BETTER WORK Bangladesh (Phase II and III): Gender (Korea)

The Ready-Made Garment (RMG) industry in Bangladesh has witnessed tremendous growth over the past four decades, playing a major role in industrialisation, employment creation, poverty alleviation and empowerment of women and men in the country. The industry employs 4 million people, of whom 54 per cent are women. Better Work Bangladesh aims to createsustainable change in factories and improve working conditions as well as business benefits. Gender equality is key to creating these improvements and vital in assuring the overall quality and impact of the programme’s work. In line with the ILO Dhaka country priorities, the Programme is committed to supporting the government of Bangladesh in the implementation of inclusive and effective ways to advance decent working conditions for women and men. Better Work Bangladesh is well placed within the industry to increasingly focus on the promotion of gender equality in its factory level work, while supporting tripartite constituents to also make this a priority. Promoting gender quality, empowerment of women, diversity and inclusiveness in Bangladesh’s garment sector is a key part of Better Work Bangladesh’s strategy. To translate its strategy into reality, Better Work Bangladesh implements activities that build capacity of its own staff to effectively deliver services that promote gender equality in the garment sector; and capacity of women workers to prosper in the workplace in terms of career advancement, while receiving maternity protection and support and respect. At the same time, Better Work Bangladesh builds the capacity of factories and national stakeholders on gender equality in order to create the enabling environment at the factory, sectoral and national levels for women’s full and free participation in the garment sector.This project was initially funded by USDOL (2019-2022) and is now complemented by funding from the Korean Ministry of Labour and Employment. The project timeframe is 2022-2025.

Project symbol

BGD/22/52/KOR

Admin unit

CO-Dhaka

Start date

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End date

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Total allocation

300908

Total expenditure

Status

Closed

291207

Development Partners

Republic of Korea, Ministry of Labour

Country/Countries

Bangladesh

Outcomes

Outcome 2: Strong, representative and influential tripartite constituents and effective social dialogue