National budget not women-friendly
Says CPD researcher
Nasim Firdaus addresses a workshop on women empowerment organised by Bangladesh Alliance for Women Leadership at Pan Pacific Sonargaon Hotel in the city yesterday. Photo: STAR
The national budget is not women-friendly and it has little focus on the development and empowerment of women, said Dr Fahmida Khatun, head of research at Centre for Policy Dialogue. “The national budget is formulated in a way where discrimination between men and women is evident in all sectors. This creates a barrier for the empowerment and development of women,” she said. She said this while presenting a keynote paper at a workshop on “Empowering women: data collection, analysis and use” organised by Bangladesh Alliance for Women Leadership (BDAWL) in a city hotel yesterday. Speakers at the workshop said the government has initiated a plan to accelerate the empowerment process of women from this year, which involves participation from some 20 ministries. However, the amount of budget allocated for the plan is insufficient and should be increased, they said. They also urged the government to reduce the income tax collected from women. Spanish Ambassador to Bangladesh Luis Tajeda suggested the government to take initiatives to increase participation of women representatives in the parliament. He also assured to assist the government for this purpose. Riti Ibrahim, secretary to statistics division of planning ministry, Saifullah Shovon, head of information analysis of ACI Limited, also addressed the occasion.
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