"Gender Samwaad" - organised by Ministry of Rural Development

• Over 3000 state mission staff and rural SHG women connect online to discuss food and nutrition security through women collectives, DAY-NRLM.

Gender Samwaad Initiative

• The theme for this edition: ‘Promotion of food and nutrition security through women’s collectives’.
• Organized by the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NRLM), Ministry of Rural Development.
• It is a national virtual initiative under the DAY-NRLM to generate greater awareness on the mission’s interventions across the country with a gender lens.
• Organized as a part of the Ministry's Iconic Week celebration theme ‘Naye Bharat ki Naari’ under Amrit Mahotsava.

Objectives

• It enabled National and State Rural Livelihoods Missions (SRLM) to listen to voices from SHG women and for SRLMs to share and learn from best practices.
• To embrace the potential of women collectives to support behavior change and access to services.
• To working on multiple interventions to fight malnutrition including:

1. Income enhancement of rural households,
2. Improving productivity,
3. Diversification of nutrient rich food crops
4. Social and behavior change communication (SBCC) among SHG members.

Significance

• SHG women across the country played an important role in raising awareness on COVID-19 amongst over 5.5 crore rural households.
• SHG women can promote:

1. Behavior change,
2. Counsel women on care of low-birth weight babies,
3. Promote girl’s education,
4. Healthy diets,
5. Consumption of micronutrients,
6. Marriage at the right age,
7. Spacing between pregnancies.

Steps taken

• The State Mission Directors and Community Resource Persons from SRLMs of Bihar, Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh made presentations on how they aim to integrate FNHW activities into the regular activities taken up by SHGs under DAY-NRLM.
• IFPRI presented the findings of studies conducted on impact of related food and nutrition interventions through women collectives.
• National Commission for Women focussed on women nutrition issues and highlighted their rights and entitlements in this regard.