India is updating national policy for women's empowerment

United Nations: India has enabling conditions for gender equality and is updating the National Policy for Women to establish a solid foundation for accelerating its commitment to women's empowerment, Union Minister Maneka Gandhi has said.

"Ensuring gender equality, promoting women's empowerment and combating discrimination and violence against women are integral to our national pursuit of forging inclusive society and development," Gandhi, Minister for Women and Child Development, said on Monday.

"We have adopted both enabling legislative and policy framework for advancement of women and undertaken awareness generation and sensitisation programmes to fight social prejudices and stereotypes," she said during a roundtable session at the 60th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).

India is updating the National Policy for Women to "establish a solid foundation to accelerate our commitment" made in the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, she said.

"As we begin to implement the new universal agenda for sustainable development, the enabling conditions for realising gender equality and women's empowerment are already in place in India," Gandhi said.

The CSW, which began yesterday and will last until March 24, will bring together representatives from the UN system, member states and civil society from around the world to review the progress so far towards gender equality and women's empowerment and plan new initiatives and actions.

Over 400 events have been planned throughout the city for the CSW and the priority theme for the events will be on women's empowerment and sustainable development, given that this is the first session of the Commission since the adoption of the 2030 Agenda in September 2015.

Gandhi told the roundtable on 'Enhancing national institutional arrangements for gender equality and women's empowerment' that many of the Sustainable Development Goals which form the core of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development are already being implemented through flagship programmes of the government such as 'Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan', 'Make in India', 'Digital India', 'Skill India', 'Smart Cities' and 'Jan Dhan Yojana'.

"Mechanism has been put in place that every programme or project is shaped by a gender analysis at the planning stage itself and also establishes common indicators for judging our success (Outcome Budget)," the minister said.