Two-thirds of elderly financially dependent on others, says study
According to a survey, 65 per cent of the elderly in India are dependent on others for their financial requirements and undergo financial crisis.
The nation-wide survey conducted by Agewell Foundation involved a random sample of 15,000 people across India aged 60 or above.
The study found that pension was the main source of income for 38 per cent of the respondents.
Further, 46.4 per cent of the elderly claimed that their net-worth value had increased remarkably in their old age, primarily due to a sharp increase in real estate prices over the last two decades.
Healthcare
More than four-fifths of the respondents said that their major problems were related to healthcare issues, where financial status plays a key role.
The report finds that senior citizens aged over 70 are marginalised and isolated to a large extent.
According to the report, the financially well-off older people do not wish to be dependent on government facilities for healthcare needs, as they prefer private institutions for better services.
Financially insecure old people expect social security, free health care and subsidies so that they can lead a comfortable and respectable life in old age. At the same time, older people with sound financial health look forward to risk-free investment schemes, so that they can earn good returns to meet financial needs in old age.
Finally, the Adivasis of Telangana get a sweet deal
It is a sweet deal for Telangana’s hard-working Adivasis, the Kolams of Adilabad, the Chenchus of Mahabubnagar and the tribals of Eturnagaram in Warangal.
They can now overcome the setback suffered after the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh, and get access to the State’s first honey processing and packaging plant at Nirmal, raising their income prospects.
Honey, that these tribals gather from the forests will be packaged for sale under the brand name of Girijan Cooperative Corporation (GCC Honey). The initiative is to be inaugurated on Gandhi Jayanthi.
After Andhra Pradesh was bifurcated, Telangana’s honey gatherers fell on hard times. Honey, which is classified as minor forest produce, was no longer sent to Chittoor or Rajamahendravaram for processing. That left the GCC in Telangana with a large volume, and about 400 quintals were stored in its godowns in Adilabad division.
Encouraging tribals
The main aim is to encourage the Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups of Kolams and Chenchus to continue to collect honey. The activity will provide them good income.
Commodities trading may open to foreigners
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has initiated talks with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to allow foreign portfolio investors into the commodity derivatives market.
SEBI Chairman U.K. Sinha said on the sidelines of an event on the completion of one year of merger of Forward Markets Commission (FMC) with SEBI. The FPI regulations emanated from FEMA (Foreign Exchange Management Act) and any kind of foreign money coming into the country has to have RBI approval.”
The regulator is also keen to allow other participants such as banks, mutual funds and insurance companies in the commodities market but will do so in a phased manner after talking to other regulatory bodies.
SEBI took over as the regulator of commodity derivatives market on 28th September 2015 and since then has initiated various measures like allowing option contracts, new commodities apart from releasing guidelines for warehouse service providers and online registration of brokers, among others.
‘Cautious manner’
The regulator plans to further develop the market but would do so in a “cautious manner.”
Spot polling
SEBI has already set up an advisory committee for commodity derivatives and the committee has further set up separate sub-groups to look into issues of spot polling of prices and how exchanges can rope in more hedgers.
The commodity derivatives market is dominated by two exchanges – Multi Commodity Exchange of India (MCX) and the National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange (NCDEX).
Metals and energy contracts dominate the trading at MCX, which has more than 90 per cent of market share in the commodity derivatives space.
The SEBI chairman said that the regulator is also looking at the “unduly balanced” ratio of business between the existing commodity exchanges.
New commodities
The regulator will soon give the go-ahead for options trading in one commodity each from the agri and non-agri segment.
On the recommendation of SEBI, the government has also allowed futures trading in new commodities like diamond, brass, pig iron, eggs, cocoa and tea.
Further, the advisory committee is also deliberating on issues such as improving the liquidity of the contracts.
About Commodity Derivatives:-
Commodity derivatives are investment tools that allow investors to profit from certain items without possessing them. This type of investing dates back to 1848 when the Chicago Board of Trade was established. Initially, the idea behind commodity derivatives was to provide a means of risk protection for farmers.
Modern commodity derivatives trading is most popular with people outside of the commodities industry. The majority of people who use this investment tool tend to be price speculators. These people usually focus on supply and demand and try to predict whether prices will go up or down. When the prices of a certain commodity move in their favor, they make money. If price moves in the opposite direction, then they lose money.
