Our food basket is increasingly being confined to a few select crops and cereals. Yet, our nation is endowed with a huge variety – a rich biodiversity, which provides of a complex stock of animals, plant and micro-organisms at genetic, species and eco-system levels. India needs to look beyond performance and diversify with biodiversity as the as a key functionary of the agro-ecosystem. Policies are thus urgently needed to promote a robust and sustainable agro-process through the biodiversity route.
Biodiversity is critical to the sustainability, resilience and adaptability of agricultural production system. Of the 250,000 globally identified plant species, about 7,000 have historically been used in human diets. At present, however, only about 30 crops form the basis of world’s agriculture and just three species of maize, rice and wheat supply more than half the world’s daily calories (CBD, 2008). Agriculture continues to be the mainstay to India’s large and growing population. Due to prominence of agriculture in the national food security, its performance is central to India’s policy and planning.
The biodiversity mainstreaming is the process of embedding biodiversity consideration into policies, strategies and practices of key public and private actors that impact or rely on biodiversity. It is important to strengthen the linkages between biodiversity and agriculture to enlarge the food, nutrition and health security of India.
Integrating biodiversity concerns into the agricultural sector will increase the agricultural productivity, environmental quality, reduce externalities, improve the ecosystem services and most importantly reduce the negative impacts on biodiversity. Therefore, it is important to mainstream biodiversity concerns into national plans and strategies for the conservation and sustainable use of agricultural biodiversity towards minimizing the negative impacts on biodiversity through policy interventions.
Centre for Biodiversity Policy and Law (CEBPOL), under National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) recently initiated a study on mainstreaming Biodiversity into the Agriculture Sector. The policy analyzed various schemes and missions of the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare and has come out with few recommendations for integrating biodiversity concerns into the agricultural sector involving local, regional and national government.
The discussion titled-‘Policy Dialogue on Mainstreaming Biodiversity in Agricultural Sector’ was held at National Agricultural Science Complex (NASC) of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, Pusa on January 20, 2017
The proposed policy intervention document could help in achieving the twin goal of enhancing agriculture productivity as well as contributing to sustained agro biodiversity wealth of India.
Under the CEBPOL Programme, the NBA has recently suggested strategies as follows:
- Conserve in-situ
Agro-climatic zone wise planning and on-farm conservation need to be promoted across the agro biodiversity rich areas. Incentives can be provided to local communities for promoting diversified agro-ecological systems and designation of agricultural biodiversity conservation sites/agro biodiversity hotspots. - Conserve traditional seed varieties
An integrated approach is required to increase the agricultural productivity to eradicate hunger, strengthen farmer’s resilience to environmental changes and restore crop diversity. A national database/mapping of traditional seed varieties need to be developed and documented. To ensure adequate availability of traditional seeds, seed banks can be set up in each agro-climatic zone/village/block level, so that these valuable resources can be saved and utilized by the new generations of farmers. - Identify economically potential crops and facilitate cultivation
Bio-economy encompasses the sustainable production of renewable biological resources and their conversion into food, bio-based products and bio-energy. To identify the economically potential agro biodiversity crops/resources, the marketable traditional crops/breeds should be identified. This knowledge based frontier has the potential to generate new solutions for the planet’s most important challenges regarding energy, health, food, water and climate change delivering social, environmental and economic benefits. - Manage and conserve pollinators
Bee keeping is vital for agro-biodiversity for cross pollination of horticultural and many agricultural crops. In order to maximize agricultural production, along with honey-bees, other native agriculturally important insects also can be promoted viz moths, wasps, beetles, birds, bats and other vertebrates. - Encourage use of bio pesticides
Increasing the usage of bio-pesticides/insecticides at the local level, also the agriculturally important insect population can be increased in the agricultural landscape by planting native varieties of trees/providing bio infrastructural facilities towards controlling pests and diseases. - Conserve livestock
Incentives/free insurance should be given for communities who preserve those indigenous/local varieties/breeds. Relevant indigenous knowledge of management strategies used by communities to utilize the genetic diversity in their livestock should be documented; Indigenous knowledge of pastoral communities about animal maintenance and breed should be documented with the active involvement of the communities, breeders association, gaushalas and NGOs. - Below ground biodiversity and agro biodiversity index
The agro biodiversity index can be used to monitor the loss of agro biodiversity in the agro biodiversity hotspots. Also the below ground level biodiversity index can be included in the soil health card scheme for assessing the wealth of soil biodiversity. - Land use planning
The agricultural land utilisation area need to be classified considering the importance of conserving the varietal genetic diversity. It is suggested to classify the agricultural landscape through a land use policy and the agricultural landscape can be classified as: a)Agro-biodiversity hotspots; b) Prime agricultural/farm lands (fertile); c) Watershed area; d) Double cropped land; and, e) Pasture land for livestock rearing. - Identify Problematic Invasive Alien Species
