Poised to thrive: Empowering women with skills and jobs in South Asia

Sangay Choden, in her own words, displayed much Tha Dhantse—a Bhutanese concept of having the courage to do the right thing with integrity and loyalty. Choden was the first female science graduate in her family and now handles complex power projects with ease as the manager with the Bhutan Power Corporation Limited.  She has climbed mountains, both literally and metaphorically, she says.

From walking for hours to get to a site on her first job in energy management to being the only woman on her team, Choden now commits her time to mentoring students and peers in the industry. She hopes to create a workplace environment that is more supportive of women scientists, technical officers, and engineers, along with creating more opportunities for women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).  

Choden’s confidence and commitment was cemented during the SAR-100 program, a series of rigorous trainings on advanced technical, strategic, and leadership skills for mid-career South Asian women professionals in the energy sector. The program is supported by the Australian Government’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the World Bank Group. It has enabled over 200 women across Bhutan, Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka to work their way through an 8-month rigorous curriculum developed by the Yunus Center at  Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) in Bangkok and energy sector leaders from South Asia and Australia. Both the training curriculum and the networking opportunities facilitated by this course help bridge the gap between what South Asian women engineers know today and the powerful solutions they will bring to bear tomorrow.

Empowering women and building skills is smart economics

For South Asia, empowering women in STEM and building their skills not only translates into more women in the workforce and better jobs, it is also smart economics.  The region, which currently is the fastest growing among the emerging and developing economies, is home to tremendous untapped potential.  Female labor force participation is among the lowest in the world at 32 percent.  Women are severely underrepresented in the STEM workforce and only make up 25 percent of STEM college and university students.  Raising female participation alone in the labor force to match that of men would increase regional GDP by up to 51 percent—an immense development gain and a pathway for greater prosperity.

Partnering for prosperity

The World Bank Group and the Australian Government  have had a long-standing partnership to support inclusive and integrated growth in South Asia, with women’s economic empowerment an urgent imperative for both. For the World Bank, accelerating inclusive growth  through comprehensive regional development, expanding and enabling economic opportunities for women, and engaging women leaders, is a critical component of its mission to end poverty on a livable planet. Australia is committed to being a global leader on gender equality and has adopted a new strategy that recognizes gender equality as central to the Australian Government’s foreign policy, international development, humanitarian action, trade, and security efforts.   

These priorities, along with a focus on regional initiatives that transcend country borders, have informed the World Bank-DFAT partnership through its two consecutive programs: the South Asia Regional Trade Facilitation Program (SARTFP) and the South Asia Regional Infrastructure Connectivity (SARIC). Both programs have facilitated research and entry points for dialogue with governments on regional issues, and have allowed piloting of new initiatives, particularly focused on women’s economic empowerment, skills development, and mainstreaming women’s participation in regional development.

The AIT’s SAR-100 program is one such example. It has its roots in another key program established by the World Bank in 2019 with support from the Australian Government— the South Asian Women in Power Sector Professional Network (WePOWER).  WePOWER is a voluntary network of over 50 organizations working toward increasing women's participation in energy projects and in STEM education. Thanks to these initiatives, South Asian women are not giving up—instead they are tearing down barriers and challenging stereotypes, biases, and cultural expectations in the march toward parity. They are also seeking to change cultural mindsets and targeting parents and young girls.

Shared knowledge is a regional unifier

A clear benefit of such professional networks for women is the cross-border knowledge, networking   and learning they facilitate.  This regional knowledge exchange is a force multiplier for South Asia, one of the least infrastructure-integrated regions in the world.

Take the case of Quratulain Jamil— originally from a small mountainous town an hour away from Islamabad and now an Energy Specialist with the Pakistan government. Jamil explains that both WePOWER and the SAR-100 program offered a fresh regional perspective on how her peers approached challenges in creating a unified grid for their country, a priority for Pakistan.  “We are developing cross-border guidelines at the moment, and I am directly applying what I have learned and am sharing that knowledge with our government,” Jamil explains.

Similarly, Fizna Yoosuf, SAR-100 graduate with the Maldives Energy Authority says, “I could not have thought about cross-border collaboration before,” referring to her department’s plans to reach out to Sri Lanka and Nepal about how they handle EV charging tariffs.  Knowledge clearly unifies.

In fact, a recent report from the World Bank shows that STEM education and careers overall in South Asia offer potential for regional cooperation and cross border trade, provided the challenges can be constructively addressed, since there is a significant migration of workers between countries in South Asia. Like Choden, Yoosuf, and their peer graduates from SAR-100, women and men across South Asia will benefit from more portability of STEM knowledge across borders, buoying visibility for science careers, and accelerating human development and regional economic growth.  

The World Bank and Australian Government partnership shows how strategic collaborative investments can break cycles of poverty and discrimination in South Asia and replace them with opportunity, and more and better jobs. In this way, we can help women and girls reach their potential and at the same time promote regional integration to put South Asia on track to thrive.