AgenciesAs India assumes the G20 presidency next month, UN Women is hoping that the grouping - under its leadership - will keep gender equality at the centre of its agenda, said assistant secretary-general of the United Nations and deputy executive director of UN Women. Bhatia also told ET's Kiran Somvanshi about the gender priorities that UN Women has chosen to champion in India. Edited excerpts:
How would you describe UN Women's work with India? What are your expectations and policy priorities?
We work very closely with the Ministry of Women and Child Development, and now that India will be the president of the G20, our expectations are pretty high about gender being mainstreamed through the G20 presidency work streams. G20 Empower, an initiative started in a previous G20 presidency, is being carried on here by the government and we are focusing on entrepreneurship, employment, and education. Through this multi-pronged approach, there will be attention on the G20 presidency's work. We hope that the final communique of G20, if and when it comes out given the geopolitical context, will focus on gender and have specific initiatives around keeping gender equality at the centre of its agenda. So, that's just one set of reasonable expectations based on what the government's already doing. We also work on helping representation and leadership at the local level. We will continue doing more training so that there is even more than 47% representation at the local level. We have a programme called Second Chance Education, which will address, in a small way, the whole issue of female labour force participation in India by reskilling and bringing back to the labour force women who have had to step out for various reasons. We also have Gender Responsive Budgeting where we have some really good data on how states have actually increased their allocations with a gender lens, and we want to replicate that.
Given that the UN Women is a relatively young organisation within the UN umbrella, how do you go about supporting the various causes?
Prioritisation is the hardest thing to do, especially when you have a complex problem like gender and women's empowerment. So, our focus has been traditionally on four areas... one, of course, is ending violence against women... (which) is also a very complex problem, and we work on certain parts of it - prevention, changing mindsets, cultural norms and stereotypes that may lead to increased violence against women. Secondly, our comparative advantage is working on advocacy through and with women's rights organisations, civil society organisations to keep the voice of the grassroots movements alive. We have a huge network of civil society organisations. Third is the issue of women's leadership. While there are some improvements in women's leadership, only 14 countries have gender equal cabinets, and only 27 heads of state or government are women. So, obviously we have a long way to go to ensure that women are at the table making decisions... We think it's very important to work on women's economic empowerment because empowerment gives women the voice, agency, and choice. Now, in our new strategic plan that runs from 2022 to 2025, we also work on the intersection between climate change and gender equality.
Gender has become an important agenda for companies, countries and in public life. How has UN Women been able to leverage this positive change in the social environment?
It is true that gender has become top of mind for everybody. Part of it is the realisation that - hey, if we don't do it, we are leaving value on the table in terms of development gains and development outcomes. So, we are leveraging this through partnerships, through exchange of knowledge with institutions who are keen to do this and by having accountability frameworks and monitoring and following up on them.
For example, we are trying to influence the big international financial institutions such as the World Bank, the IMF and others to say that policies, programmes, and results must show a focus on gender equality and women's rights. Then we work very closely with the private sector, because business is now very keen on ensuring that gender equality concerns are reflected not just as a kind of CSR work or something that's nice to do but mainstreamed into regular business operations...(for) better outcomes.
How would you describe UN Women's work with India? What are your expectations and policy priorities?
We work very closely with the Ministry of Women and Child Development, and now that India will be the president of the G20, our expectations are pretty high about gender being mainstreamed through the G20 presidency work streams. G20 Empower, an initiative started in a previous G20 presidency, is being carried on here by the government and we are focusing on entrepreneurship, employment, and education. Through this multi-pronged approach, there will be attention on the G20 presidency's work. We hope that the final communique of G20, if and when it comes out given the geopolitical context, will focus on gender and have specific initiatives around keeping gender equality at the centre of its agenda. So, that's just one set of reasonable expectations based on what the government's already doing. We also work on helping representation and leadership at the local level. We will continue doing more training so that there is even more than 47% representation at the local level. We have a programme called Second Chance Education, which will address, in a small way, the whole issue of female labour force participation in India by reskilling and bringing back to the labour force women who have had to step out for various reasons. We also have Gender Responsive Budgeting where we have some really good data on how states have actually increased their allocations with a gender lens, and we want to replicate that.
Given that the UN Women is a relatively young organisation within the UN umbrella, how do you go about supporting the various causes?
Prioritisation is the hardest thing to do, especially when you have a complex problem like gender and women's empowerment. So, our focus has been traditionally on four areas... one, of course, is ending violence against women... (which) is also a very complex problem, and we work on certain parts of it - prevention, changing mindsets, cultural norms and stereotypes that may lead to increased violence against women. Secondly, our comparative advantage is working on advocacy through and with women's rights organisations, civil society organisations to keep the voice of the grassroots movements alive. We have a huge network of civil society organisations. Third is the issue of women's leadership. While there are some improvements in women's leadership, only 14 countries have gender equal cabinets, and only 27 heads of state or government are women. So, obviously we have a long way to go to ensure that women are at the table making decisions... We think it's very important to work on women's economic empowerment because empowerment gives women the voice, agency, and choice. Now, in our new strategic plan that runs from 2022 to 2025, we also work on the intersection between climate change and gender equality.
Gender has become an important agenda for companies, countries and in public life. How has UN Women been able to leverage this positive change in the social environment?
It is true that gender has become top of mind for everybody. Part of it is the realisation that - hey, if we don't do it, we are leaving value on the table in terms of development gains and development outcomes. So, we are leveraging this through partnerships, through exchange of knowledge with institutions who are keen to do this and by having accountability frameworks and monitoring and following up on them.
For example, we are trying to influence the big international financial institutions such as the World Bank, the IMF and others to say that policies, programmes, and results must show a focus on gender equality and women's rights. Then we work very closely with the private sector, because business is now very keen on ensuring that gender equality concerns are reflected not just as a kind of CSR work or something that's nice to do but mainstreamed into regular business operations...(for) better outcomes.
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