ADB’s assistance for disadvantaged women

December 16, 2004
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The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a USD 100 million loan to Nepal to help promote greater economic, social, legal, and political empowerment of poor rural women in the country, particularly those from ethnic minorities and lower castes.

According to the Bank, 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,” Marzia Mongiorgi, an ADB Project Economist, said.

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, said a statement issued by the Bank on Thursday.

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 total cost of the project is about $15.5 million, of which the Nepal 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.  The Department of Women Development of the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare will implement the project, whi! ch is due to be completed at the end of 2009, the Manila-based Bank said.