Delhi summit offers a salute to nari shakti

The G20 Delhi summit prioritized women-led development and made robust commitments to gender equality

The G20 Delhi summit has set new milestones and leaves valuable legacies in several respects. But where Prime Minister Narendra Modi has truly blazed a trail is the way Bharat’s presidency prioritised the theme of women-led development and forged unity around his Nari Shakti mission for the country and the world. It gender-mainstreamed the processes and outcomes, not just stirred in a little dose of tokenism. It also ensured impactful, intentional and perhaps, the most robust and comprehensive ever commitments for taking the world to a gender-equal future through the G20 Delhi Declaration.

Inspired by Chandrayaan-3, we could refer to six touchdown points of Delhi G20 on nari shakti. (File Photo)

Inspired by Chandrayaan-3, we could refer to six touchdown points of Delhi G20 on nari shakti. Most importantly, there was the consecration of the concept of women-led development as an abiding G20 commitment to “enhancing women’s full, effective, equal and meaningful participation as decision-makers in all spheres of society, across all sectors and at all levels of the economy”. There was a never-seen-before jan bhagidari — women’s participation and leadership in G20 decision-making, forums and events, in particular, of women from the grassroots. Apart from the G20 secretariat itself, three lakh women community leaders, artisans, self-help groups, SMEs, corporates, CSOs and activists participated in the summit events. The recommendations of Women 20 and the Gandhinagar Ministerial Conference on Women’s Empowerment were incorporated in the Delhi Summit Declaration, making it the most elaborate women’s empowerment-related section in any G20 Leaders’ Declaration.

The women-led development mandate includes socio-economic empowerment, equal and safe and throughout the lifecycle access to quality higher education; securing women’s food security, nutrition and well-being; driving gender-inclusive climate action; enabling women’s financial inclusion in the formal financial system; entrepreneurship development; full participation of women in the transitioning world of work; closing the gender pay gap; ending iniquities in care work and provisioning of affordable care infrastructure; eliminating gender-based violence in all forms and spaces and demolishing gender stereotypes, biases and discriminatory norms. The Delhi G20 Summit raised the ambition and set new targets including, halving the digital divide by 2030 and, towards that end, to adopt enabling measures and policies, funding and accelerating proven solutions. The G20 women’s labour force participation gap reduction target and roadmap of 25% by 2025 and beyond, is to be systematically implemented and monitored.

Taking forward the private sector EMPOWER initiative, concrete projects include the launch of TechEquity, a platform to bring together training and information for women’s upskilling into jobs and more viable businesses; a mentoring programme for women to attain more leadership positions; and the launch of a call for funds to establish a regional care accelerator programme to help grow innovative women’s business solutions on care work.

As someone associated with the launch of the Women 20 in Ankara, I applaud the leap in mainstreaming gender equality and women’s empowerment in the institutional architecture of G20 with the creation of a Working Group on Empowerment of Women. It would have its workstream while feeding into other sectoral working groups and ministerial meetings. The most powerful economies and consequential countries of the world represented in this grouping for economic and financial management and cooperation have mustered the political will. However, G20 members need to put their money on the Delhi Declaration pledges. As committed to in Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development and the Addis Ababa Financing for Development Declaration, substantially increased, targeted and transformative financing for gender equality and women’s empowerment must be mobilised. The commitments must be aligned with the financing provisions in the Delhi Declaration.

It is a time when women, particularly in developing countries, are weighed down by the cascading effects of conflicts, climate and environmental stress, poverty, food, energy and financial crisis. There is a backslide on achieving Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG 5) and other goals and targets on gender equality and women’s empowerment. UNWomen, which has been supporting the G20 presidency over the years, warns that at the current pace of progress, these goals could take another century and more. Bharat’s presidency has given a clear message that women-led development must be prioritised and we must touchdown on a Planet 50/50 soonest.

Lakshmi Puri is a former assistant secretary-general at the United Nations. The views expressed are personal