JICA to support home-based women workers of Pakistan

KARACHI: Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has selected Pakistan as the first ever country to receive needed assistance in empowering its home-based women workers (HBWs).

A JICA official, Shirai Kazuko, sharing details of the four-year project here Tuesday during a dialogue on Women Empowerment organised by Sindh Women Development Department and HomeNet Pakistan (HNP), said the pilot project is being conducted in Sindh province.

"We had received proposals for 17 different women development oriented projects from different countries of Asia-Pacific region, however, after close scrutiny and assessment in terms of need based urgency selected the one from Pakistan," said the member of JICA's team of experts.

"The Livelihood Project for Informal and Home Based Women Workers is being materialised in close collaboration with Women Development Department of Sindh," she said mentioning that proposal was approved in March last year followed by extensive need based survey.

The project will be simultaneously conducted in Karachi and Sukkur with target group imparted with Life Skill Management, Diverse Income Generation Skills, Financial Literacy and Access to Markets as some of the essential components of the project.

Kazuko said Public-Private Partnership is the key of the schemes under which different government departments, mainly women development along with education and labour welfare departments being taken on board.

Private sector was said to be engaged in terms of financial service providers during the project to begin this summer and continue till 2022.