Bangladesh is one of the democratic and liberal countries in South East Asia, in terms of,

awareness and religious tolerance. The gender issues in the business sector in Bangladesh,
as in any other country of the region, is important for the purpose of ensuring women's
participation in development process in a comparative perspective.

This has relevance to the need for promoting an inclusive growth process, the benefits of
which can reach the women population in particular. According to the country's last
population census (March 2011), women constitute half of the total population of
Bangladesh. Among the total economically active population of 53.5 million in the country
40 million are who constitute the employed workforce male and the female employed
workforce stands at only 13.5 million in number. Employment of female until now is largely
concentrated in some specific sectors and also at some levels - particularly the lower ones.
Most of the women workforce are employed in agriculture, forestry and fishery sector in the
rural areas. In the urban areas, the female participation is more at the lower levels of the
organisations and in the readymade garments (RMG) and handicraft sectors.

This scenario is changing. More and more women are now joining technical and mid-level
managerial jobs. The gender-equity scenario is positive, at least, with regard to
employment opportunities in some sectors like readymade garments (RMG) that earns the
largest amount of foreign currency in the form of the country's exports. And also at the
higher-end fashion designing, telecommunications and banking, the gender ratio is almost
equal.

But in terms of entrepreneurship, the situation is different. Women constitute only less than
10 per cent of the country's total business entrepreneurs. Like the case will employment
situation, the figure is concentrated in some specific sectors. In some areas, women
comprise more than 20 per cent of the entrepreneurs.

Such women entrepreneurs are more in numbers at the upper - and lower-levels of the
economical ladder than at the mid-levels. To be precise, it is more common in the
cosmopolitan services' sector and lower-level family businesses like grocery shops and
handicrafts in the rural areas. It is otherwise a positive aspect that more and more women
are now working at both the lowest and highest levels of activities in some sectors of the
country's economy. But the sad part is that women are neglected as entrepreneurs and as
employees at the lowest level of operations until now.

Working in a male-dominated, competitive and complex economic and business

environment, women have to fight on their own, for participation in different fields of
economic activities, in varying degrees. Women entrepreneurs in particular have to face
multi-dimensional problems -- from own family to the professional arena. The problems
range from the attitude of the employees and stakeholders to lack of appropriate knowledge
and the bureaucratic procedures.

Firstly, the predominantly male middlemen, suppliers, contractors and exporters dominate
the industry and take advantage of women's isolation at home and lack of access to credit,
supplies and market knowledge about the value of their work. This is truer about the rural
entrepreneurs. Home-based self-employed entrepreneurs lack access to inputs and services
like credit, market information and new technology that could increase their productivity.
Due to lack of market facilities, they also do not get the proper prices for their products;
such producers are underpriced by the customers or wholesalers who place orders for their
products. In both rural and urban areas, work environment is a major factor for the women.

In the rural sector, women do not generally own physical assets that can be used as
collateral for loans; the titles to the assets do usually belong to their male relatives. Even if
capital is available, high lending rates discourage investment.

Furthermore, bank loan procedures are not that easy for women entrepreneurs to comply
with, in general, because of some bureaucratic problems. Since they do not do job, they do
not have tax identification numbers (TINs) and other necessary papers like bank
transactions and guarantees required for bank loans.

Also the rural women entrepreneurs are generally poor and lack education, self-confidence
and legal knowledge that are needed to protect their businesses and industries. They often
fall victims to illegal threats or criminal offenders. Usually the women entrepreneurs start
their business on innovative ideas. For small and medium enterprises (SME), government
policy is not always favourable for protecting the real interests of women entrepreneurs,
particularly in areas that matter for promoting their fruitful participation in the national
economic development process.

The lack of management experience and production skill is yet another major constraint
facing the women population. Lastly, there is lack of healthy workplace environment. This
problem can only be overcome with a change in the attitude of the people in general.

