The PRADAN-Jagori Collaboration for Gender Equality

Going beyond organizing collectives for savings and credit, and generating livelihoods, two civil society organizations, with different areas of expertise and approaches of engaging with women, have committed, for the first time, to challenge the existing patriarchal structures and devising strategies for women’s political, economic and social empowerment

W omen’s empowerment, as a distinct strategy for growth and development, was recognized by the Planning Commission, Government of India (GoI), for the first time in the Eighth Five Year Plan (1992–97). By the Tenth Five Year Plan (2002–07), targets had been set for a few key indicators of human development, which included reduction in the gender gap in the basic services of education, health and livelihoods.

The Plan document called for a three-pronged strategy of social empowerment, economic empowerment and gender justice. The aim was to create an enabling environment of positive economic and social policies for women and to eliminate discrimination against them. It was an attempt to advance gender equality goals (Annual Report, MWCD, 2008). The Eleventh and Twelfth Five Year Plans have focused on inclusive growth, with a commitment to gender equality. Over the last two decades, the planning process of the state, in reference to the issues of women, has changed from a ‘welfare’ approach to an ‘empowerment’ and a ‘rights-based’ approach.

Ground realities, however, reveal less than satisfactory achievements in almost all the important human development indicators, pointing out that the benefits of development have failed to reach half the population. India is ranked 101 of 136 countries, scoring 0.655 on a scale of 0 to 1 in the Global Gender Gap Index (with 0 denoting inequality and 1 denoting equality). The index tries to measure the ‘relative’ gaps between women and men across countries in four key areas—health, education, economics and politics (The Global Gender Gap Report, 2013).