The buyer of a derivative contract buys the right to exchange a commodity for a certain price at a future date. Although this person is a contract buyer, he may be buying or selling the commodity. He does not have to pay the full value of amount of the commodity that he is investing in. He only needs to pay a small percentage, known as the margin price.
The contract seller is the person who accepts a margin. He agrees that on a certain date he will buy or sell the commodity stated in the contract at a certain price. Both parties are generally required to honor the agreement despite losses.
For example, an investor may buy a contract from the seller that gives him rights to one ton of coffee beans for $1000 US Dollars (USD) on July 1st. Although the value of the contract is $1000 USD, the buyer may only be required to pay $100 USD. On July 1st, the seller will transfer the rights of one ton of coffee beans to the buyer.If the current value of a ton of coffee beans on July 1st is $1,500 USD, the buyer can sell to the market and make a $500 USD profit. If the value of coffee beans on that day is only $800 USD, this person will have purchased at a loss. He can choose to take possession of the coffee beans, which is rare. He can sell to the market at a loss. In most cases, he will become the seller and attempt to find a buyer.
Commodity derivatives trading allows a person to use a small sum of money for the potential to earn substantial profits. This sort of investment, however, is considered high risk. When prices are not in an investor’s favor, he can suffer substantial losses. Commodities that are open to this type of investing include cotton, soybean, and rice. In some countries, although these commodities are available, this type of trading is illegal.
Merger of Sebi and FMC:-
What does the merger mean?
The Forward Contracts Regulation Act (FCRA) stands repealed, and the regulation of the commodity derivatives market shifts to Sebi under the Securities Contracts Regulation Act (SCRA), 1956. SCRA is a stronger law, and gives more powers to Sebi than FCRA offered to FMC. Market players feel that commodity markets will now be better regulated, with more stringent processes — and will thus evoke greater confidence.
Why is Sebi seen to be better equipped to monitor commodities trading?
The FMC only regulated the exchanges, and had no direct control over brokers. Also, Sebi has a far superior surveillance, risk-monitoring and enforcement mechanism that market participants say will give more confidence to investors, and may help businesses grow. Among other powers, Sebi now also has the power to access call data records.
How can Sebi expand the scope of commodity trading?
While foreign institutional investors are allowed to invest in Indian equities and debt markets, they are currently restricted from participating in commodities trading at exchanges. According to sources, Sebi may allow FII participation in commodities trading going forward, which would provide more depth to the markets, and increase liquidity, investor participation and better price discovery.
Brokers also feel Sebi may introduce option contracts (call and put options) in commodities trading, thereby providing better hedging tools to investors. Sebi has said that it will oversee price determination of commodities. Price discovery has been a major issue in commodities trading, and if the regulator addresses that concern, it will be a big confidence-booster for participants.
Who proposed the merger?
The NSEL( National Spot Exchange Ltd) episode underlined the need for a better and stronger regulator to safeguard investor interest and restore confidence. The Financial Sector Legislative Reforms Commission (FSLRC) had earlier stressed on the need to move away from sector-wise regulation. It proposed a system in which RBI would regulate the banking and payments system, and a Unified Financial Agency (UFA) would subsume all other financial sector regulators such as SEBI, IRDA, PFRDA and FMC, to regulate the rest of the financial markets.
Swachhagraha
‘Swachhagraha’ – an Adani Act initiative towards ‘Creating a Culture of Cleanliness’ has been launched at Ahmedabad recently. The initiative has been launched in association with the Centre for Environment Education (CEE) as its Knowledge and Implementation partner.
The programme plans to be rolled out in 250 schools across 6 cities in Gujarat, namely Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, Anand, Rajkot and Bhuj-Mundra. It is envisioned that Swachhagraha will eventually be scaled up to covering more than 12 states across the country in the times to come.
‘Swachhagraha’ draws inspiration from the ‘Satyagraha’ movement, which catalyzed action through tremendous patience & perseverance, and united the entire nation to fight against a common enemy.
‘Swachhagraha’, similar to ‘Satyagraha’ aims at engaging people and bringing about a change, similar in scale to India’s freedom movement, where people get involved to take action for ‘Creating a culture of Cleanliness’.
Aligning with the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) announced by our Hon’ble Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, Swachhagraha’s mission is to kill the litterbug amongst all of us and transform the face of the nation beyond 2019 and forever.
Google to set up ‘Cloud Region’ in Mumbai, to go live in 2017
Google will open a new Google Cloud Region in Mumbai, that is expected to be live in 2017.
