Tag: NITI Ayog

G20 Thematic Workshop on Nari Shakti: Towards Women-Led Development organised by NITI Aayog

 A workshop on the theme of Nari Shakti: Towards Women-led Development, emanating from the New Delhi Leaders’ Declaration 2023 (NDLD 2023), was held on 8 November 2023 at New Delhi.  The workshop was organized by NITI Aayog in collaboration with Institute of What Works to Advance Gender Equality (IWWAGE). This workshop was part of the series of thematic workshops steered and anchored by the NITI Aayog towards action items in the NDLD 2023.

The workshop focused on specific themes for enhancing the role of women in economy through economic and social empowerment. Discussions were held of topics of strengthening women’s collectives like Self-Help Groups (SHGs), Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs); bridging gender skills gap and promoting women entrepreneurs; and strengthening legal safeguards for women’s empowerment.

The Workshop commenced with inaugural remarks by Dr. V.K Paul, Member NITI Aayog, where he highlighted that women-led development has been emphasized by our Hon’ble Prime Minister through various initiatives and programmes over the last few years. However, he underscored the challenge of low female labour force participation and stressed upon leveraging their social capital by providing them an enabling ecosystem. He called to synergize pathways of G20 priorities and national agendas, and create actionable strategies to achieve the same.

Dr. Preetam B Yashvant, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Women and Child Development, emphasized of the paradigm shift where women are no longer recipients but active participants in the development discourse. He further highlighted that G20 was truly a Peoples’ Presidency where women-led development was showcased through ‘Jan Bhagdari’ activities.

Dr Sandhya Purecha, Chair W20 India, highlighted that Nari Shakti encapsulates the strength that women embody and women-led development is a moral obligation necessary for equitable society.

The theme on Women in the Economy: Enhancing Women’s Economic and Social Empowerment delved into increasing women’s labour force participation to achieve women-led development. Issues like recognizing gender disparity in domestic and care work; and increasing investment in this sector to enable more women to participate meaningfully in the workforce; exploring the potential of gig economy; bridging gender skill gaps and social security for women; enhancing policies to create gender inclusive and supportive workplaces; and role of private sector to enhance and retain female workforce, were discussed.

The theme on Women’s Collectives: Strengthening SHGs, Women led FPOs and Rural Women’s Leadership Abilities focused on sharing the best practices in the women’s collectives’ space and strategies to scale them pan-India. The segment engaged in developing strategies to enable these women’s collectives reach the next stage of economic empowerment through formation of large producer enterprises or collectives and fostering leadership abilities among rural women.

The theme on Women and the Future of Work: Bridging Digital and Skilling Gaps for Access to Jobs and Strengthening Women’s Entrepreneurship concentrated on enhancing women’s access to digital skills and infrastructure, prioritizing quality and safety, to ensure a secure and inclusive digital literacy experience, fostering greater participation in the digital ecosystem. It also focused on incentivizing employers to promote women’s participation in non-traditional sectors by addressing structural issues that shape gender roles, thereby encouraging women’s entrepreneurship and diversification of career aspirations.

In the segment of Legal Safeguards for the Empowerment of Women, discussions focused on creating an enabling ecosystem by prioritizing women’s safety through improved public infrastructure, strengthening the implementation of gender-friendly laws by effective monitoring, evaluation and placing accountability system, and developing gender-disaggregated data for more evidence-based policy for women-led development.

This workshop provided a platform for experts, academics, experts, and civil society and think tank representatives working on gender empowerment to collaborate and design a roadmap for comprehensive gender equality and empowerment.

*****

NITI Aayog organised workshop on Green Development Pact for a Sustainable Future

 NITI Aayog organised a workshop on “Green Development Pact for a Sustainable Future” at hotel Le Meridien, New Delhi today. The workshop was structured around the G20 New Delhi Leaders’ Declaration (NDLD), which includes the Green Development Pact. The Green Development Pact provides pathways for nations in their journey towards achieving the energy, climate, environment and disaster resilience related objectives.

The workshop was aimed at discussing implementation strategies for the Green Development Pact in India, aligning with the G20 NDLD and encouraging India’s leadership role for the global advancement of pathways laid out in the Green Development Pact. The event saw participation from stakeholders from across the country, including think tanks, educational institutions, industry, state governments and central government. Approximately, 4600 participants joined the event online.

Shri Pankaj Agarwal, Secretary, Ministry of Power outlined the policy initiatives taken to advance green development in India such as Production Linked Incentives (PLI) scheme for high efficiency solar PV modules, Renewable Purchase Obligations and Carbon Credit Trading Scheme. He highlighted measures for strengthening the distribution sector like the Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme and also highlighted the role of fossil-based energy in the context of rising electricity demand in particular months.

