Home-based Workers in South Asia
(Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka)

UNIFEM is working to strengthen home-based workers, their organizations and their networks at national and regional levels in South Asia. Its efforts are directed towards supporting their efforts in addressing challenges affecting them, through regional policy dialogues and advocacy. This involves mapping of HB Workers in Bangladesh, India (a select sample size), Nepal, Pakistan (Punjab Province) and Sri Lanka to develop national databases and subsequently a Regional database.

New national HomeNets are being established in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. A Regional HomeNet for South Asia has been based in Ahmedabad, and a framework developed for HomeNet South Asia. Regional advocacy has led to an offer from FNV to support both HomeNet South Asia and HomeNet South East Asia for regional networking, organizing HBWs and lobbying for policies. Each country has HomeNet National Focal Points, who are  developing their work plans and planning for/or holding national meetings.

 

Tribal Women Producers in the Sub-sector of Gum Karaya
(Andhra Pradesh, India)

In partnership with the State Government of Andhra Pradesh, NGOs and the tribal gum-picker women themselves, this initiative aims to facilitate access to and control over the market place in Non-Timber Forestry Products (NTFP) and the returns therefrom, for the tribal women. The sub-sector of gum karaya (in the state of Andhra Pradesh in South India) was selected for UNIFEM’s intervention after adequate analysis of secondary data available and through dialogues with various stakeholders including the government, NGOs, tribal women and development economists. UNIFEM supported a Value Chain analysis and Market Survey, sharing the findings at a Business Planning Workshop, in Hyderabad in January 2001, with potential partners and stakeholders including the tribal women producers themselves. A series of planning/need assessment meetings with tribal women in 21 villages of East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh, helped in developing the programme and strategies. Areas of priority interventions and potential partners have been identified and a consensus evolved with the Government of Andhra Pradesh to undertake the pilot intervention. UNIFEM undertook a field visit in March 2002 to scale down the proposal to realistic levels and to provide a gender perspective to it. Based on the vision which was there, efforts were made to tune the macro proposal into the local context, focusing on Mahbubnagar, in partnership with the Girijan Cooperative Corporation, Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty (SERP).

 

UNIFEM Asia-Pacific Regional Programme on Empowering Women Migrant Workers in Asia (Nepal and Sri Lanka)

Based in New Delhi, the initiative aims to promote the rights and build capacities of women migrant workers by improving services, skills training and sensitization of key players in both source and destination countries. It also seeks to promote sustained dialogue among stakeholders in source and destination countries and facilitate migrant’s rights to organization, promoting economic and social security throughout the migration cycle. It is also directed towards supporting regional/sub-regional initiative for advocacy/lobbying with the State on ratifying the UN Convention on the Rights of Migrant Workers and their Families.

 

Strategy-Planning:

Building on its earlier work on migrant women workers, this is a pilot programme under the leadership of UNIFEM South Asia. Appropriate programme strategies have been designed based on a Situation Analysis of Migrant Women in Nepal and Sri Lanka and through two regional strategy-planning meetings, held in Kathmandu and New Delhi. The first meeting brought together all stakeholders from the Asia Pacific Region, as well as representatives of the receiving country Jordan. It led to the development of a project proposal for a three-year programme for the empowerment of migrant women workers in the region, with special focus on Nepal and Sri Lanka. The second meeting, in New Delhi, included project coordinators and programme officers of the programme from UNIFEM Jordan, UNIFEM Bangkok, UNIFEM Nepal and the UNIFEM project office in Indonesia. This meeting led to a consolidated strategic plan for the programme, both at the regional and sub-regional levels.

 

International Year of the Mountains – 2002

In collaboration with other donors and NGOs, UNIFEM is supporting efforts to mainstream the voices, concerns and perspectives of mountain women in global, regional and national development agendas. In May 2001, it joined other partners to provide a platform for interaction between mountain women and policy makers, which led to the development of a Regional plan to empower mountain women. Women from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin and North America, came together to finalize a plan of action for a mountain women’s agenda. Almost 300 participants, including mountain women, NGOs, mountain entrepreneurs, researchers, parliamentarians, senior government officials, funding agencies and media representatives, will be meeting at an international gathering, scheduled in Kathmandu in May 2002. Diverse donors, including UNIFEM are supporting the meeting.