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The seventh edition of Gender Samvaad, on the theme 'Participation to Leadership: Enhancing Women's Agency in Livelihoods', was organised by DAY-NRLM with IWWAGE.
Over 6 lakh stakeholders took part, against 1,400 at the first edition in April 2021.
Rural Development Secretary Rohit Kansal put the SHG movement at over 10 crore women and Lakhpati Didis at more than 3.46 crore earning above ₹1 lakh a year.
State innovations cited include Maharashtra's Women Farmers' Empowerment Bill, Odisha's Bhubaneswar Declaration on women's land rights and Andhra Pradesh's RySS natural farming model.
The edition was aligned with the UN International Year of Women Farmers 2026.
Rural women first form a Self-Help Group that saves and lends internally. Groups then federate upward into Village Organisations and Cluster Level Federations, and outward into Producer Groups, Producer Enterprises and Farmer Producer Organisations. The federation is what makes them creditworthy to banks.
Simple Analogy: Small savings pools stacked into a structure a bank can lend against.
Mobilise rural poor households, especially women, into Self-Help Groups and their federations for sustainable livelihoods
Key: Launched in June 2011 by the Ministry of Rural Development as Aajeevika - National Rural Livelihoods Mission and renamed DAY-NRLM in 2015; has mobilised over 10 crore women into SHGs
Raise SHG women's household income above ₹1 lakh a year
Key: Announced by the Prime Minister on 15 August 2023 with a target of 3 crore SHG women; more than 3.46 crore have crossed the mark, so the original target has been exceeded
Campaign against gender-based violence and gender discrimination
Key: DAY-NRLM's annual national gender campaign, run with IWWAGE and civil-society partners; flagged off on 25 November, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, and running to 23 December
Shift farming families to natural farming at scale through women's collectives
Key: Launched in 2016 under the State's agriculture department; works with about 18 lakh farming families and roughly 3.4 lakh women's self-help groups, making it one of the largest community-led agroecology programmes anywhere
Policy research centre on women's economic empowerment; co-organiser of Gender Samvaad and partner in the Nayi Chetna campaign
Parent ministry of DAY-NRLM, which anchors the SHG movement and the Lakhpati Didi initiative through State Rural Livelihoods Missions
GS Paper 2 > Governance > Welfare Schemes, and GS Paper 3 > Inclusive Growth
General Awareness > Government Schemes and Rural Development
An SHG woman whose household earns at least ₹1 lakh a year; the initiative was announced on 15 August 2023 with a 3 crore target.
The upper tier of the SHG structure under DAY-NRLM, formed of Village Organisations, through which credit and scheme benefits are routed.
DAY-NRLM's annual national campaign against gender-based violence, run from 25 November to 23 December.