Around 2,000 female public representatives of rural Bangladesh will be trained this year for promoting their leadership skills, says Unicef.
The UN body and the National Institute of Local Government (NILG) have initiated the programme for the elected women representatives of Union Parishads (UPs) and Upazila Parishads (UZPs) in 20 
selected districts.
The overall goal of the initiative is to build capacity of elected women representatives and officials of local government institutions focussing on improved awareness of child rights, empowerment for positive action and leadership development to accomplish their tasks, said a Unicef news release issued on Thursday.
In Bangladesh, every union has got three elected women members. A vice-chair at upazilla level is a woman.
“The [training] modules emphasise the importance of adequately addressing women’s and children’s issues at the local level”, said Edouard Beigbeder, Unicef representative in Bangladesh.
Md. Golam Yahia, director of training and consultancy at NILG, said through this initiative, “we are trying to empower them and enhance their leadership at the grassroots level which would feed into the overall development of women and children at the lowest tier.”
-Prothom Alo
