenging one. Realizing the full benefits of new opportunities is often hampered by both new and entrenched insecurities. The task is as much one of empowering women’s agency as of dismantling barriers. The responsibility is as much women’s as society’s. --Hossain Zillur Rahman, PhD, Executive Chairman, Power and Participation Research Centre (PPRC) This book provides critical insights and is timely, as it outlines how girls and women in Bangladesh have gained more opportunities in labor force participation, control over household and financial assets, as well as greater prospects for entrepreneurship. The findings will greatly contribute to future policy and planning for government and key stakeholders working to advance women’s economic empowerment in the country. --Sabina Faiz Rashid, PhD, Dean and Professor, BRAC James P. Grant School of Public Health BRAC University
This publication presents findings of a study on the availability and provision of long-term care (LTC) in Tonga. It discusses the need for and supply of LTC in the country, including regulatory and policy frameworks, service provision, quality management, human resources, and financing. Analysis, conclusions, and recommendations for the development of LTC systems in Tonga are also included. Aiming to contribute to increasing the knowledge base on LTC policies, programs, and systems, this publication is one of six country diagnostic studies—the others on Indonesia, Mongolia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Viet Nam—prepared under the Asian Development Bank technical assistance 9111: Strengthening Developing Member Countries’ Capacity in Elderly Care.
Bhutan has experienced extraordinary change since the 1960s when it opened itself to the world and started the process of planned development. It has transformed itself from a subsistence economy into a middle-income country with rising human development indicators. Yet progress comes with new challenges. These include differences in living conditions and opportunities between rural and urban areas that fuel rural-urban migration, labor shortages in agriculture, and unemployment. There are gender dimensions to each of these challenges, prompting the Government of Bhutan and its development partners to mainstream gender in its policies, programs, and projects. This publication intends to support this process by providing insights into gender issues in agriculture and rural livelihoods, education, energy, environment, private sector development, transport, urban development, and work and unemployment.
Foreign Aid and Bangladesh offers a rich combination of aid history – from the evolution of aid as a global agenda after WWII to the rise of different multilateral, bilateral, and emerging donors and their policy shifts – and a nuanced perspective of aid partnerships at the country level. Drawing on first-hand experiences and insights, the author deeply investigates the realities of a longstanding aid recipient, Bangladesh, and argues that without a political economy approach, one cannot understand the realpolitik of development aid. As an emerging economy from the global south, Bangladesh has been a longstanding partner and recipient of international aid since 1971. Bangladesh has also been active in the global discussions leading to redefining the new narrative and arguments for the new aid regime since the beginning of this century. Building on the analysis of Bangladesh's aid relations, the book shows that there has not been any qualitative shift in aid behavior in the new aid regime that set new norms after the end of the Cold War to ensure recipients' ownership and welcomed an expanding aid landscape by integrating emerging economies from the Global South for achieving better development results. The book analyzes the role of different actors in the development partnership, both traditional and emerging donors - such as China and India, and their partnership practices. It examines different forms of aid and their changing perspective, particularly technical assistance. Based on more than two decades of research and profound insider observations, the book debunks the myth that Southern providers could be more benign to their partners. The arguments placed in the book expose that there is no difference between traditional and emerging donors in ensuring donors' business and strategic interests. While donors continue to ensure their interests in providing aid, the Realpolitik of the situation in the recipient country shows that there is a specific economic and political agenda in pursuing aid. Presenting a comprehensive picture of Bangladesh's aid partnership, through the lens of new development partnership principles and narratives of development aid, this book will be of interest to scholars and researchers of aid and development studies and political science as well as South Asian Studies. Donor officials, civil servants, and national and international policy communities will also benefit from this book.
"The 2012 report recognized that expanding women's agency - their ability to make decisions and take advantage of opportunities is key to improving their lives as well as the world. This report represents a major advance in global knowledge on this critical front. The vast data and thousands of surveys distilled in this report cast important light on the nature of constraints women and girls continue to face globally. This report identifies promising opportunities and entry points for lasting transformation, such as interventions that reach across sectors and include life-skills training, sexual and reproductive health education, conditional cash transfers, and mentoring. It finds that addressing what the World Health Organization has identified as an epidemic of violence against women means sharply scaling up engagement with men and boys. The report also underlines the vital role information and communication technologies can play in amplifying women's voices, expanding their economic and learning opportunities, and broadening their views and aspirations. The World Bank Group's twin goals of ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity demand no less than the full and equal participation of women and men, girls and boys, around the world." -- Publisher's description.
