Our Vision
Our Vision is of an integrated South Asia in which women producers and collectives collaborate to enable women’s socio-economic transformation.
- The BEES Network believes that an integrated approach is critical to South Asia’s collective development. South Asia is the world’s least economically integrated region, with inter-regional trade standing at a mere 5% of total trade. Women producers have a role to play in increasing regional trade. Access to region-wide markets can spur economic participation of women, enabling them to overcome shared socio-cultural barriers to achieve their true potential.
- The BEES Network will leverage its reach to work for a variety of women producers: those in formal and informal settings, entrepreneurs, and home-based workers, across sectors and locations. Conservatively, the current combined direct and indirect outreach of the BEES Network in the region exceeds 22 million women. These workers work at homes, in production centres and in factories to manufacture goods such as, garments, textiles, handicrafts, and agricultural products. The BEES Network will reach households, self-help groups, the youth, indigenous and tribal communities, village-level organizations and local government bodies, federated cooperatives, and trade associations to improve economic participation and inclusion of women producers. The Network will work to address common challenges that these producers face such as lack of market linkages, access to skills training, and poor working conditions.
- The BEES Network wants to challenge the status-quo of gender relations and thereby enable the socio-economic transformation of women in the region. The Network envisions that its work will help all countries in the region to reach the Top 100 in global gender parity rankings. The BEES Network will work towards structural transformation resulting in women having more control over their lives and decision-making and having access to resources and agencies that have deprived them of fully participating in the economy. To do so, the BEES Network reaffirms its focus to engage with men and women, communities, and policymakers to challenge the status quo.