No discussion of poverty, equality or development today is complete without considering the role of NGOs. Whether in the North or the South, NGOs are a visible, respected and entrenched part of many societies. Activities of various NGOs help to establish women's own rights and their greater voice. Regarding the third Millennium Development Goals (MDG 3) on gender equality and women's empowerment, women development has been undergoing a process of considerable transformation over the last few decades as part of broader process of economic transition and social change. Now-a-days, NGO activities embody the right to equality and equal access to resources and influence and assist substantially to achieve the MDGs. Many NGOs include large numbers of women among their beneficiaries and have undoubtedly pioneered innovations in many areas. The collective nature of group lending NGO style has proved it's far reaching implications on rural women's ability to build social capital. NGO's supportive programs have lead to a remarkable enhancement in social network formation and development, an improved status in family and community, increased mobility and to some extent also greater self- confidence and feeling of identity for the women. NGOs activities in the developing countries increase access to an improved learning environment for girls, thereby creating a sustainable system for the education and enhance institutional capacity. While the socioeconomic status of developing countries, women have improved in the past three decades; women are still impoverished economic development. Only the social sectors contain budgetary expenditures aimed at women. Even here, women-specific projects are mainly donor funded and not part of the core portfolio of the relevant ministries. Government sponsored women centered projects tend to be the traditional variety, giving limited skills training and promoting income generating activities, which give a poor financial return. In the health field there is an over-emphasis on population and related programmes. On the other hand, NGOs are contributing to women's empowerment and gender mainstreaming in a consistent way that women have emerged as leaders in the sphere of socio-economic development - earning for them and their families and also contributing towards the socio-political empowerment of the women of developing countries. Therefore, by building considerable capacity of the NGOs, they can expand their outreach, track their program performance, maintain accounts and related records, tap necessary resources in order to provide quality financial services to women. Nevertheless, there has been the development of a new class of women entrepreneurs who began with Income generating Activities (IGAs) but have graduated to take part in economic growth as independent producers of specific products. When one speaks of the economic advancement of rural women in developing countries, statistics show that in reality, one is often speaking of economic survival and poverty alleviation, for 60 per cent of women in developing countries live below the poverty line and the life of a woman is dominated by this social system. Such a system upholds a rigid division of labor that controls women's mobility, roles and responsibility, and sexuality. Bangladesh is one of the very few countries in the world where males outnumber females. Census data show that over 2.7 million Bangladeshi women were missing in 2001 (Hudson et al, 2005). This is primarily the result of son preference and female sex-selective abortions, or through relative neglect compared to boys in early childhood (including abandonment). With this existing situation, women, suffer persistent food insecurity, own no cultivable land or assets, are often illiterate and may also suffer serious illnesses or disabilities.
There are over 1,000 local and national organizations in Bangladesh that generate self employment opportunities for over 8 million poor, mostly women, through micro credit and training in literacy, technical skills, and legal rights. Civil society, particularly women's organizations, has been a strong force in bringing forward women's issues and interests onto the country's development agenda. Moreover, Bangladesh has more than 18,000 registered NGOs of a diverse nature working on a broad range of development issues. NGOs in Bangladesh such as the Grameen Bank and BRAC have gained international recognition for their innovative approaches to microfinance for employment and income generation, especially for women. What is perhaps less well known is the large number of smaller women-focused NGOs providing microfinance and other women development programs to women throughout Bangladesh. These organizations provide an invaluable service by targeting women not served by the larger microfinance organizations. They also account for a higher proportion of women in microfinance organizations in leadership positions. While about 85 percent of members of microfinance programs are women, women occupy only about 10 percent of leadership positions. This highly skewed leadership pattern is most acute in the larger microfinance programs, in contrast to the smaller female-headed microfinance NGOs. NGOs have widely been seen as a means to bring voice to the voiceless, improve welfare of and services to the poor and women (particularly in cases that government has failed), and hold governments and corporations accountable for their actions (Sanyal 1996). Indeed, many NGOs do demonstrate innovative and effective practices that assess women's needs and develop a feasible -and comprehensive package of interventions to improve the socioeconomic status of poor rural women. These NGOs is supporting institutional development and strengthening of women's community organizations; income-generating activities; easier access to existing services in credit and savings, marketing and business management, and skills development; construction of community-managed, time-saving infrastructure such as simple water pumps and small biogas structures; and a legal literacy and gender awareness program. Women in Bangladesh is almost half of the total population but the problem is 18 per cent of women in Bangladesh are involved with some activities and the rest are as dependent though they are capable to be an efficient human resource which might help Bangladesh for the development of his economy in some extent. As a poor country, Government could not able to spread his activities among all over the country. This is why NGOs were getting top priority and scope to do work with the government for the sake of the women development as well as the whole country. NGOs played the central role in the women development, especially in the outlying area by l identifying women beneficiaries; l forming and supervising women's self-help groups (SHGs); l establishing credit linkages for women group members; and l Training animators to work to with the women's groups. Some NGOs had focused exclusively on the needs of poor women, while others had not given priority to poverty targeting. Again, some were well known, experienced and established, while others were much newer and weaker. The evaluation linked the effective or weak situation of the women's groups directly to NGO performance, commitment and capacity. The small-scale and locally-based nature of these female-headed NGOs brings both opportunities and constraints. While enabling them to access very poor women in more isolated areas, their size and experience pose problems for their development as an organization. In particular, small-scale women's NGOs lack skills in the areas of staff and financial management. With only a small number of staff - all heavily involved in the operations and service-delivery side - it is very difficult for such NGOs to develop their skills and institutional capacity or access training. To qualify, these NGOs need to increase their active members, strengthen leadership ability and improve efficiency levels. NGOs also need to increase amount of money for loans, have better knowledge on savings, credit management, microfinance related accounts management and management information systems. They also need focusing in other sectors, such as female education and female literacy, and women's health and family planning. Support for such an initiative could be sought from the National Poverty Reduction Council as well as the Ministry of Women and Children Affairs. The National Poverty Reduction Council is a policymaking body recently formed but not yet active. It may support the development of a women sensitive credit policy for poverty reduction led by Bangladesh Bank and the Ministry of Women and Children Affairs. The developing countries and remote regions will be able to develop a congenial economic and social environment if it addresses the issue of gender development and women empowerment in its planning process. This process has been nurtured by NGO membership norms at the centre building. In other words, development of non-discriminative society can only take place in the developing countries if we can ensure better design and implementation of women development especially in the outlying areas. There is, however, an urgent need to support the economic activities of women entrepreneurs, especially in view of the social and cultural barriers they face. More NGOs should also be involved in the process in order to make such endeavors a success. This support would enable the women and young entrepreneurs to emerge as important economic agents and mark the emergence of rural women from passive receivers of support to active economic agents.r ASM Shamsul Arefin is President, Bangladesh Research and Publications
