Global Gender Gap Report 2018 published by World Economic Forum’s (WEF) on Monday states that Bangladesh has held its top most position among the countries of South Asia in ensuring gender equality, achieving 48th rank, for the fourth time in a row.

The country has slipped only one score to the 48th position among 149 countries in the world, but still ahead of all other countries in the continent except the Philippines, according to the report.

“Bangladesh consolidates its position as the region’s top performer and breaks into the global Index top 5 on the Political Empowerment subindex this year, recording progress on closing its political gender gap, despite a widening gender gap in terms of labour force participation,” the report said.

Its South Asian neighbours on the index are Sri Lanka on 100th position with 0.676 points, Nepal on 105th with 0.676 points, India on 108th with 0.665 points while Pakistan was at the bottom (148th) scoring 0.550 point, ahead of only war-torn Yemen.