While digital skills are highly important for women’s empowerment, Bangladesh’s Her Power Project shows both promises and challenges. For a start, the gap between training and longer-run employment must be addressed by policymakers. In an ever-changing digital economy, an integrated framework is needed to ensure gender-sensitive pathways to work as well as the sustainable empowerment of women.
Rural women in Bangladesh are doubly marginalized when it comes to the question of digital development. Not only are they subject to a digital divide based on their rural location, but their gender identity as female also creates barriers.
Closing this ‘digital gender divide’ is a key challenge that policymakers need to address in their pursuit of sustainable digital development. In a developing country where internet access, as well as digital literacy and skills, are becoming increasingly necessary for education, employment, and other opportunities, this quiet imbalance shapes the future of women profoundly.
Despite Bangladesh’s significant progress in ensuring women’s participation in the labor force, in 2024, only 44% of women aged 15 or over were in paid work, compared with 81% of men. In the fields driving the digital economy, the gap is even sharper: only 20% of IT sector employees are women, and their presence in leadership roles in IT firms is almost invisible. Indeed, just 15% of top IT roles are held by women, with only 1% in leading companies and just 2% as entrepreneurs. For rural women, acquiring digital skills is as hard as it gets, with only 42% of rural women owning smartphones and only 5% of them having ever used a computer. There is a mountain to climb.
Digital skills for women – ‘Her Power Project’
If digital skills are the passport to tomorrow’s opportunities, then young girls and women should be given priority for such skill-based opportunities. Closing the gender gap in STEM and IT must become a priority for such initiatives. Without closing it, Bangladesh risks leaving behind the vast potential of women and girls for digital innovation and progress.
One of the largest programs run by the Bangladesh government that attempted to reduce this gap was the ‘Her Power Project’. In 2017, the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) in Bangladesh approved the ‘She Power Project’, costing an estimated 818.9 million taka (just under $7 million). Due to various challenges, the project could not start then. It was not until 2022 that it started officially, having been rebranded as the ‘Her Power Project’, with an approximate budget of 2.5 billion taka (about $21 million).
The main aim of the project was to empower women by enhancing their digital skills. Implemented in three phases, the project trained over 25,000 women across 44 districts and 130 sub-districts in six areas: call center operations, e-commerce, IT services, graphic design, website development, and digital marketing. Each participant is required to complete five months of intensive training followed by a one-month mentorship to support job placement. Women aged 18–40 with at least a secondary education could enroll, and incentives such as refreshments, small stipends, and a free laptop after 40 classes encouraged completion. Despite its strong vision of creating digital employment pathways for women, the project faced notable challenges in planning and implementation.
Challenges identified in the Her Power Project
System Improvement and Modifying Engineering Company (SIMEC), an educational and training institution in Bangladesh, was one of the implementing partners of the Her Power Project. The organisation trained 1,680 women across seven districts and 21 sub-districts. A review of this case study reveals several barriers that hindered the project from achieving its expected outcomes.
To begin with, the publicity of the free training program was not well coordinated. Instead of adopting a door-to-door approach, the promotion took place in crowded public areas such as local markets and along roadways. Due to socio-cultural norms in rural Bangladesh, women are often less present in these spaces. In hindsight, program managers should have designed a more gender-sensitive outreach strategy that better targeted rural women.
Despite this challenge, the participating young women expressed high aspirations and enthusiasm. Nevertheless, program managers should have established a more organised framework for following up with participants during the post-training period. Such a system would have enabled policymakers and researchers to better assess participants’ long-term progress and the broader impact of the initiative on Bangladesh’s digital sector.
The concerns identified through the Her Power Project highlight the need for gender-sensitive policies in the planning and implementation of skills development initiatives in Bangladesh and beyond. Digital interventions carry both risks and opportunities for women’s empowerment, and government-led projects—particularly those focused on women and the digital sector—require clear frameworks that guide every phase of implementation.
Policy gaps and the need for a gender-responsive lens
The National Women Development Policy, launched by the Bangladesh government in 2011, acknowledges the need for technological intervention for women’s empowerment, but many of its terms are vague and outdated. For example, it calls for a “gender perspective” in innovation but provides no clear definition or actionable measures. The framework also views technology primarily through a protective lens, emphasizing the removal of “harmful elements” and framing women largely as victims rather than as active participants in the digital economy. Similarly, its provisions for legislation and reforms in the field of technology express broad aspirations without offering concrete mechanisms to strengthen women’s digital skills, which is a major weakness.
Even so, lessons from the Her Power Project in Bangladesh offer hope for an equitable digital labor force. The case study also raises awareness of the shortcomings in existing women’s development policies. Moving forward, an in-depth examination of government project approaches in Bangladesh, as well as larger-scale academic studies on this and similar initiatives, is essential, alongside a re-evaluation of gender-sensitive policies across related sectors. Such a comprehensive approach to digital skills development will pave the way for positive change for women in Bangladesh and beyond.
