Sound governance is a must for gender-inclusive output growth

“Good governance” is referred to as a process of enabling the accountability of decision-making and how decisions are implemented to tackle holistic development agendas. It also brings about women’s empowerment directly by boosting gender-participation in decision making.

Good governance in practice:

The 73rd amendment act introduced the Panchayati Raj system and provided reservations for women of not less than one-third of all seats in Gram Panchayats. This sought to enable economic and political empowerment of women.

The National Policy on Empowerment of Women was introduced in 2001. It had the objectives of bringing about development, empowerment and the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women.

Gender Budgeting was introduced in 2005-06. Wherein, the Union budget has consistently allocated 3% to 5% of its total expenditure proposals to programs that benefit women.

Gender disparities deter economic progress:

Despite measures, female labour force participation has dropped over the years. This is due to unemployability, perceived wage gaps, less representation in positions of leadership, carrying out unpaid care work, low digital literacy levels, and women’s participation mainly in informal sectors.

To address this issue progressive intervention such as integrated schemes, advocacy of political empowerment, and ‘Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao’ were introduced.

A case for entrepreneurship to help bridge gender disparities:

This can lead to economic empowerment of women, enable self-reliance and also foster inclusive economic growth. Research suggests that closing the gender gap would result in the addition of $0.7 trillion to our GDP.

To bridge the gender divide in India in the entrepreneurial space, the government has launched the Women Entrepreneurship Platform (Niti Aayog), MSME Cluster Development Program, MUDRA Yojana, among other reforms.

Way Forward:

First, introduction of specific policies for women entrepreneurship as a tool to achieve economic empowerment of women.

Second, the inclusion of rural entrepreneurs is necessary for us to create change at grassroots level. For example, MSME Procurement Policy of 2018 could be tweaked to mandate 3-5% of public procurement from women-led businesses.

Source: This post is created based on the article “Sound governance is a must for gender-inclusive output growth” published in Live Mint on 29^th March 2022.