Working for Women Worldwide - Embassy of the United States

Success Story
Water for the Poor
in Bangladesh
A major U.S. international initiative
to improve sustainable development, such
as the management of water resources,
illustrates how many U.S.-funded projects
in developing countries are designed
zto provide women with the skills and credit needed to
improve their own lives and those of their families.
The Water for the Poor Initiative, announced by
the Bush administration at the 2002 World Summit
on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, calls
for a U.S. investment of $970 million over three years,
from 2003 to 2005, to increase access to clean water
and sanitation services, improve water management,
and increase the productivity of water for millions
around the globe. One project under this initiative
already has made a big difference for hundreds of
women in Bangladesh, where the needs of an expanding
population have placed severe stress on the country’s
natural resources.
Bangladesh’s population is heavily dependent on
freshwater fish, which represent 50 percent of all the
animal protein consumed in that country. This precious
wetlands resource, however, is believed to have
declined by 40 percent or more in the past two decades.
The decline in this source of food is adversely affecting
the nutrition of all Bangladeshis, as well as the income
and employment of 13 million or more rural poor.
The $12-million Management of Aquatic
Ecosystems Through Community Husbandry
(MACH) project in Bangladesh, sponsored by the
U.S. Agency for International Development
(USAID), has as its goal enhancing the productivity of
fisheries and farmlands to ensure a sustainable supply
of food to the poor.
But what is most interesting about MACH is
that, from the start, it has emphasized a role for
women, both as beneficiaries and as staff running the
project. For instance, MACH is providing 25 percent
of all large-enterprise loans to female members of its
Resource User Groups. As a result, more than 1,500
women are directly benefiting and contributing in
improving the management of Bangladesh’s wetland
resources.
Through MACH, women are receiving credit,
skills-development training, awareness-raising sessions
on socioeconomic and life issues, leadership
training, and adult literacy training. All these women,
as well as their families, are benefiting from the
increased fish yields brought about through their own
conservation efforts.
In 2004, MACH included an additional 240
women in Resource User Groups, and some of these
were incorporated into the resource planning organizations
that are increasing fish yields through conservation.
USAID expects that, by the end of the second
round of this project, an additional 350 women in
Bangladesh will receive leadership training, while
another 620 women will have received adult literacy
training.
For more on this project, see http://www.usaid.
gov/bd/index.html.
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