Some women public representatives at a meeting have voiced for making the elected women representatives in reserved seats of the Local Government Institutions (LGIs) politically empowered for elevating their working capacity coupled with establishing good governance in the local bodies.
On the contrary, with their own efforts and initiatives, the elected women representatives should attain political and economical empowerment for boosting their working capacity, they added.
They were addressing at the daylong meeting with various women networks titled “Democracy, Development and Political Empowerment: Role of Women Representatives in reserved Seats of LGIs” at BRDB conference hall in Tanore Upazila Complex in Rajshahi yesterday.
Prip Trust under a project titled ‘Aparajita: Political Empowerment of Women’ organised the meeting discussing ways and means on how to attain the cherished goal. Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation supported the meeting.
With Women Development Forum President Khaleda Begum in the chair, Upazila Vice-chairmen Abdur Rahim and Bondona Rani Pramanik and former UP Chairmen Akheruzzaman Hannan and Mominul Islam spoke on the occasion.
During his welcome address, Saiduzzaman Sipon said main thrust of the programme is to build confidence, knowledge and capacity of elected women representatives and encourage building network for mutual support so that they can fulfill their obligations to their voters.
Khaleda Begum said the elected women should be aware of policy and politics particularly in the area of governance so that they can contribute to making local government and local service provision more responsive especially to the needs of women.
She said they should have equal opportunity to participate in decision making and women should be accepted as full-time workers not as token women so that they can work for the welfare of their community.
