Analyzing policies for women’s economic empowerment

Photo: UN Women/Snigdha Zaman

UN Women, in partnership with UNDP, has commissioned studies to understand opportunities in Bangladesh for enhancing women’s economic empowerment and build the evidence base for sound policy advice.

• Key macroeconomic trends and policies have been analyzed to establish a link between the macroeconomic performances and policies of the recent past and impacts on women's economic empowerment and engagement opportunities, both positive and negative.
• Institutional analysis has been undertaken to understand the ways in which key institutions shape, enable or constrain women’s agency in economic activities, including through producing or reproducing social norms and cultural ideas of femininity and masculinity.
• The changing nature of labour supply, especially female labour supply, economic opportunities for women across the various sectors of the economy have been assessed to identify highly potential and high value sectors for women.

Findings of these studies will be shared widely with policy makers as inputs to the mid-term review of the government’s 7th 5-year plan (2016-2020), and formulation of the 8th 5-year plan (2021-2025) and other policies and plans.