Key Points
Equity, access and democratic participation, diversity and pluralism are today seen as integral to development, with policy choices being predicated on sustainability and inclusivity...
A further impetus to this re-scripting was provided by the Brandt Commission Report (1980), calling out inequities between the Global North and South; the contributions of Swedish statesman Olof Palme and Gunnar Myrdal; economist EF Schumacher in the 1970s, including his critique of gigantism and call for appropriate technology; and the UNDP Human Development reports by Mahbub ul Haq, buttressed by Amartya Sens recasting of development as freedom foregrounding capabilities and entitlements...
From the 1980s, UN initiatives (most notably the Beijing Plus Declarations on the Status of Women, 1995) along with civil society networks of women pushed the envelope on the link between gender and sustainable development, arguing that the increase in womens power and the sustainability of development are ecologically tied to global peace and security..
Organisations such as the Womens Environment and Development Organization, Gender and Water alliance, ENERGIA, Gender and Climate Change Network, Diverse Women for Diversity are only a few of the expanding networks of women who, through advocacy, have kept the agenda vibrant and alive.. Womens movements in India, too, have spawned many grassroots initiatives that interrogate androcentric and monocultural views and foreground womens innovative contribution to development and climate action..
Indias enthusiastic support for women-led development at the G20 cannot lose sight of the two crucial axes of human security: Freedom from want and freedom from fear...
