Role of institution in the political empowerment of women: A study on women development forum in Bangladesh role of institution in the political empowerment of women: A study on women development forum in Bangladesh

The policy of strengthening of the existing institutions or creating new institutions has been used as a strategy of empowering womenpolitically by the governments, different non-state actors, including international development organizations and local NGOs for the last coupleof decades. UNDP under its Upazila Governance Project established Women Development Forum (WDF) in their intervention districts inBangladesh to empower women politically that later replicated by the government in the rest of the district. The prime concern of the paper isto explicate the role of WDF on the individual level of political empowerment of women representatives by exploring two questions: First: Towhat extent women have comprehended the main activities of WDF and their participation in meetings of WDF. Second, what changes havebeen occurred at the individual level of women members in terms of knowledge, attitude and practices due to their involvement with WDF? The paper is based on the empirical data collected in 2016 through an open-ended structured questionnaire, Focus Group Discussion, and KeyInformant Interviews.