According to an ADB release posted on the bank's website yesterday, garment workers, majority of which are females, are in danger of losing jobs with the impending phaseout of the multi-fibre arrangement (MFA) quota restrictions by the end of the year.

The TA, financed by the Poverty Reduction Co-operation Fund, funded by the UK, will develop and test various approaches to providing opportunities and protection for workers that have been retrenched or are threatened by retrenchment.

The Ministry for Women and Children Affairs will be the executing agency for the TA, which will be carried out over two years beginning June 2004. The government will contribute $105,000 towards the TA's total cost of $525,000.

"The key problem is that, although the possible impacts of the end of the MFA have been discussed, little has been done to estimate the impact on human resources, including the development of a system to identify retrenched garment workers, and to design possible social protection and reemployment measures," said Axel Weber, an ADB social protection specialist.

The TA will produce a strategic report on possible approaches for post-MFA human capacity development, employment, and social protection measures.

Based on the report, the TA will test women-friendly labour market and social protection programs. It will then identify and document lessons learned from the pilot projects, determine the possibility of scaling up, and facilitate the exchange of experiences in a national workshop.

Job opportunities for women in Bangladesh are limited because of cultural barriers and limited mobility. They also lack access to education, skill development opportunities, and productive resources, aside from the bearing the burden of household responsibilities.

With the expansion of the ready-made garment industry in the 1980s, jobs were created for poor Bangladeshi women. About 90 percent of the estimated 1.8 million workers in the 3,500 garment factories in Bangladesh are women.

The sector is also estimated to have provided additional direct and indirect employment to 10 million workers in related industries, such as textiles and consumer goods and services.

However, the sector is already threatened by increasing competition from low-cost producers in other countries. Factories have felt this through stagnating revenues and they are responding with retrenchments and even closure.