The “Supporting Women Political Leaders in Muslim South Asia” which is funded by the Bureau of Democracy Rights & Labor of the US State Department seeks to empower female political activists in Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan. As part of this program NDI has trained six female activists from each of the four main political parties who act as Master Trainers within their respective parties.

These Master Trainers have now trained a second level of trainers from the Divisional level. This training was done on an all party basis with the six Master Trainers training 24 additional trainers. Both the Master Trainers and the Divisional Trainers have trained other female activists from their parties..

Throughout NDI's experience in implementing similar programs, the Institute has found that investing in training trainers has proven to be the most effective methodology for ensuring high-impact and sustainable programming. By institutionalizing reform efforts, and training the master trainers, NDI has succeeded in transferring ownership to local organizations, political participial parties and individuals. With this particular initiative, NDI places the onus of reform on prospective trainers and as such, has allocated significant resources for their training, including intensive workshops at the outset of the program, follow-up country specific training's as well an intensive four day training in New Delhi in June 2005

This four day workshop in India gave the Master Trainers an opportunity to not only meet with their counterparts from Afghanistan and Pakistan but also a chance to share experiences and difficulties they face as female political activists in predominately male orientated societies in their respective countries. A final regional workshop with the Master Trainers from the three program countries took place in Dhaka in December.

A final country specific training workshop with the Divisional Trainers will take place in Dhaka in March 2006.