- Country: Jatrabari, Dhaka, Bangladesh
- Works for: Gender and Water Alliance Bangladesh (GWA-B)
- Role in #women2030: Gender Expert (Trainer of Trainers)
- Related SDGs: SDG 5, SDG6, SDG 10, SDG 17
My name is Khadiza Akter and I am a Programme Officer at Gender an Water Alliance Bangladesh. We work on gender equality; integrated regional water management planning; water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), climate change and the sustainable development goals. I facilitate research work, workshops and trainings as well as do reports. In my professional career, I have facilitated a number of workshops and training, and participated a number of national and international conferences. I also did field work in very remote villages of Bangladesh for my personal and professional purpose. I am keen to advocate for applying an interdisciplinary approach in the planning, implementation, and monitoring of SDG related projects; combining gender, social, and technical aspects, so as to achieve more resource efficiency, social and gender equity, and sustainable results.
Gender insensitive culture is the main challenge in implementing SDGs from a gender equality perspective in Bangladesh. Because of traditional mind-sets, people are not eager to work on gender issues, and they are not aware about the importance of ensuring gender equality in implementing the SDGs. Other challenges include limited budget and time.
My challenges are not overcome-able overnight. From our organization we are trying to change people’s traditional mind-set and make them gender aware as well as inform them about the importance of implementing SDGs from a gender equality perspective. We are also trying to fit our work within our available resources.
I am engaged in #women2030’s Trainer of Trainers programme. That means that I share knowledge and information to other NGOs regarding the gender issues of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and encourage them to pass their learning to other local level civil society organisations. So that SDGs will be implemented from a gender equality perspective from the grass-root level.
