She is the answer

Mains Paper 4: Society
Prelims level: UNDP
Mains level: Role of women and women's organization, population and associated issues, poverty and
developmental issues, urbanization, their problems and their remedies.

Context

•  Countries globally, including India, have agreed to fulfil the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), launched by the UNDP in 2016 as “a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity”.
•  Among the 17 goals and 169 targets to be achieved by 2030, SDG 5 on gender equality is seen as a key goal, both in itself and for achieving other goals.
•  Many even claim that all SDGs depend on the achievement of “Goal 5”.

Is this claim justified?

•  Household food security provides a lens to examine this.
•  Women play key roles in food provisioning as producers, home food managers, and consumers.
•  As producers, they constitute a high and growing proportion of farmers.
•  In India, 35 per cent of agricultural workers are women (NSSO 2011-12) and women farm operators grew from 12.8 per cent to 13.9 per cent between 2010- 11 and 2015-16 (agricultural censuses), not counting women working on malemanaged farms.
•  But women’s productivity depends crucially on access to land, which is highly gender unequal due to male bias in inheritance, government land transfers, and market access.
•  Even in the southern states of Karnataka and Kerala, only 19-20 per cent of landowners are women.
•  They also have poor access to credit, irrigation, inputs, technology and markets.
•  Moreover, as agriculture gets feminised, the challenge of dealing with climate change, which is predicted to greatly lower food-crop yields, will increasing fall on women.
•  But few of them have access to technical advances such as heat-resistant crops or water-conserving practices.
•  And higher temperatures will increase their labour in food processing and preservation.
•  Women also contribute to food systems through forests and fisheries.
•  One in six persons globally depends on forests for supplementary food, green manure, fodder, firewood, etc.
•  Women and girls are the main gatherers of forest products, especially food and firewood; the latter continues to be the primary cooking fuel in most of rural India, cooking energy is essential for food security.

Shifting to sustainable goals

•  Over time, we must shift to cleaner fuels, but in the short term women need more firewood through greater access to forests and commons.
•  Similarly, seafood is globally the main source of protein for a billion people. Women constitute 46 % of workers in small-scale fisheries and 54 % in inland fisheries.
•  Although marine products are harvested mainly by men, it is aquaculture more in women’s domain — which is the fastest-growing, and predicted to provide over 50 per cent of fish consumed globally by 2020 (according to World Bank figures).
•  Against this backdrop, SDG 5 has both potential and limitations. The potential lies in its focus on women’s access to land and property, and natural resources.
•  Secure land rights for women can improve both their productivity as farmers and family nutritional allocations.
•  Women can obtain land via the family (especially inheritance), the market and the state.

Target 5A

•  Target 5A only mentions inheritance laws, but since 86 per cent arable land in India is privately owned, gender equality in family land would improve tenure security for women farmers.
•  Also, SDG 5 mentions financial services. Affordable credit would help women farmers invest in necessary inputs. Similarly, SDG 5 emphasises natural resources.
•  Although it does not specify forests or fisheries, if policymakers so interpret it, it could enhance nutritional diversity, given women’s roles in forest food and fisheries.
•  Moreover, Target 5.5 emphasises women’s participation in public life.
•  Although it focuses on legislatures and village councils, this could be extended to community institutions managing forests and water.
•  Government policy cannot directly change norms [parental property, or distant marriages], but SDG 5 is silent even on government land transfers to women, which policy can affect.
•  The women farmers need inputs beyond the financial services mentioned in Target 5A.
•  Similarly, the failure of SDG 5 to explicitly recognise access to forests and fisheries, or the challenges of climate change, restricts its potential.
•  In contrast, other SDGs which are central to food security disregard gender equality, such as SDG 14 (life below water) which covers marine ecosystems, and SDG 15 (life on land)which covers forests.
•  Both goals emphasise conservation, ignoring fisheries and forests as food sources, and even missing links between gender equality and conservation itself.

Way forward

•  The Gender and Green Governance, committees with 25 to 33 per cent women have significantly better conservation outcomes than groups with few or no women. Weighing these potentials and limitations, there are four ways in which SDG 5 can further the goal of food security.
•  First, it can interpret women’s access to natural resources to specifically cover forests, fisheries, and irrigation.
•  Second, it can connect with SDG 1 (no poverty) and SDG 2 (zero hunger) which recognise the need for women to access land, credit, knowledge and markets.
•  Third, it can interpret goals which mention gender to include support for women farmers, as in SDG 13 on climate change.
•  Fourth, it can engender SDGs which bear crucially on food security but at present disregard gender, viz. SDG 15 on forests and SDG 14 on marine resources.
•  Finally, beyond SDGs, we need institutional innovations.
•  Farming in groups could provide an unexplored pathway for enhancing food security and strengthening SDG 5.

Online Coaching for UPSC PRE Exam

General Studies Pre. Cum Mains Study Materials

Prelims Questions:

Q.1) The Human Development Index (HDI) was created to emphasize that people and their capabilities should be the ultimate criteria for assessing the development of a country, not economic growth alone.
Which among the following is correct about HDI?
1. The HDI is a composite measure of health, education and income.
2. Education or knowledge is measured by a combination of the adult literacy rate and school enrolment
rates (for primary through university years)
3. Health is measured by life expectancy at birth.
4. Income is measured from purchasing-power-adjusted per-capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

Choose appropriate code:

a) 1 and 2 only
b) 1 and 3 only
c) 2 and 3 only
d) All of the above

Answer: B

Mains Questions:
Q.1) While India believes in low carbon economy, it can’t be subservient to carbon imperialism”. Substantiate in context of Paris Agreement.