Our Vision

“Gender equality is more than a goal in itself. It is a precondition for meeting the challenge of reducing poverty, promoting sustainable development and building good governance."
--Kofi Annan, Former Secretary General of the United Nations

he role of women towards all the three pillars of sustainable development -- economic, social, and environmental -- is a well documented fact. However, discrimination against full participation/contribution of women continues in differing forms and extent in both the developed and developing countries. In the developed countries, the existence of a 'glass ceiling' in the economic arena has been lamented for long whereas in the developing countries the empowerment of women to control their own lives and the decisions that affect them is largely missing!

In India, the situation is no different. Despite having extremely strong and celebrated women leaders, in addition to a number of goddesses with powerful attributes who are venerated in the main Hindu festivals, the plight of women continues to be pitiable. For instance, in rural areas of India, wide differences are known to exist in the work burden of men and women. While women are engaged for six hours daily in collection of fuel wood and fodder, and cooking, men spend approximately ten times less time on these tasks. This situation has, undoubtedly, developed over a very long period of time and is a result of a series of changing historical, ecological, and cultural factors; but the fact that Indian society is only slightly better off today points to the apathy of its government on this issue as well as of its educated 'elite'. The framework of policies and regulations that would place women on a more equal footing is poor in quality and also poorly implemented. There is insufficient awareness creation on the contributions of women to society either through demonstration or through education.

TERI, as a research institution focuses primarily on energy and environment issues as they relate to sustainable development, has been privileged to make a small contribution to enhancing the understanding of the linkages between the role of women and sustainable development through this prism. Apart from gender focused projects, we provide a live demonstration on gender equality and empowerment. Additionally, wherever possible, we internalize gender sensitivity in our messages and communications. The youth sensitisation programmes of TERI too make a conscious attempt to break gender stereotyping in everyday life.

As the world gears up to meet the multiple challenges of food, energy, and climate security, the role of women in facilitating the sustainability transformations required is only being reinforced. Their potential contribution in ensuring a literate and healthy population, in poverty alleviation and in creating cohesive societies can be fast-tracked with the education of the girl child, the removal of social stigmas associated with a larger role for women on both genders, and the enabling of active participation in decision making at the household and societal levels.

But this is feasible only when there is a societal transformation in the appreciation of the role of women and their empowerment. Enough evidence has been generated on the barriers to achieving this objective. The third Millennium Development Goal aims to achieve and promote equality between genders and the autonomy of women by 2015. For this to become a reality a host of actors must work together. Not only should efforts be taken by governments; but there is a need to create spaces of theoretical and academic reflection on the place of gender in development initiatives proposed by international, national and local agencies.

At TERI we are conscious that much work has to be done in the future to bridge the widening gender gap. By taking a gender sensitive view at all levels of functioning – theoretical reflection, project design, and ground implementation, we hope to be able to contribute to this fundamental transformation more aggressively in the days to come. This can only be done through a realization of the fact that gender differences in society rest on a delicate balance of cultural, social, political, and economic factors that are specific to different local contexts. By giving equal importance to the voices of both men and women, whose lives we work to improve through our initiatives, we aim to address the gender concern in a sensitive and long-lasting manner.