Sustainable development depends on women. We cannot achieve the SDGs without gender equality. A big thank you to to the 60+ who joined our event. Also a big thank you to Norad, Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, who was our co-host for this event.

India now officially has more females than males. There has been a demographic shift.

According to latest data released by the Indian government, there are now 1,020 women for every 1,000 men. Women’s economic empowerment is highly connected to poverty reduction because women tend to invest their earnings into their communities and family’s development. According to World Bank estimates, India’s women in workforce contribute 17% to GDP, which is less than half the global average.

The conversation was moderated by Ritika Dhall. 

Ritika Dhall is Head of Gender Equality at Norad, the Norwegian Directorate for Development Cooperation. In this function, she contributes to Norway’s international engagement and oversees the implementation of development aid investments in women, peace and security, sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), LGBTQ+, gender based violence and harmful practices, gender equality for development and civil society. From 2012-2014, she worked on key programmatic interventions in social protection and social policies, contributing to cross-sectoral programme strategies and humanitarian response with UNICEF Iraq. She has worked extensively with inequalities, socio-economic deprivations through policies, programmes and services for marginalised groups. She holds a Cand. Polit. in Political Science.

Our guests were:

Isabelle Ringnes, co-founder of Equalitycheck.com

Parul Soni, founder of ThinkThrough Conslutning and founder of Association of Business Women in Commerce & Industry (ABWCI)

Kari Helene Partapuoli, General Secretary, Plan Norway

A few of the questions that were addressed:

• What does it mean for India, now that it has more females than males? 
• Norway was the first country in the world to put a 40% gender quota on boards of listed companies and public enterprises. What lessons are there for India to learn from Norway? 
• What roles do health care, education, protection from violence, empowerment, and participation play for women to leverage their potential in a country’s growth? 
• Women in Norway earn 87.5 kroner for every 100 kroner men earn. How can employers walk the walk regarding supporting women? 
• According to World Bank estimates, India’s women in workforce contribute 17% to GDP, which is less than half of the global average. Women’s economic empowerment is highly connected to poverty reduction because women tend to invest their earnings into their communities and family’s development.  How do you see the future for the female workforce? 
• Norway used to be a seafaring nation. Thousands of young men (and a few women) were exposed to the outside world by serving on Norwegian ships to all continents. Does technology replace travel as a gateway to the world, or is there a risk that Norwegians miss rapid developments in Asia? 
• What could a richer and more powerful India, with more female leaders look like? What would it mean for India’s relationship with the world? 

You can listen to the podcast here:

According to the United Nations, India has the largest diaspora (17.5 million) in the world. There’s a reason the Indian diaspora is the largest in the world. “Non-residential” Indians are becoming “not-returning” Indians, and even the “reverse brain drain” has stopped. 

Over the years, millions of young talented Indians from various disciplines have left their soil in search of better opportunities. Overseas university education has been a favourite among Indian students for a very long time. As of 2018, nearly 753 000 Indian students were studying abroad. It is clear that the brightest minds desire the West’s greener pastures.

We invited Charanleen Kaur who works as  Cyber Security Project Manager at Schibsted for t his podcast episode to share her thoughts on: 

• Indian universities consistently scoring low in global rankings; the QS World University Rankings 2021 did not feature an Indian institute among the world’s top 100 universities.
• The world is becoming increasingly borderless for skilled workers. Talented and skilled workers are migrating actively on the international labour markets, both permanently and temporarily. 
• COVID-19 has changed the way we work forever. As companies all over the globe roll out work-from-home policies. How this will change the prospects for Indians who want to pursue their Scandinavia dream?
• Expectations when coming to Norway