As a former Indian diplomat and someone who built up UNWOMEN, I am a believer. Never before has India been so important for the global gender equality project as now. Narendra Modi’s India today has walked the talk, lived and been led by the principles of a feminist foreign policy and a revolution has been afoot.
When UNWOMEN—the first global organization for women’s rights—advocated for a “feminist foreign policy” (FFP) some years ago, it raised questions of terminology and of the why, what and how of it. Now some 13 countries including Germany and Mexico have branded themselves as champions of this and they look to the world’s largest democracy with the largest population of women—700 million—to join them, if not lead the way.
The two reports of Kubernein Foundation and Konrad Adenaur Sifting have highlighted India’s importance in the global movement for engendering foreign policy and progress achieved against the benchmarks of being role models nationally and internationally in the three Rs of women’s Rights, Representation and Resources. It quotes the External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar as committing to getting more women to engage with, reflect their interests and bring feminist perspectives in foreign policy.
As a former Indian diplomat and someone who built up UNWOMEN, I am a believer. Never before has India been so important for the global gender equality project as now. Narendra Modi’s India today has walked the talk, lived and been led by the principles of a feminist foreign policy and a revolution has been afoot. Revolutions are not about making something from nothing—it’s about the fusion of the existing with the never before. Reform with Transform.
Under the rubric of Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas India has embraced the SDGs, especially SDG 5 and the UN’s global gender equality compact wholly and truly. Women and girls are seen not just as passive beneficiaries and objects of development but as empowered subjects and leaders of the greatest social, economic and political inclusion and transformation project in history being attempted in India. That too on a scale and scope that’s incomparable to any in the world.
India has a high and Sisyphean development mountain to climb and structural barriers including deep-seated patriarchy to overcome. This has elicited a never before passion and commitment of the Modi government to Nari Shakti at home. Leading from the front and walking the talk. The political will to pass the Women’s Representation Bivll after 27 long years, and ensuring all schemes of Vikas target women or are gender mainstreamed is now reflected in foreign policy making, bilateral and multilateral diplomacy.
India does not have to label it feminist foreign policy to have and own one. What matters is having necessary standards, knowledge base, data, laws, policies and programs and ensuring greater voice, participation and leadership in all concerned institutions and ecosystems. This includes the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), other relevant ministries, think-tanks and universities.
In the MEA, the main institutional carrier of FFP, the pyramid of recruitment, retention and promotion shows some progress but not enough. The percentage of women is 13.5%, at Under Secretary level it is 29%, while heads of divisions and heads of missions are only around 13-15%. Though recruitment has gone up over recent years, better matching of qualification, aptitude, supply and demand is required and some affirmative action.
On retention and conditions of work, I can testify that women friendly posting and leave policies enable women to manage their family and career responsibilities better than in other foreign services. Tandem couples posting together policies are helpful. There is no generalized discrimination in promotion and lower representation at HOM and Head of Division level are a reflection of entry-level recruitment years ago. We have had three women Foreign Secretaries and 24 women are Ambassadors in strategically important posts including a woman PR in New York—PM Modi’s signal of breaking some remaining glass walls and ceilings.
A major benchmark of an FFP is the gender mainstreaming of the Indian Agency for Partnership and Development, (IAPD). Since 2015, it has made intentional efforts with considerable success. I headed the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) program in the 1990s and now too it is woman led. Overall, women account for 38% of ITEC trainees per year. Since 2015, ITEC trained 22,000 women, many of them in 50 gender specific courses. Interestingly, regions like Latin America, East Europe, ASEAN, Central Asia, Caribbean send more than 50% women trainees, while West Asia, Pacific Island states, South Asia and Africa are way below. Development projects too are gender mainstreamed.
Using the analogy of Chandrayan 3, India’s FFP rocket made its pioneering Nari Shakti landing through the “Vikram” of its G20 Presidency this year. India made women-led development its thematic priority and consecrated PM Modi’s article of faith into the New Delhi Leaders’ Declaration (NDLD) along with the most elaborate section—2 and a 1/2 pages—in any G20 Leaders’ Declaration. It committed to “enhancing women’s full, effective, equal and meaningful participation as decision makers in all spheres of society, across all sectors and at all levels of the economy”. This includes foreign policy.
The NDLD comprehensively committed countries to a veritable women’s bill of rights and their socio-economic empowerment covering equal, safe, throughout the lifecycle access to quality, STEM, and higher education; assuring women’s food security, nutrition and wellbeing; driving gender inclusive climate action; enabling women’s financial inclusion into the formal financial system; entrepreneurship development; full participation of women in the transitioning world of work; closing the gender pay gap; ending care-work related iniquities, provisioning affordable care infrastructure; eliminating gender based violence in all forms and spaces and demolishing gender stereotypes, biases and discriminatory norms.
The Delhi Summit raised the ambition and set new targets—halving digital divide by 2030, adopting enabling measures and policies, funding and accelerating proven solutions. The G20 women’s labour force participation gap reduction target and roadmap of 25% by 2025 and beyond was pledged to be systematically implemented and monitored.
There was a never seen before Mahila Bhagidari—women’s voice, participation and leadership in G20 decision making, fora and events, in particular that of the grassroots women. Apart from the Women Empowerment Ministers, Women20 and G20 Secretariat itself, 300,000 women community leaders, artisans, SHGs, SMEs, corporates, women CSOs and activists engaged vigorously.
Taking forward the private sector Empower Initiative, concrete projects launched included Tech-equity on upskilling and jobs, a Mentoring Programme for women’s leadership, a call for funds for a regional Care Accelerator Programme on innovative women’s business solutions on care work.
As someone associated with the launch of the Women20 in Ankara, I applaud the major leap in gender mainstreaming of the institutional architecture of G20 with the creation of a Working Group on Empowerment of Women. It will have its own work stream while feeding into other sectoral working groups and Ministerial meetings, monitor the implementation of related G20 commitments and establish accountability.
India has steered the most powerful and consequential countries of the world represented in this global grouping for economic and financial management and cooperation to make women led development commitments. However, they all need to put the financial resources where the policy pledges are. Substantially increased, targeted and transformative financing for gender equality and women’s empowerment must be mobilized from all sources—national and international, public and private.
Narendra Modi’s India seems to believe in and live by feminist icon Gloria Steinem’s dictum: “If you are not a feminist female or a male, you are looking at the world with one eye!” If your domestic or foreign policy is not feminist, you are looking at a nation’s progress and people’s well-being and the world around you with one eye. Right now, both of India’s eyes are wide open and it has even opened the combined Shiva and Shakti’s third eye of enlightenment.
Lakshmi Puri is a former Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations and Deputy Executive Director of UN Women; and a former Ambassador of India.