Bangladesh is one of the world’s poorest countries, position third after India and China in the extent of poverty. The population is predominantly rural, with about 85 per cent of its 135 million people living in rural areas. For their livelihoods rural people depend largely on the land, which is both fertile and extremely vulnerable. Most of the country is made up of flood plain, and while the alluvial soil provides good arable land, large areas are at risk because of frequent floods and cyclones, which take lives and destroy crops, livestock and property. In Bangladesh poverty has many dimensions. The poor in Bangladesh have not only low income but they also lack access to basic needs such as education, health, clean drinking water and proper sanitation. The latter undermines and limits their capabilities and their opportunities to secure employment, results in their social exclusion and exposes them to exogenous shocks. Then the vicious cycle of poverty is accentuated when government structures exclude the most vulnerable from the decision making process.

Below have a statistics about poverty in Bangladesh

GNI per capita, Atlas method (current US$) (2006)

450.0

Total population (million) (2006)

156.0

Rural population (million) (2006)

116.2

Number of rural poor (million, approximate) (2006)

61.6

Rural population below the poverty line (%) (2000)

53.0

Population living below $1 a day (%)

0.0

Population living below $2 a day (%)

0.0

Population living below the national poverty line (%) (2000)

49.8

Income share held by lowest 20% (2005)

8.8

Source-IFAD

Women and Development in Bangladesh

Typically, Bangladeshi girls grow up with limited access to education, which further impedes their capability to earn a living, often forcing them to seek employment in the informal sector. In the formal sector, women’s work is concentrated in the garment industry and in service sector jobs such as teachers, lawyers, public service, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and others (Asian Development Bank, 2001). Women in Bangladesh increasingly play an important role, especially in the informal sector. Some examples of informal sector work include selling groceries in roadside shops, working as domestic help, scavenging, and, in the construction industry, grinding bricks (Asian Development Bank, 2001). NGOs play a very important role in the lives of Bangladeshi women by generating employment opportunities through micro credit programs, providing training to augment skills, increasing literacy levels and awareness about their rights, and thus attempting to transform the traditional roles of women in society (Asian Development Bank, 2001; Ulvila and Hossain, 2002; Hunt and Kasynathan, 2001; Feldman, 2003). In spite of these efforts to improve the status of women in the last three decades, women continue to face discrimination in the areas of health, nutrition, access to education, employment, and political participation.

Bangladeshi society is deeply rooted in tradition and stereotypes of dependent women. According to Jahan (1995), male domination and subordination of women are the underlying tenants of the country’s social structure. The basic unit of the social structure is the family, which sets roles for men and women. Men have the economic control and therefore are the decision makers. Women’s lives in such a traditional patriarchal Muslim society are dominated by a highly restricted social structure. Although women contribute to the family income, often their efforts are not valued. Women are responsible for all domestic work, which is time consuming and exhausting. Their role is associated with family, and as such, biological reproduction and nurturing are of paramount importance. In Bangladesh, the average age of women’s first marriage is 16, and the median age of first birth is 18 (Adolescent Health, 2007). Based on existing research'(Khan, 1999; Hadi, 2005; Salway, Jasmin and Rahman, 2005), women in Bangladesh have limited choices compared to men because women are viewed as needing protection by men. In Islamic societies, women are considered to be in need of protection throughout their lives which is provided by a male member of the family: father, husband, brother, or son. In most instances women have little contact with the outside world, with men playing the intermediate role between the women and the environment outside of home. This creates a dominance-dependency relationship between men and women (Salway, Jasmin, and Rahman, 2005).

In many developing countries, parents see little economic value to educating girls. Daughters have greater value to parents when they help with household chores and take care of younger siblings. The decision about female education is also influenced by social norms of sexuality and marriage. Parents in many south Asian countries are reluctant to allow their daughters to travel to school and come in contact with the boys or be taught by male teachers. The lack of education results in unequal power relations between females and males, which, in turn, deprive women of decision-making. In Bangladeshi society, the male children are more highly valued because they are expected to provide for and carry on the family name. Girls are considered to be temporary members (Asian Development Bank, 2001) until they are married and leave the natal home. This influences a family’s willingness to allocate resources toward their education, especially when resources are scarce, and restricted access to education leads to high unemployment rate among Bangladeshi women. Further, the heavy burden of household work presents another challenge to their participation in the labor force.

In summary, although Bangladesh is an extremely poor country and all its citizens suffer as a result of that condition, fundamentally, the women and children bear most of the poverty burden.

The Need for Micro-Financing for poverty & women empowerment

According to Khandker (1998), the alleviation of poverty requires various measures. The most important being those, which increase the income and employment opportunities of the poor, enabling them to enhance their living standards providing the poor with access to financial services is one of the many ways to increase their income and productivity.

Binswanger and Landell-Mills (1995) states that a constraint in relation to supplier’s .i.e. Private Banks excludes the poor because small transactions are unprofitable. Providing financial services to the poor and women is not easy. Many borrowers are not credit worthy and don’t have profitable projectors. Thus, that the need for micro financing is an undeniable fact. According to Yanor, Benjamin and Pipren (1997), the issue that should be raised in this context is the importance of the informal sector in Least Developing Countries economy and its constraint to develop by lack of credit. On top of that, Salad vine and checkering (1991) confirmed this fact by noting that the informal sector¡¨ which contributed about 35% to 65% and