ADB to Promote Greater Empowerment for Nepal's Most Disadvantaged Women

MANILA, PHILIPPINES (16 December 2004) - ADB will promote greater economic, social, legal, and political empowerment of poor rural women in Nepal, particularly those from ethnic minorities and lower castes, through a US$10 million loan approved today.

The loan, for the Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women Project, will target women who have not benefited from past development projects in 15 of the country's poorest and most disadvantaged districts in the Midwestern and Far Western regions and Central Region, where gender discrimination is pervasive and deep.

The project comprises four components covering economic, legal, social, and institutional empowerment.

"The causes of poverty and marginalization of poor rural women are interwoven so that one cannot be tackled in isolation from the others," says Marzia Mongiorgi, an ADB Project Economist.

"A comprehensive and cross-sectoral approach is crucial if gender discrimination is to be eliminated. Only a project in which the components reinforce and support each other has the potential to fully address the multiple constraints and deprivations facing poor women in Nepal."

The low status of women in Nepal can be traced to a number of interrelated economic, legal, cultural, political, and institutional factors. Women's poverty is exacerbated by caste- and ethnicity-based discrimination, as the caste system defines access to resources and opportunities, leaving women more disadvantaged than men at every level.

Women have unequal access to food, education, and health care, limited opportunities to earn incomes, restricted access to and control over productive resources, and few effective legal rights. They are further disadvantaged by a lack of awareness of their legal rights and opportunities.

The project includes:

• Programs for income generation for the most vulnerable women, which will develop women-led microenterprises and improve opportunities and conditions for female wage laborers. It will build specific skills through tailored training programs, while supplying the necessary tools and agricultural implements. To help improve access to reliable and affordable microfinance, the project will support the formation and the institutional development of women-only or poor-only savings and credit cooperatives.
• A massive awareness raising campaign on issues related to gender, caste, and ethnicity, that will translate relevant laws and regulations into local languages, conduct media campaigns, and include community-based training of both women and men. To create an enabling legal and administrative environment, the project will also support the setting up of a specialized academic course for future lawyers and training of judges, prosecutors, court and police personnel on the rights of women and other vulnerable groups. Furthermore, alternative dispute resolution mechanisms will be developed and built on the traditional existing mechanisms.
• To enhance social processes at community level, community-based literacy courses and the establishment of local-level women's centers to build group activities that can act as catalysts for change. The project will support a demand-driven fund to provide timesaving household technologies such as improved cooking stoves, storage facilities and biogas plants, and a demand-driven fund for community-based social infrastructure, including small water supply and sanitation schemes and foot trails, to reduce time and energy expended by women on menial tasks.
• An institutional audit of institutions dealing with women's and gender issues, with the findings used to set out a professional development plan for staff at all levels to be carried out by the project. The Project will therefore support intensive needs-based training and capacity building for government officials at local level, elected and nominated women representatives, and gender focal points of local bodies to strengthen their advocacy role on gender equality at various levels.

Households will benefit in 80 village development committees in the 15 core districts, with the microenterprise program expected to reach 30,000 women, the legal component 100,000, the community-based water supply systems 12,600 women and their households, and the sanitation schemes 16,800.

"The time saving household devices and community-based social infrastructure aims at reducing drudgery and time spent on household chores, such as collecting firewood and fetching water," Ms Mongiorgi adds. "The legal changes meanwhile will translate into increased earning potential for women and their integration into society in the long term."

The total cost of the project is about $15.5 million, of which the Government will provide $3.4 million and the households and communities benefiting will contribute $2.1 million.

ADB's loan, which accounts for 65% of the project cost, comes from its concessional Asian Development Fund and has a 32-year term, including a grace period of eight years. Interest is charged at 1.0% per annum during the grace period and 1.5% per annum for the rest of the term.

The Department of Women Development of the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare is the executing agency for the project, which is due to completed at the end of 2009.

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