Current Conditions: Gender

USAID promotes gender equity and incorporates a cross-cutting gender component in all activities. The mission’s overall goal of reducing poverty in Bangladesh addresses critical gender issues in the following areas: fertility and family health, agribusiness and small business, environment, energy, food security and disaster management, democracy and governance, and education.

Reducing Gender Disparities through USAID's Programs

Health

• Family planning promotion encourages couples to discuss together the planning and spacing of pregnancies.
• The award-winning Adolescent Reproductive Health project targets both girls and boys in an effort to increase reproductive knowledge, life skills and use of health services.
• Men and women in high-risk groups for HIV/AIDS and STIs are targeted. Services are provided to increase links between prevention and care and promote knowledge of health rights.
• Reproductive health service programs teach clinic and other staff about gender-related barriers and address gender sensitivity in providing health services.

Enterprise Development

• USAID-assisted enterprises employ women as a significant portion of the workforce and promote opportunities for them to manage and lead businesses. Activities work with women entrepreneurs in small and medium enterprises to increase product demand by creating linkages within certain sub-sectors.
• USAID educates women in business and financial management and provides skill development training. The program also assists women’s business associations to increase their managerial capacity.
• The Greater Access to Trade Expansion (GATE) project will help to integrate gender equity into Bangladesh trade capacity activities to further promote women’s participation in economic growth.

Energy and Environment

• Environment sector projects have strong gender components and address issues relevant to both women and men in natural resource management.
• In renewable energy, USAID has helped to develop and support a solar power program which focuses on women and increasingly relies on women’s entrepreneurial skills for its successful execution.
• The grid-based rural electrification program in Bangladesh, which USAID helped design and has since supported, has provided significant socio-economic benefits. Women, in particular, have benefited in many ways.

Food Security and Disaster Management

• Food security activities focus on the different social roles of men and women to enhance household food security and increase women’s access to local markets. The program also works with local community leaders to address the needs and interests of women.
• USAID disaster management activities address the specific needs of women when providing emergency relief.
• Women actively participate in local level disaster management committees and disaster mitigation training incorporates a module which recognizes gender differences in order to improve emergency response efforts.

Democracy and Governance

• Women participants learn about the political process and how to participate and get their voices and issues heard.
• USAID supports the new Women’s Studies department at Dhaka University through assistance with curriculum development, research and workshops.
• Projects attempt to reduce violence against women through research, curriculum design, and educational materials. Other efforts help civil society develop effective strategies to report on and reduce domestic violence and influence public policies.
• Anti-trafficking activities address trafficking of both women and men. They train practitioners in prevention, capacity building, networking, research and protection to stop trafficking.
• USAID aims to improve working conditions for women by educating them about their basic rights as an employee. To ensure compliance to labor laws, especially in the ready-made garment industry, legal support services are provided for women employees.

Education

• Girls and disadvantaged groups are targeted in education. Pre-school programs, community learning activities to teach early childhood care, and basic education increase primary school access and achievement for girls, children with disabilities, and other disadvantaged students.

Gender Plan of Action

USAID/Bangladesh has a strong Gender Plan of Action, mission gender team, and full-time Gender Advisor to achieve the goal of mainstreaming gender into all aspects of the mission. Given the pervasive nature of gender inequities, it makes sense to integrate gender concerns into the Mission’s programs across-the-board. Focusing on one specific, gender-led objective would not be as effective. Following are some of the regular activities under the plan:

• Publish quarterly newsletter focusing on gender issues
• Conduct monthly seminars on gender related issues
• Organize gender orientation for mission staff

Gender Team

The USAID Gender Team is led by a Gender Advisor and the members of the team come from every office in the mission: technical teams, financial management, contracts, human resources, and IT. Members provide guidance to the mission on increasing understanding of gender issues; designing gender sensitive activities; and implementing, monitoring, and evaluating gender-related activities. The team has also developed a Gender Plan of Action and Gender Team Charter outlining the roles and responsibilities of the team members, based on recommendations from the mission gender audit in 2003.