The spread of alien species is considered one of the greatest global threat to biodiversity. The spread and establishment of have resulted in significant negative economic consequences around the world along with posing threats to human health and agricultural species. A criteria need to be developed for identifying the problematic species and strategies need to be developed towards prioritizing, managing and controlling the spread of invasive alien species. - Integrate horticultural mission with the Green Highways Policy
A green highway is a new concept that includes a roadway design integrating the functionalities of transport and ecological sustainability. The aim for this concept is that growth and development should go hand in hand with sustainability of the eco system and public health. It is recommended that, horticultural crops, fruit bearing trees, medicinal plants , high value timber trees can be promoted in the national and state highways. - Compliance with the Biological Diversity (BD) Act
The agriculture related research institutions need to report to NBA, if any new taxon, breed(s), culture(s), strain(s) or line(s) discovered or developed. All the State Biodiversity Boards(SBBs) should notify the list of plant and animal genetic resources which are in the verge of extinction and necessary rehabilitative measures need to be taken. Also, the list of Normally Traded Commodities for domestic stock and breed of animal, insect and fish genetic resources need to be notified by the central Government. It is also suggested to activate Biodiversity Management Committees (BMCs) in the agro-biodiversity hotspots towards conserving and sustainable utilization of agro biodiversity resources. - Awareness and capacity building
Some of the existing programmes like Farmers Field School (FFS) can be used for creating awareness among farmers about the importance of agro biodiversity. Considering the importance of agro-biodiversity in the emerging global scenario, awareness/literacy campaign for conservation and sustainable management of agro-biodiversity need to be initiated at the gross root level, starting right from school, colleges, gram sabha/ panchayat level. - Finance mobilization and incentive mechanism
To conserve the agro-biodiversity, the financial mechanism can be mobilized through monetary and non-monetary sources. Economic incentives can be provided to the farmers switching over to ecological intensified farming practices (organic farming, integrated pest managementpractices, farming using native varieties) and polluter pay principle can be used to reclaim the agricultural lands affected due to industrial pollution and to reverse the ecology. - Include biodiversity experts in the national/state and district level committees for implementing various missions
The NBA, SBB, BMC representatives/ biodiversity experts may be included as a members in the national/state/district level committees of the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers welfare schemes viz a) National Food Security Mission; b) National Mission on Oliseeds and Oilpalm; c) Mission for Integrated Development of Horticulture; and, e) National Livestock Mission.
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On March 31, the World Economic Forum (WEF) released its annual Gender Gap Report 2021. The Global Gender Gap report is an annual report released by the WEF. The gender gap is the difference between women and men as reflected in social, political, intellectual, cultural, or economic attainments or attitudes. The gap between men and women across health, education, politics, and economics widened for the first time since records began in 2006.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]No need to remember all the data, only pick out few important ones to use in your answers.
The Global gender gap index aims to measure this gap in four key areas : health, education, economics, and politics. It surveys economies to measure gender disparity by collating and analyzing data that fall under four indices : economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment.
The 2021 Global Gender Gap Index benchmarks 156 countries on their progress towards gender parity. The index aims to serve as a compass to track progress on relative gaps between women and men in health, education, economy, and politics.
Although no country has achieved full gender parity, the top two countries (Iceland and Finland) have closed at least 85% of their gap, and the remaining seven countries (Lithuania, Namibia, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Rwanda, and Ireland) have closed at least 80% of their gap. Geographically, the global top 10 continues to be dominated by Nordic countries, with —Iceland, Norway, Finland, and Sweden—in the top five.
The top 10 is completed by one country from Asia Pacific (New Zealand 4th), two Sub-Saharan countries (Namibia, 6th and Rwanda, 7th, one country from Eastern Europe (the new entrant to the top 10, Lithuania, 8th), and another two Western European countries (Ireland, 9th, and Switzerland, 10th, another country in the top-10 for the first time).There is a relatively equitable distribution of available income, resources, and opportunities for men and women in these countries. The tremendous gender gaps are identified primarily in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia.
Here, we can discuss the overall global gender gap scores across the index’s four main components : Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment.
The indicators of the four main components are
(1) Economic Participation and Opportunity:
o Labour force participation rate,
o wage equality for similar work,
o estimated earned income,
o Legislators, senior officials, and managers,
o Professional and technical workers.
(2) Educational Attainment:
o Literacy rate (%)
o Enrollment in primary education (%)
o Enrollment in secondary education (%)
o Enrollment in tertiary education (%).
(3) Health and Survival:
o Sex ratio at birth (%)
o Healthy life expectancy (years).
(4) Political Empowerment:
o Women in Parliament (%)
o Women in Ministerial positions (%)
o Years with a female head of State (last 50 years)
o The share of tenure years.
