Development Management Institute (DMI) is organizing a Symposium on “Women as Agents of Change for Development” at Patna on February 13 & 14, 2019 as a part of its fifth foundation day celebration. The symposium aims at promoting a strong network of women academicians and practitioners from the development sector who can potentially catalyze the socio-economic development of Bihar by leveraging on the strength of women power in Bihar. The deliberations at the symposium are intended to lay strong foundations for grooming a generation of women social, political, and business leaders and entrepreneurs towards achieving the Sustainable Developmental Goals (SDGs) as outlined by United Nations.
Women have been organizing themselves and mobilizing small savings to augment their lives and livelihoods supported by the NRLM and other schemes of the central and state governments for their empowerment. Yet, the inequalities, both gender and income, tend to persist constraining their progress in their journey of development owing to lack of economies of scale in their operations. The concerns of equality, especially, status in the society, control over their lives, political fairness, and equality of opportunity and pay (Scanlon, 2018) are teething issues that require interventions of staggering heights to resolve them. The various states across India have addressed these multidimensional complex issues of poverty and inequality through projects like Velugu in Andhra Pradesh and JEEViKA in Bihar. The primary drivers of these projects have been women self-help groups (SHGs) and their social and economic empowerment has been a tangible outcome.
The intensification of radical mass movement of women SHGs over the last decade has provided women with formal mechanisms to leverage on their potential. The livelihood promotions and the institutional mechanisms that have emerged out of these interventions clearly chart out a road map for attaining broader SDGs - lowering inequalities, ending hunger, poverty, and gender inequality.
According to a recent World Bank report (2017), JEEViKA has “positively changed the way women in Bihar perceive themselves within the household and in the broader context of the society”. Apart from the socio-economic dimensions, the state government’s resolve to empower women by implementing 50% reservation for women in Panchayati Raj Institutions is a commendable proactive step in that direction. The women have become central to the developmental process who drive local economies, polity, and new social infrastructures that would help them in gaining better access to resources for leading a dignified life.
This newfound dignity and confidence of women and their participatory role in community led institutions for poverty alleviation and social upliftment, position them as leading agents of positive developmental change in Bihar. Thus, given the context, “Women as Agents of Change for Development” is the topic for DMI’s Fifth Foundation Day Symposium. It takes a deep dive into specific issues impacting women’s empowerment to bring out actionable, scalable and translatable frameworks, models, and institutional mechanisms by synthesizing ideas, research, and policy design.
This symposium follows the spirit of development discourse and narratives from the past four events held since the inception of DMI in 2014.
The symposium, Women as agents of change for development, has four subthemes:-
(i) Governance and Leadership: Women as Social Leaders, Women in Politics, and Women in Business
(ii) Financial Inclusion: Women and Financial Inclusion-Progress and Challenges, Models and Products in Financial Inclusion, and Technology Adoption in Financial Inclusion
(iii) Sustainable Livelihoods: Value Chains in Livelihoods, Climate Change and Livelihood Resilience, and Micro and Small Enterprises
(iv) Healthcare and Sanitation: Nutrition, Healthcare, and Hygiene and Sanitation.
DMI has invited noted speakers of national and international repute to deliberate on these various themes. We invite you ro participate in the Symposium to enrich the discourse. we are sure, the Symposium would also provide you with a opportunity to learn and share the experiences on this important theme.
For further details please write to symposium2019[@]dmi.ac.in
Development Management Institute
Second Floor, Udyog Bhawan, East Gandhi Maidan, Patna 800004, India
Mobile:
Prof. Sridhar Telidevara : +91-9717145470 | Ms.Bhagwati Pandey: +91-9308088441
Phone: +91-06122675283 / 84
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