Interview:Farida Akther

Expert: Ms. Farida Akther,
Executive Director, UBINIG, Bangladesh

1. GATI:

What has been the experience of Bangladesh on dealing with the food price rise issue and its gender related impacts? What steps do you think should be taken to protect the small farmers and vulnerable groups from being exposed to such external shocks in the future?

Answer: During 2008, Bangladesh experienced an increase of 83% rise in prices of food grain compared to the last three years. During this time, the high prices of food and other essential commodities was the major issue that affected all the people except the few rich. The price of rice, wheat and oil was sky high. The price of rice was over Tk. 40 per kg which was almost one-third of the daily wage of many daily labourers. The Un-elected Caretaker government made temporary provisions of giving food at a rationed price. People, particularly women, were standing in long cues just to get 5 kilos of rice at a rationed price. According to press reports, the life and livelihood of all sections of the society including low, medium and high income groups have been impacted by increasing price of food items.

Women from poorer class were particularly affected by such extraordinary rise in prices of food items. They had to stand in cues of ration rather than going for work. Even women from lower middle class and some sections of fixed income middle class were found in the cues. The major impact of the rise in food prices was that the nutrition level was much lower as the families managed to get the grains only with the income and could not eat fish, meat, egg or any other food to meet the nutritional requirement.

The small farmers adopting biodiversity-based farming system, such as Nayakrishi Andolon, were able to cope with the situation better because they were less dependent on market for their daily food needs. They could find many different uncultivated food items as the village had better management of biodiversity.

The situation of high food price was explained by the government to be a response to international food crisis situation, specially with the food grains imported from abroad. In that case, Bangladesh as a country and people at their own level can have better solutions by organising food production and to become self-sufficient. The dependence on import should be reduced.

On the other hand, the enhancement of biodiversity is essential as it gives a wide range of possibilities also in terms of nutrition needs of the people. This is an area where women play a very significant role in identifying the plants, herbs and aquatic resources as food for their families. The small farmers also play a significant role as they cannot always manage the food requirement from the cultivated sources, so they cultivate mixed crops and maximise their food requirements from the limited resources. The small farmers need to be organised and be given full support for biodiversity-based food production.    

2. GATI:

How do you think the global financial crisis would affect women workers in the Textile and Clothing sector in Bangladesh? Do you see any preliminary impact on account of the recessionary trends in the developed economies?

Answer: The Ready-Made Garment (RMG) industry accounts for 75% of Bangladesh's exports and earned $10.7 billion in 2008. Bangladesh has managed to survive the global financial crisis because it produces for the low-end of the market. The RMG sector had to cope with the competition from the Chinese counter part when quota from European Union on Chinese products lapsed on January 1, 2008. As China and India are more technologically advanced, Bangladesh can only maintain its competitive edge through driving down wages.

The RMG sector also took the strategy of exporting to various destinations. During this period the country succeeded in exploring some new markets like Japan, Romania, Poland, South Africa and Russia. These new markets helped to curtail the impact of global financial recession.

However, there was also severe labour unrest and continuous strikes in manufacturing units. Hike in yarn prices, high input and energy cost further added to the woes of the production units.

About 2.5 million garment workers, majority of whom are women, are engaged in 4500 garments factories of the country. With low wages the workers lead a miserable life. Minimum wage for the garment workers was fixed, for the first time, at Tk 930 in 1994. As per the existing law, minimum wage for the garments workers is to be re-assessed in every three years, whereas the wage was not re-assessed again until October 2006. This time minimum wage was set at Tk 1662. Only some garment implemented this new minimum wage rate, others did not. The pressure was on the workers and the owners of the Garment factories could take the excuse of the global financial crisis not to follow the agreement.

The burden of the recession is mainly falling on the workers, rather than on the owners of the garment factories.

3. GATI:

What has been the role of "Nayakrishi Andolon" (New Agricultural Movement) towards reinforcing the rights of workers in general and women in particular?

Answer: Nayakrishi Andolon (New Agricultural Movement) together with Sramabikash Kendra, the workers rights department within UBINIG has been organising the garment workers and collected information on the effects of the crisis on the daily lives particularly the effects of the rising food prices. We organised meetings and provided with food to the workers. We carried out campaign about the workers conditions at national and international level.

In the rural areas, Nayakrishi Andolon organised the farmer women to preserve seeds, which is very important for their empowerment as well as for self sufficiency. We also organised the midwives to preserve medicinal plants and for healthcare. 

4. GATI:

Bangladesh is also renowned for its handloom sector weaving. What kind of changes do you perceive of this sector in the era of trade liberalization? What has been the role of the Bangladesh government towards developing this sector?

Answer: After agriculture sector, the handloom sector is very important in terms of providing employment and livelihood and also providing clothing to the people. More than 10 million people in the country are linked directly or indirectly with handloom industry. Statistics also reveal that total demand for fabrics in the country is about 1676 million metres in form of every day wear like saris, lungis, gamchas. Out of this, 800 million metres are produced by the local handloom operators. The handloom sector has been badly affected by trade liberalization policies. The competition of fabrics imported from India, Pakistan, China has contributed negatively to the expansion of the handloom industry. According to reports, 37.6 percent of the handlooms all over the country are not operational. 

On the other hand, the yarn production units in the country did not receive much support from the government. As many as 1,92,311 handlooms out of the 5,05,556 remained inoperative due mainly to the non- availability of yarn. The abnormal price hike has thrown the handloom industry into a crisis. The country's handloom sector consumes around 3.7 lakh bales of yarn annually, 80 percent of which is produced locally. The government has set the highest price of the yarn to support the handloom industry.

The handloom sector is quite diverse with the capacity to produce coarse fabric and clothing to very fine quality craft weaving. However, there has been very little policy attention towards supporting the handloom sector with measures to increase the market both domestically and internationally. Small scale private entrepreneurs in this regard have come forward to promote the craft weaving by creating demand for craft weaving products among the middle class consumers.

5. GATI:

Your organization has the experience of developing women entrepreneurs in the rural areas of Bangladesh. How do you see the growth of rural industries from this perspective?

Answer: UBINIG has been working with the weaving community in different parts of Bangladesh since 1989. Prabartana, the sales outlet of UBINIG is one such initiative and has contributed to support over 5000 weavers in different parts of the country to develop productions and sell their products.

The government of Bangladesh did not look at women entrepreneurs from the rural industries point of view. It came more as supporting small and medium enterprises which can be both rural and urban enterprise. Bangladesh government has reserved at least 10 percent of Asian Development Bank's 300 million U.S. dollars fund for promotion of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) for the women entrepreneurs to ensure their easy access to industrial loans. Bangladesh Bank since 2004 has allocated Tk 200 crore for refinancing SMEs. Till now, the amount of fund under this scheme increased about Tk 520 crore. The contribution of women in SME sector is 7%.

However, the rural industries including handloom, various craft industries, food processing, pottery, bamboo works have tremendous possibilities for domestic as well as export market. Women play a very important role in these rural industries. The growth of these enterprises has been slow but can become very potential with necessary support from the government.