Shri Amitabh Kant, G20 Sherpa, remarked that India overcame many challenges to evolve a consensus on the Green Development Pact. He emphasized that the Green Development Pact includes key ambitions such as tripling of global renewable capacity by 2030 and rapidly scaling up climate finance from billions to trillions of dollars. He remarked that India had set the agenda for the global discussions on energy transition and climate action.

Prof Ramesh Chand, Member, NITI Aayog said that the workshop reflects seriousness for implementation of the NDLD and India is leading by example in this regard. Further, he remarked that Green development is centered around nature and environment and while clean energy is important, there is also the need for affordable energy and promoting energy efficiency. He emphasized the need for changing lifestyles to find solutions for sustainability concerns.

During the workshop, three separate sessions were held for discussing wide range of issues.

The first session focused on Implementing Clean, Sustainable, Just, Affordable & Inclusive Energy Transition and included issues such as energy security, facilitating technology access, creating enabling environment and encouraging innovation. The participants discussed strategies to address issues such as facilitating low-cost finance and supporting reliable, diversified and responsible supply chains with effective policy instruments.

The second session was oriented on Restoring, Conserving and Sustainably Using Ecosystems and discussions were held on the issues such as mainstreaming lifestyles for sustainable development (LiFE), designing a circular economy and ending plastic pollution. The participants touched upon novel concepts including bio-circular-green economy, scaling up voluntary initiatives and breaking silos for a harmonized approach

The third session on Adaptation and Disaster Resilient Infrastructure was focused on building resilient infrastructure against the climate risks. Topics for discussion under this session included climate forecast, mainstreaming disaster risk and resilience, coastal states/ city-level preparation and financing climate resilience. The participants stressed on the need for data and capacity building, measuring and quantifying risk and the returns on investing in resilience.

NITI Aayog organised a series of ten thematic workshops on key agendas of New Delhi Leader’s Declaration (NDLD) to devise actionable strategies and plans that can be implemented to provide impetus to growth and prosperity of the country.

*****

NITI Aayog to organise workshop on Nari Shakti: Towards Women-led Development

 NITI Aayog is organizing a workshop on the theme of Nari Shakti: Towards Women-led Development on 8 November 2023 (Wednesday) at Park Hotel, New Delhi. This will be eighth in the series of G20 Feeder Thematic Workshops being organized on 10 themes discussed in the G20 New Delhi Leaders’ Declaration (NDLD). The knowledge partner of this workshop is the Institute of What Works to Advance Gender Equality (IWWAGE).


This workshop will endeavour to bring together various views from experts, entrepreneurs, innovators, academia, representatives of think-tanks, and government working on gender equality and empowerment to identify the way forward and the required resources to achieve the objectives and outcomes mentioned in the G20 New Delhi Leaders’ Declaration.

It will be divided into following four segments. Each segment will aim to coalesce into specific action points and strategies that are required to implement the vision laid out in the NDLD:

  1. Women in the economy: Enhancing women’s economic and social empowerment: Women’s social and economic empowerment is of paramount importance for fostering inclusive and thriving societies. The segment will explore various pathways to increase women’s meaningful participation in the workforce, role of government and private sector to achieve the same as well as the resources required to enable women to join workforce.
  2. Women’s collectives: strengthening SHGs, women-led FPOs and rural women’s leadership abilities: Women collectives like SHGs, Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) etc. are undeniably a unique and important gender-responsive policy solution in terms of securing employment, financial autonomy secured through credit and savings, improving women’s capabilities around decision-making, fostering leadership, and communicative abilities and so on. This segment will discuss strategies that will enable these groups/collectives to reach the next stage of economic empowerment and also to expand their coverage in the urban areas.
  3. Women and the future of work: bridging digital and skilling gaps for access to jobs and strengthening women’s entrepreneurship: Women’s access to digital and financial services can be a critical enabler of their labor force participation. This segment will delve into the trends in the future work, strategies to improve women’s access to these skills and to bridge the gender skill gap and various strategies to promote women’s entrepreneurship.   
  4. Legal safeguards for the empowerment of women: Legal frameworks can provide a powerful avenue for women to not only access justice, but also proactively set norms for their empowerment. The segment will explore various strategies to further strengthen the legal safeguards to create a safe space for women’s safety and empowerment.

This workshop will be an opportunity for industry, academics, experts, and civil society representatives to collaborate and design a roadmap for comprehensive gender equality and empowerment. 

*****