The objective is to shed light on which factors are driving the overall average decline in the global gender gap score. The analysis results show that this year’s decline is mainly caused by a reversal in performance on the Political Empowerment gap.
Global Trends and Outcomes:
– Globally, this year, i.e., 2021, the average distance completed to gender parity gap is 68% (This means that the remaining gender gap to close stands at 32%) a step back compared to 2020 (-0.6 percentage points). These figures are mainly driven by a decline in the performance of large countries. On its current trajectory, it will now take 135.6 years to close the gender gap worldwide.
– The gender gap in Political Empowerment remains the largest of the four gaps tracked, with only 22% closed to date, having further widened since the 2020 edition of the report by 2.4 percentage points. Across the 156 countries covered by the index, women represent only 26.1% of some 35,500 Parliament seats and 22.6% of over 3,400 Ministers worldwide. In 81 countries, there has never been a woman head of State as of January 15, 2021. At the current rate of progress, the World Economic Forum estimates that it will take 145.5 years to attain gender parity in politics.
– The gender gap in Economic Participation and Opportunity remains the second-largest of the four key gaps tracked by the index. According to this year’s index results, 58% of this gap has been closed so far. The gap has seen marginal improvement since the 2020 edition of the report, and as a result, we estimate that it will take another 267.6 years to close.
– Gender gaps in Educational Attainment and Health and Survival are nearly closed. In Educational Attainment, 95% of this gender gap has been closed globally, with 37 countries already attaining gender parity. However, the ‘last mile’ of progress is proceeding slowly. The index estimates that it will take another 14.2 years to close this gap on its current trajectory completely.
In Health and Survival, 96% of this gender gap has been closed, registering a marginal decline since last year (not due to COVID-19), and the time to close this gap remains undefined. For both education and health, while progress is higher than economy and politics in the global data, there are important future implications of disruptions due to the pandemic and continued variations in quality across income, geography, race, and ethnicity.
India-Specific Findings:
India had slipped 28 spots to rank 140 out of the 156 countries covered. The pandemic causing a disproportionate impact on women jeopardizes rolling back the little progress made in the last decades-forcing more women to drop off the workforce and leaving them vulnerable to domestic violence.
India’s poor performance on the Global Gender Gap report card hints at a serious wake-up call and learning lessons from the Nordic region for the Government and policy makers.
Within the 156 countries covered, women hold only 26 percent of Parliamentary seats and 22 percent of Ministerial positions. India, in some ways, reflects this widening gap, where the number of Ministers declined from 23.1 percent in 2019 to 9.1 percent in 2021. The number of women in Parliament stands low at 14.4 percent. In India, the gender gap has widened to 62.5 %, down from 66.8% the previous year.
It is mainly due to women’s inadequate representation in politics, technical and leadership roles, a decrease in women’s labor force participation rate, poor healthcare, lagging female to male literacy ratio, and income inequality.
The gap is the widest on the political empowerment dimension, with economic participation and opportunity being next in line. However, the gap on educational attainment and health and survival has been practically bridged.
India is the third-worst performer among South Asian countries, with Pakistan and Afghanistan trailing and Bangladesh being at the top. The report states that the country fared the worst in political empowerment, regressing from 23.9% to 9.1%.
Its ranking on the health and survival dimension is among the five worst performers. The economic participation and opportunity gap saw a decline of 3% compared to 2020, while India’s educational attainment front is in the 114th position.
India has deteriorated to 51st place from 18th place in 2020 on political empowerment. Still, it has slipped to 155th position from 150th position in 2020 on health and survival, 151st place in economic participation and opportunity from 149th place, and 114th place for educational attainment from 112th.
In 2020 reports, among the 153 countries studied, India is the only country where the economic gender gap of 64.6% is larger than the political gender gap of 58.9%. In 2021 report, among the 156 countries, the economic gender gap of India is 67.4%, 3.8% gender gap in education, 6.3% gap in health and survival, and 72.4% gender gap in political empowerment. In health and survival, the gender gap of the sex ratio at birth is above 9.1%, and healthy life expectancy is almost the same.
Discrimination against women has also been reflected in Health and Survival subindex statistics. With 93.7% of this gap closed to date, India ranks among the bottom five countries in this subindex. The wide sex ratio at birth gaps is due to the high incidence of gender-based sex-selective practices. Besides, more than one in four women has faced intimate violence in her lifetime.The gender gap in the literacy rate is above 20.1%.
Yet, gender gaps persist in literacy : one-third of women are illiterate (34.2%) than 17.6% of men. In political empowerment, globally, women in Parliament is at 128th position and gender gap of 83.2%, and 90% gap in a Ministerial position. The gap in wages equality for similar work is above 51.8%. On health and survival, four large countries Pakistan, India, Vietnam, and China, fare poorly, with millions of women there not getting the same access to health as men.
