Apart from increasing the allocation of gender sensitive budget, the government should emphasise more on its implementation and proper monitoring, experts said at a discussion on Sunday.
They also called for clarifying different aspects of gender sensitivity in budget and specific interpretation of different initiatives by government departments to facilitate advancement of women.
They expressed with the views at a post-budget discussion on 'Gender Sensitivity in the National Budget for FY 2018-2019', at Bangladesh Mahila Parishad (BMP) in the capital.
BMP organised the programme at its office at Segunbagicha.
BMP President Ayesha Khanam presided over the discussion.
Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) Senior Research Fellow Dr Nazneen Ahmed presented the keynote paper.
Dhaka University's Associate Professor Dr Bidisha Haque, Save the Children's Director (Child Protection) Laila Khandaker and Special Correspondent of The Financial Express Munima Sultana were present and spoke.
Dr Nazneen said despite increasing allocation for women in national budget, it should be mentioned whether discrimination between men and women is lessening or not.
She said the amount for women is getting bigger in budget but due to structural flaws and corruption in its implementation, percentage of benefit remains low.
The BIDS fellow mentioned that the government has been allocating Tk 1.0 billion for women entrepreneurs in the budget for five consecutive years.
But a significant portion of the fund remains unused, she noted.
The government should find out why it's happening, she said. Information gap and lower mobility of rural women are the reasons behind it, she viewed.
Welcoming the tax-holiday facility for day care centres, Dr Nazneen suggested for providing loans at 7.0 per cent interest rate to entrepreneurs establishing such centres.
She said the government is going to form a committee to assess gender responsive budget.
Dr Nazneen also suggested for including a BMP member in the committee to ensure better representation of women rights activists there.
Laila Khandaker said issues like violence against women and children, child marriage and sexual harassment need to be reduced to do well in the SDG 5 and 16.
Proper budget allocation and its implementation are crucial to address these issues, she opined.
Speaking at the programme, the BMP president noted that after decades of advocacy, the government is now preparing the gender sensitive budget.
But its benefits have not yet come as wastage and misappropriation of funds are still there, she observed.
Addressing the programme, Senior journalist Munima Sultana stressed the need for monitoring the issues where gender focus is emphasised.
She also said gender budget should give more focus on health sector.
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