From the societal aspect, lack of recognition from the society before success, makes it hard
for women entrepreneurs to retain their motivation. Also in most conservative families, the
idea of women doing business is not well accepted. Such constraints will have to be
removed sooner rather than later in order to make the businesses more suitable and
attractive for women entrepreneurs.

Though at the lowest level, some non-government organisations (NGOs) are now trying to
develop women entrepreneurs in different segments of businesses from handicraft to
agriculture, in addition to the previous service sectors like some top-end restaurants and
family-run banks, communication firms and garments. Awareness programmes for changing
the attitude of the people in general are now being taken also by different government and
non-government orgaisations (NGOs) on a larger scale than before.

Previously, women entrepreneurs were participating more in sectors that were traditionally
dominated by women such as handicraft , apparels, boutiques, food and beverage, beauty
parlour, tailoring, household or family trade etc. The situation is improving slowly; today,
women are also in occupations which were solely controlled earlier by the male. Women are
now seen also as owners and managers of cold storages, shipping lines, advertising firms,
travel agencies, interior decoration enterprises, engineering workshops and even garment
industries.

This change is taking place at every level. Monowara, a former agricultural worker, worked
with her husband a small piece of land in the char of Shariakandi, Bogra. By 2008 she was
introduced to contract farmingfor production of maize in that area. At first, she became a
contract farmer, but seeing the opportunity, she started trading maize and later on, she
became a contractor herself, supplying maize to 'charoen phokphand' (CP) feeds (animal
feeds). Now, she has a group of women subcontractors and a chain of contract farmers; she
is recognised as a regular supplier of CP feeds. She also owns a rental water pump business
in the char areas.

On the other end of the social rung, one of the pioneering women entrepreneurs, Rokeya
Afzal Rahman, started career in a commercial bank in 1962. She later became a sponsor
Director in Midas Financing Limited, and Director in Reliance Insurance Ltd. In 1980s, Ms
Rahman ventured into her own agro-based industry, RR Cold Storage Limited. Since then,
she expanded and diversified her business manifold, and is now in the media, insurance,
real estate and power sectors.

Midas initiated several innovative programmes for the growth of entrepreneurship

development in Bangladesh. As a result, women entrepreneurs can now borrow up to taka
one million as collateral-free loan. Marketing outlets like Mini Marts have been developed
and opened. The practice of providing working capital loans during the festival season as
Festival Loan has started, in order to facilitate women doing business in apparel and food
sectors.

The banks are also changing with time; now there are dedicated desks for women
entrepreneurs at most banks in Bangladesh -- state-owned and private ones. Approximately
600 branches of various state-owned banks operate such desks. The state-owned Janata
Bank leads on this front, having desks at its over 200 branches. More than 800 branches of
private banks have women entrepreneurs' desks.

The Bangladesh Bank (BB) is operating a refinancing programme for women to facilitate
sanction and disbursement of credits at the lending rate at 10% on loans of up to Tk 2.5
million against personal guarantees. Until December last, more than 2,700 women
entrepreneurs took part in this programme with approximately 1,900 and over 800 loans,
having been provided by banks and non-banking financial institutions (NBFI) respectively.

Still more can be and has to be done. The government can help expand credit guarantee
programmes, lower lending rates for women entrepreneurs, set up special windows for
financing, pre- and post-investment credit counseling. Furthermore, it can and enable
women to access credit without any collateral. A fund can be created to address various
issues for women entrepreneurs, including access to credit, training for women
entrepreneurs, better market access for them and for changing the attitude of the people.

A recent United Nations report says, "In countries where women have advanced, the
economy has usually been steady. By contrast, in countries where women have been
restricted, the economy has been stagnant".

In Bangladesh, women have now become more aware of their socio-economic rights than
before. They are venturing into areas to seize the opportunities for them. They have
plucked up courage to break barriers and enter the off-house working force as
entrepreneurs and workers - a scenario that was hard to imagine in the past. As a result,
they have earned more respect in the family and the society and also gained self-confidence
and economic independence. As a whole, they are now contributing much to the growth of
the economy, generation of employment opportunities and enhancement of productivity of
the country.