ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses women members’ roles, performance, participation and empowerment in the functions of local government using empirical findings. The survey results show that there were some structural constraints that were serious impediments to the effective participation of women in the functioning of local government institutions across rural and urban areas in Bangladesh. The institutional loophole of the reservation of women’s seats overlapping with three male members is the most critical hurdle to attain women’s empowerment in the LGIs in Bangladesh. The findings of this book, therefore, call for institutional re-arrangement and to re-constitute women member’s constituency equivalent to the size of that of a male member and without overlapping to ensure a level playing field for women. The findings also show that women’s empowerment requires friendly working environments that can be developed through advocacy and awareness-raising training programmes for the male representatives focusing on women’s fundamental human rights consistent with the GAD approach as there was seen a strong patriarchal attitude of the male representatives towards women representatives. Findings also suggest that women representatives can be given extensive training on capacity building and the rules and regulations of the LGIs for active participation and effective functioning in the LGIs.
