Dhaka, Oct 30 (IANS): The World Bank has approved a $29- million credit for a project in Bangladesh aimed at economically empowering about 10,800 poor and vulnerable women in the country's most poverty-hit areas.

The project would facilitate the women's access to job opportunities in the readymade garment sector, Xinhua reported citing a World Bank statement.

The statement said the project titled "Northern Areas Reduction of Poverty Initiative (NARI)" will facilitate women's employment by providing life-skills training, transitional housing, counselling and job placement services in the garment sector in three export processing zones (EPZs).

The project will be the first World Bank-financed operation in South Asia with a specific focus on empowerment of vulnerable women through employment, said the statement.

The beneficiaries of the project will include women from the country's five northern districts where many people suffer from the cyclical phenomenon of poverty and hunger.

The statement said migration of poor women from the impoverished districts to formal employment in the garment sector was substantially lower than that of poor women from other parts of the country.

"Over 80 percent of the three million workers in the thriving garment sector are women. Yet, they are often vulnerable -- young, poor, sometimes illiterate and often single," said Ellen Goldstein, country director of World Bank Dhaka.