The pandemic has only slowed down in its tracks the progress India was making towards achieving gender parity. The country urgently needs to focus on “health and survival,” which points towards a skewed sex ratio because of the high incidence of gender-based sex-selective practices and women’s economic participation. Women’s labour force participation rate and the share of women in technical roles declined in 2020, reducing the estimated earned income of women, one-fifth of men.
Learning from the Nordic region, noteworthy participation of women in politics, institutions, and public life is the catalyst for transformational change. Women need to be equal participants in the labour force to pioneer the societal changes the world needs in this integral period of transition.
Every effort must be directed towards achieving gender parallelism by facilitating women in leadership and decision-making positions. Social protection programmes should be gender-responsive and account for the differential needs of women and girls. Research and scientific literature also provide unequivocal evidence that countries led by women are dealing with the pandemic more effectively than many others.
Gendered inequality, thereby, is a global concern. India should focus on targeted policies and earmarked public and private investments in care and equalized access. Women are not ready to wait for another century for equality. It’s time India accelerates its efforts and fight for an inclusive, equal, global recovery.
India will not fully develop unless both women and men are equally supported to reach their full potential. There are risks, violations, and vulnerabilities women face just because they are women. Most of these risks are directly linked to women’s economic, political, social, and cultural disadvantages in their daily lives. It becomes acute during crises and disasters.
With the prevalence of gender discrimination, and social norms and practices, women become exposed to the possibility of child marriage, teenage pregnancy, child domestic work, poor education and health, sexual abuse, exploitation, and violence. Many of these manifestations will not change unless women are valued more.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]2021 WEF Global Gender Gap report, which confirmed its 2016 finding of a decline in worldwide progress towards gender parity.
Over 2.8 billion women are legally restricted from having the same choice of jobs as men. As many as 104 countries still have laws preventing women from working in specific jobs, 59 countries have no laws on sexual harassment in the workplace, and it is astonishing that a handful of countries still allow husbands to legally stop their wives from working.
Globally, women’s participation in the labour force is estimated at 63% (as against 94% of men who participate), but India’s is at a dismal 25% or so currently. Most women are in informal and vulnerable employment—domestic help, agriculture, etc—and are always paid less than men.
Recent reports from Assam suggest that women workers in plantations are paid much less than men and never promoted to supervisory roles. The gender wage gap is about 24% globally, and women have lost far more jobs than men during lockdowns.
The problem of gender disparity is compounded by hurdles put up by governments, society and businesses: unequal access to social security schemes, banking services, education, digital services and so on, even as a glass ceiling has kept leadership roles out of women’s reach.
Yes, many governments and businesses had been working on parity before the pandemic struck. But the global gender gap, defined by differences reflected in the social, political, intellectual, cultural and economic attainments or attitudes of men and women, will not narrow in the near future without all major stakeholders working together on a clear agenda—that of economic growth by inclusion.
The WEF report estimates 135 years to close the gap at our current rate of progress based on four pillars: educational attainment, health, economic participation and political empowerment.
India has slipped from rank 112 to 140 in a single year, confirming how hard women were hit by the pandemic. Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two Asian countries that fared worse.
Here are a few things we must do:
One, frame policies for equal-opportunity employment. Use technology and artificial intelligence to eliminate biases of gender, caste, etc, and select candidates at all levels on merit. Numerous surveys indicate that women in general have a better chance of landing jobs if their gender is not known to recruiters.
Two, foster a culture of gender sensitivity. Take a review of current policies and move from gender-neutral to gender-sensitive. Encourage and insist on diversity and inclusion at all levels, and promote more women internally to leadership roles. Demolish silos to let women grab potential opportunities in hitherto male-dominant roles. Work-from-home has taught us how efficiently women can manage flex-timings and productivity.
Three, deploy corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds for the education and skilling of women and girls at the bottom of the pyramid. CSR allocations to toilet building, the PM-Cares fund and firms’ own trusts could be re-channelled for this.
Four, get more women into research and development (R&D) roles. A study of over 4,000 companies found that more women in R&D jobs resulted in radical innovation. It appears women score far higher than men in championing change. If you seek growth from affordable products and services for low-income groups, women often have the best ideas.
Five, break barriers to allow progress. Cultural and structural issues must be fixed. Unconscious biases and discrimination are rampant even in highly-esteemed organizations. Establish fair and transparent human resource policies.
Six, get involved in local communities to engage them. As Michael Porter said, it is not possible for businesses to sustain long-term shareholder value without ensuring the welfare of the communities they exist in. It is in the best interest of enterprises to engage with local communities to understand and work towards lowering cultural and other barriers in society. It will also help connect with potential customers, employees and special interest groups driving the gender-equity agenda and achieve better diversity.