Bangladesh

We have been tracking national and international funding to women’s economic empowerment (WEE), unpaid care work, women’s financial inclusion (WFI), and women’s empowerment collectives (WECs) in Bangladesh, as well as assessing which funders have a gender-integrated approach.

International funding: The objective of our research was to provide greater insight into the international funding landscape for WEE, unpaid care, WFI and WECs in Bangladesh between 2015 –2019 and to pilot a replicable country-based approach to tracking international funding to WEE, WFI and WECs that can be used in other country contexts.

We tracked grant and non-grant funding from bilateral, multilateral, development finance institutions and philanthropic organisations between 2015 –2019. Full details of our approach are given in our methodology.

Our reports offer insights into international funding trends for WEE, WFI and WECs including top funders, the types of projects being funded, and the groups of women the funding is intended to support. We provide recommendations for how funders can better report and publish information that allows us to track funding and monitor progress against WEE, WFI and WECs objectives more sustainably.

National funding: We also commissioned research to assess national funding to WEE, WFI, and WECs in Bangladesh and offer recommendations for the government of Bangladesh to ensure transparency of the policies and budgets supporting WEE, WFI and WECs.

In July 2022 we published the following report series which documents our findings and recommendations:

Tracking International Funding to Women’s Economic Empowerment in Bangladesh: Full report and summary
Tracking International Funding to Women’s Financial Inclusion in Bangladesh: Full report and summary
Tracking International Funding to Women’s Empowerment Collectives in Bangladesh: Full report and summary
Assessing National Funding for Women’s Economic Empowerment in Bangladesh: Full report

Findings for Kenya and Nigeria are also available. Our complete report series can be accessed here.

Analysis

Country report

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Budget analysis

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Advisory Committee Members

Our multi-stakeholder advisory committee is made up of WEE experts and advocates, feminist economists and policymakers. We aim to work with our advisory committee to ensure our work is appropriately contextualized and aligned with advocacy efforts in Bangladesh to move the women’s economic empowerment agenda forward.

Shuvra Chowdhury, PhD is an Associate Professor at the Department of Public Administration, University of Rajshahi, Bangladesh. Before joining the Department of Public Administration at the University of Rajshahi, she had worked in the private banking sector for four years. This has enriched her to the deepest understanding of the dilemma of the public and private sector working processes. Her main areas of academic interest include open data analysis, public and social accountability mechanism, right to information, grievance redress management, public financial change management, and gender studies. She received a fellowship from Prime Minister Office, Government of Bangladesh, and conducted several studies under funding from the University Grants Commission, Bangladesh & Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Rajshahi, Bangladesh. She has published extensively in noted international publication houses and journals including Sage Publication Limited and Routledge. Her book Strengthening Local Governance in Bangladesh: Reforms, Participation, and Accountability has been published by Springer (2018). A book chapter titled “Decentralized planning and budgeting as social accountability tools: A study of social accountability in local government in Bangladesh” has been published by Palgrave Macmillan (2019). A new book “Gender Responsive Budgeting in South Asia-Experience of Bangladeshi Local Government” will be made available in November 2021 from Routledge, London.

Farah Kabir has been working with ActionAid Bangladesh as the Country Director since June 2007. Over close to three decades of vast experience in the field of development and research has made her a renowned human rights figure at home and abroad with an uncompromising voice against human rights violations. For her significant contribution to the women’s rights movement of Bangladesh, Farah Kabir won the prestigious “Nawab Ali Chowdhury National Award 2012”. She is the Chair of the Global Board of the Global Network of Disaster Risk Reduction (GNDR) since 2015, a Board Member of Climate Action Network South Asia (CANSA) in 2019, a member of the Advisory Committee of Bangladesh’s NDA to the Green Climate Fund (GCF). Ms Kabir worked with the British Council for nearly ten years both in Bangladesh and United Kingdom. She is the co-editor of two recent publications namely ‘Discourse Analysis as a Tool for Understanding Gender Identity, Representation and Equality’ and ‘Revealing Gender Inequalities and Perceptions in South Asian Countries through Discourse Analysis’.

After graduating from Jahangirnagar University, Taposi joined BRAC as a Management Trainee in Microfinance in 2013. Ms. Roy, worked as Regional Manager from January 2015 to April 2017 where her primary responsibilities were to ensure financial inclusion and financial literacy of unserved and underserved women. In May 2017, Taposi moved to the Head Office to lead the gender mainstreaming process in Microfinance as Gender Lead of the program. Along with creating a gender-responsive workplace and promoting women in leadership positions, Ms. Roy is leading a women’s economic empowerment project. She has also been nominated as Safeguarding Champion, Microfinance, BRAC in 2019.