“Gender Samvaad” Event by Ministry of Rural Development

The Ministry of Rural Development recently organized the Gender Samvaad Event.

About Gender Samvaad Event:

• Gender Samvaad is a cooperation between Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Rural Livelihoods Mission(DAY-NRLM) and Initiative for What Works to Advance Women and Girls in the Economy (IWWAGE).
• It aims to generate greater awareness about gender-related interventions under DAY-NRLM across the country. It focuses on hearing opinions from the states and the field.

Activities under Gender Samvaad: Gender Samvaad provides states with opportunities to:

• Understand best practices/initiatives that other states are undertaking to improve women’s organisations.
• Understand gender interventions globally;
• Engage with experts and other colleagues on suggestions regarding how to handle issues/implementation barriers;
• The creation of a ‘gender repository’. It will have resource materials on best practices for gender interventions across the country/other countries;
• Build advocacy on the need to focus on gender issues across State and National Rural Livelihoods Missions.

About DAY-NRLM:

• A Centrally Sponsored Scheme
• It was launched by the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) in 2011 as a restructured version of Swarna Jayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojna(SGSY).
  • In 2015, the program was renamed as Deendayal Antayodaya Yojana(DAY-NRLM).
• It looks to create efficient and effective institutional platforms for the rural poor.
• It will enable SHGs to increase household income through sustainable livelihood enhancements and improved access to financial services.
• The mission is aided in part through investment support by the World Bank.
• The mission has set out an agenda to cover 7 Crore rural poor households through self-managed Self Help Groups(SHGs) and federated institutions. It will support them for livelihoods collectives in a period of 8-10 years.

Features of DAY-NRLM:

• Social Mobilization: It will bring at least one woman member from each identified rural poor household, under the Self Help Group (SHG) network in a time-bound manner.
  • Special emphasis is, particularly on vulnerable communities.
• Community Institutions: The Mission involves working with community institutions through community professionals to promote self-help.
• Financial Inclusion – The mission works on both the demand and supply sides of financial inclusion.
  • On the demand side, it promotes financial literacy among the poor and provides capital to the SHGs.
  • On the supply side, it coordinates with the financial sector to encourage the use of financial technologies.

Convergence: The mission places a high emphasis on convergence with other programs of the MoRD and other Central Ministries. Convergence is also sought with programs of state governments for developing synergies directly or indirectly with institutions of the poor.

About IWWAGE:

• Initiative for What Works to Advance Women and Girls in the Economy(IWWAGE) is an initiative of LEAD.
• LEAD is an action-oriented research center of IFMR Society (a not-for-profit society registered under the Societies Act).
• It aims To build on existing research and generate new evidence to inform and facilitate the agenda of women’s economic empowerment.