MAY 24, 2012 | MORE NEWS
Rokeya Kabir, the moderator of the sharing meeting introducing the event. On her right, Dr. Shirin Sharmin Choudhury, Honorable State Minister of the Ministry of Women and Children Affairs (MoWCA) of the Peoples Republic of Bangladesh.
For the national budget 2012-13, BNPS advocacy to make it gender responsive emphasizes on Information, Science and Information Technology Sector. This is largely to keep pace with the theme of International Women’s Day 2011: Equal access to education, training and science and technology. And also to be suggestive to implement government’s preferences for women’s participation in education, training, science and technology reflected in several policies and manifestos including National Women Development Policy 2011, Digital Bangladesh and Vision 2021.
Last three year’s budget of relevant two Ministries, Ministry of Information and Ministry of Science and Information Technology was examined from gender perspective in terms of allocating enough resources for achieving the gender goals spelled out in the policy documents and how much of it is actually spent for the results before drawing 19-points recommendations for upcoming budget 2012-13. Field research at grassroots level was conducted to get picture of affect of this allocation at target beneficiaries ends. The study findings and recommendations were shared in a press conference followed by a national seminar on May 21 and 24, 2012 respectively.
The study revealed a gross mismatch between the allocation and implementation of budget for women in these ministries. Most of the women including entrepreneurs are not getting advantages of information technologies despite their needs for information. They could be informed about market assessment, profitability and new opportunities through information technology and media. But scarcity and inactivity of information centers, lack of skills in using IT, language barriers, interruption of power supply and ignorance on this services deprive them of being benefited. Programmes in current fiscal budget like basic IT skill transfer up to Upazila level and fellowship on SICT not reserve quota for women thus benefiting the men compared to women. Besides, there are more than 160 e-community centers in the country aiming to build digital Bangladesh where one man and one women operator are supposed to work. But 62.5 per cent grassroots people are in ignorance on this and its service as most of the time these centers remain under lock and key.
According to the study in the years 2009-10, 2010-11 and 2011-12 information ministry got 0.32 per cent, 0.37 per cent, 0.37 per cent and 0.37 per cent and science, information and information technology ministry got 0.37 per cent, 0.38 per cent and 0.37 per cent allocation of the total budget respectively. Despite policy emphasis, the rate of allocation not even reaches to 1 per cent and remained same in three years.