Giving a voice to women local government representatives

DHAKA, June 25 (NsNewsWire) — To foster empowerment and leadership skills of elected women representatives in rural local government, UNICEF and the National Institute of Local Government (NILG) has initiated a training programme for the elected women representatives of Union Parishads (UPs) and Upazila Parishads (UZPs) in 20 selected districts.

According to a Unicef media release on Thursday, around 2,000 women leaders will undergo this training this year.

The overall goal of the initiative is to build capacity of elected women representatives and officials of local government institutions (LGIs), particularly Upazila and Union Parishads focusing on improved awareness of child rights, empowerment for positive action and leadership development to accomplish their tasks, roles and responsibilities in the seven Divisions of Bangladesh. In Bangladesh, every Union has got three elected women members and the Vice-chair at Upazilla level is a woman.

With support from UNICEF, NILG has developed a training curriculum and will conduct courses to emphasize capacity and leadership development for the elected women members of UPs and Vice Chairman of UZPs. Capacity development for identifying issues affecting children and women and initiating corrective action at the local level is part of the package.

“UNICEF is delighted to be partnering with the NILG on this work, which will go a long way to empower women who been elected to serve their community. The modules also emphasize the importance of adequately addressing women’s and children’s issues at the local level”, said Mr. Edouard Beigbeder, UNICEF Representative.

The training targeted towards those women local representatives will focus on enhancing their leadership and management skills which includes, child rights and development; structure of local government and roles and responsibilities of women elected representatives; capacity development and empowerment of elected women members of Union Parishads and Vice-chair of Upazila Parishads; human relation and leadership development and elected women representatives in social development.

“Although nearly half of the total population of Bangladesh are women, in many cases they are lagging behind in comparison to the rest of the world. Through this initiative we are trying to empower them and enhance their leadership at the grassroots level which would feed into the overall development of women and children at the lowest tier”, said Dr. Md. Golam Yahia, Director Training and Consultancy, NILG.

The initiative is aimed at boosting the confidence of the elected women representatives of UPs and UZPs who can be reluctant to raise their voice and exercise their rights in various meetings.

This training programme is part of a larger UNICEF supported programme in 20 districts across seven divisions to build the capacity of local government at the district, upazila and unions level in convergence, bottom-up local level planning and resource mobilization.

Women’s empowerment is one of the top priority issues of the government. The Government of Bangladesh is committed to gender mainstreaming at all levels and has made notable progress in this area. Political empowerment of elected women representatives is yet to be achieved particularly in the case of local government. Thus, it is essential to enhance the capacity of elected women members in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.