Economic and social emancipation of slum women

The paper attempts to describe some focussed initiative of a government agency, the Local Government Engineering Department (LGED) to enhance and improve the quality of life of slum women in its urban development projects. The concept described herein has been developed following a study entitled “The Urban Poor in Bangladesh” by Centre for Urban Studies, University of Dhaka in 1979. Following this, the government in four major cities undertook a project named Urban Community Development Project (1982-85) with UNICEF assistance. This concept of community based activities for the urban poor included organising the communities in groups, provision of income generation loans for women, installation of tubewells and sanitary latrines, and construction of drains. This was further expanded and developed in Slum Improvement Project (SIP) implemented during 1989-1996. Initially Ministry of Social Welfare and later LGED from 1987 became the implementing agency for the SIP covering 85 slum settlements in 4 city corporations and 16 district towns. The project was a success as it provided basic physical infrastructure to the most neglected part of the city and made provision of economic activities by organising and training the urban dwellers especially women. Encouraged by the sustainability of its components, LGED now included this concept of slum activities in all of its urban projects covering 419 slums and over 65,000 families in 40 municipalities and 4 city corporations. The authors being intimately involved in the urban sector projects try to describe the activities concerning the slum women for their economic and social emancipation.