The India cloud region is aimed at offering Google Cloud Platform services to Indian developers and enterprise customers.
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Steve Ovett, the famous British middle-distance athlete, won the 800-metres gold medal at the Moscow Olympics of 1980. Just a few days later, he was about to win a 5,000-metres race at London’s Crystal Palace. Known for his burst of acceleration on the home stretch, he had supreme confidence in his ability to out-sprint rivals. With the final 100 metres remaining,
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]Ovett waved to the crowd and raised a hand in triumph. But he had celebrated a bit too early. At the finishing line, Ireland’s John Treacy edged past Ovett. For those few moments, Ovett had lost his sense of reality and ignored the possibility of a negative event.
This analogy works well for the India story and our policy failures , including during the ongoing covid pandemic. While we have never been as well prepared or had significant successes in terms of growth stability as Ovett did in his illustrious running career, we tend to celebrate too early. Indeed, we have done so many times before.
It is as if we’re convinced that India is destined for greater heights, come what may, and so we never run through the finish line. Do we and our policymakers suffer from a collective optimism bias, which, as the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman once wrote, “may well be the most significant of the cognitive biases”? The optimism bias arises from mistaken beliefs which form expectations that are better than the reality. It makes us underestimate chances of a negative outcome and ignore warnings repeatedly.
The Indian economy had a dream run for five years from 2003-04 to 2007-08, with an average annual growth rate of around 9%. Many believed that India was on its way to clocking consistent double-digit growth and comparisons with China were rife. It was conveniently overlooked that this output expansion had come mainly came from a few sectors: automobiles, telecom and business services.
Indians were made to believe that we could sprint without high-quality education, healthcare, infrastructure or banking sectors, which form the backbone of any stable economy. The plan was to build them as we went along, but then in the euphoria of short-term success, it got lost.
India’s exports of goods grew from $20 billion in 1990-91 to over $310 billion in 2019-20. Looking at these absolute figures it would seem as if India has arrived on the world stage. However, India’s share of global trade has moved up only marginally. Even now, the country accounts for less than 2% of the world’s goods exports.
More importantly, hidden behind this performance was the role played by one sector that should have never made it to India’s list of exports—refined petroleum. The share of refined petroleum exports in India’s goods exports increased from 1.4% in 1996-97 to over 18% in 2011-12.
An import-intensive sector with low labour intensity, exports of refined petroleum zoomed because of the then policy regime of a retail price ceiling on petroleum products in the domestic market. While we have done well in the export of services, our share is still less than 4% of world exports.
India seemed to emerge from the 2008 global financial crisis relatively unscathed. But, a temporary demand push had played a role in the revival—the incomes of many households, both rural and urban, had shot up. Fiscal stimulus to the rural economy and implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission scales had led to the salaries of around 20% of organized-sector employees jumping up. We celebrated, but once again, neither did we resolve the crisis brewing elsewhere in India’s banking sector, nor did we improve our capacity for healthcare or quality education.
Employment saw little economy-wide growth in our boom years. Manufacturing jobs, if anything, shrank. But we continued to celebrate. Youth flocked to low-productivity service-sector jobs, such as those in hotels and restaurants, security and other services. The dependence on such jobs on one hand and high-skilled services on the other was bound to make Indian society more unequal.
And then, there is agriculture, an elephant in the room. If and when farm-sector reforms get implemented, celebrations would once again be premature. The vast majority of India’s farmers have small plots of land, and though these farms are at least as productive as larger ones, net absolute incomes from small plots can only be meagre.
A further rise in farm productivity and consequent increase in supply, if not matched by a demand rise, especially with access to export markets, would result in downward pressure on market prices for farm produce and a further decline in the net incomes of small farmers.
We should learn from what John Treacy did right. He didn’t give up, and pushed for the finish line like it was his only chance at winning. Treacy had years of long-distance practice. The same goes for our economy. A long grind is required to build up its base before we can win and celebrate. And Ovett did not blame anyone for his loss. We play the blame game. Everyone else, right from China and the US to ‘greedy corporates’, seems to be responsible for our failures.
We have lowered absolute poverty levels and had technology-based successes like Aadhaar and digital access to public services. But there are no short cuts to good quality and adequate healthcare and education services. We must remain optimistic but stay firmly away from the optimism bias.
In the end, it is not about how we start, but how we finish. The disastrous second wave of covid and our inability to manage it is a ghastly reminder of this fact.
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.