WEF accepts India's demand to change gender gap report parameters

After years of faring unfavourably in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report, India has pushed for changes in parameters for accounting the Report. Union minister for women and child development Smriti Irani, who was at Davos recently, has successfully urged the economic body to include the participation of women in local governance like panchayats, as well as India’s Gender Budget.

Officials of the WCD ministry said that the WEF has written to them an assurance promising affirmative action. The WEF, in a letter to Irani, said the forum will work with India on “improving global data collection and cross-country benchmarking efforts to assess in a globally comparable way participation of women in local political decision-making”.

It also said that the impact achieved by the Indian government through its gender budgeting system will be showcased on the forum’s digital platform. Another assurance the Forum gave was to establish a “Skills and Gender Parity Accelerator” in India. The WEF said that the Accelerator will “identify and scale up targeted public-private initiatives that will prepare the Indian workforce for the future of work, support the development of the Indian digital, care and green economy, and expand the skills of women for the new economy”.

India ranked 135 out of 146 countries in its Global Gender Gap Index for 2022, while in 2021, it was ranked 140 out of 156 countries. In 2020, India was ranked 112 among 153 countries. At Davos, Irani argued that by not counting the participation of women in panchayats or assemblies the Forum was unfair.

WCD officials said that in its Global Gender Gap Report, the WEF does not account for ministers of state as well who are women, only Cabinet ministers are accounted for. Additionally, by not accounting women in local governance, the Report also left out the participation of over 1.4 million women panchayat leaders in India.

For the Global Gender Gap index, four sub-indices are tabulated, which includes the participation of women in the areas of economics, politics, education and health. The numbers of positions held by women, years held by women in positions of President or Prime Minister, and women’s participation in Parliament are counted.