Enhancing Empowerment and Livelihood support for Empowering the Vulnerable Women in Blue Tourism

September 3, 2024

a group of people sitting at a table — Vulnerable women and girls receiving tailoring training at Nikhut Garments

By Ramiz Uddin, PhD, Head of Experimentation, UNDP Bangladesh Accelerator Lab.

Samiha Akter Sima, Experimentation and Innovation Association, UNDP Bangladesh Accelerator Lab

In recent decades, Bangladesh has become a role model for other South Asian countries as being one of the fastest-growing economies. The country has an ever-increasing population of 160M people where the ratio of men and women is almost the same (99:100), According to the primary report of BBS Census, 2022. No social or economic development is possible keeping aside the women section of the society.

Empowerment and livelihood support for vulnerable women has been a long practice in our country. The government of Bangladesh continues to ensure women’s overall development and active participation in mainstream socio-economic activities and remove all the impediments to their empowerment. However, in order to increase women’s engagement in tourism and the blue economy, the UNDP started a learning cycle with the intent of knowing-

how to address the vulnerable community with decent employment,
how to strengthen the livelihoods support of vulnerable local women, and
how to increase demand for new market opportunities created by the entry of a large number of buyers as tourists.

On average, the tourism sector contributes 4.4% of GDP and creates 3.9% of employment comprising mainly SMEs, making up 80% of the sector. But tax revenue earnings from the sector had been the lowest in the last five years in 2020. It tends to be dominated by big corporations rather than the local population, which limits the trickle-down economic benefit that can be generated from tourism. There are many secondary school-passed, disadvantaged women such as landless, widows, vulnerable women, and women-headed family’s jobless vulnerable women from vulnerable communities seeking work for mitigating family maintenance costs, but not yet finding a job. On the other hand, increased demand for new market opportunities is created by the entry of a large number of buyers as tourists. So, the demand for basic commodities such as tailoring, boutique, handicraft, and readymade dressmaking is linked with local tourism and business institutions.

To link up these two sides of the same spectrum, the UNDP Accelerator Lab in Bangladesh has taken interventions to improve the quality of life and self-perception by community members and generate income opportunities for the local vulnerable women and young girls. For product co-design and process specification first, there was the assessment of the context, value-chain mapping, and market linkage identification with the cooperation of the Local Government bodies, Local Public Representatives, UNDP, Women Chamber of Commerce in Cox’s Bazar, Technical Training institute of Bangladesh Government and National NGOs

Initially, 25 women received sewing training with logistic support after the need assessment. Vulnerable women who are socially abandoned, affected by climate, helpless, divorced, detached from family, and living without any guidance from parents and minimum education is the targeted beneficiary of this initiative. We also provided guidance and tools for starting new employment. The entire initiative was partnered with Women Chamber of Commerce and Uttaran (a local NGO, working for women and inclusive development) to leverage the strength of the initiative with their resources

text — Dress making and tailoring beneficiary selection criteria.

Bringing Women into Mainstream Economy

The aftermath of the capacity development initiative for women and girls is quite amazing. Women who received training have gradually mastered the skill of cutting, sewing, and tailoring. Now they are expert in making dresses as per the tourist’s demands. Not only that, but they are also now employed in “Nikhut Garments” - a venture of Cox's Bazar Women & Children Development Organization (CWCDO) to provide job opportunity in tailoring. They can now earn almost 5$-7$ weekly based on their capacity of dress making. They are now able to contribute to the family and fulfill their own basic needs. In addition, this has been greatly contributing to the tourism sector by adding economic value for the country.

a group of people sitting at a table in a room — After training practice session on dress making

This outcome-based experimentation on coastal vulnerable women has enabled the creation of employment opportunities by reducing regional unemployment in the blue economy area. The learnings from the training initiative have brought self-confidence, skills, and abilities among the vulnerable women to manage their own need as well as supporting the families.

Investing in women is considered one of the most effective means of increasing equality as well as promoting inclusive and sustainable economic growth. The ripple effects include more spending on health, education, and the well-being of their families and communities.