India’s SDG targets need better resource allocation
Flawed funding indicates that political interest in genderrelated Sustainable Development Goals is marginal
Gender equity is at the core of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) framework, but inadequate resource allocation for the continued deficit in health, nutrition and welfare outcomes for women and girls in India.
Over the last few years, new programmes and schemes targeted at women and girls have been launched, especially in areas such as health, nutrition, livelihood and protection from abuse. Some progress has been made in law-making on domestic violence, sexual assault, and sex selection. However, inadequate allocation of resources have made implementation of these schemes ineffective or limited in their reach.
The health, nutrition and welfare deficit in India is still high when compared with countries of similar level of development. Within this, there are class, caste and gender inequities, as well as regional inequities. The picture we get from the government’s own data sets such as NFHS, SRS and NSSO is that maternal and child mortality remains a major problem in many states in India. Access to basic healthcare services, including maternal, sexual and reproductive health is grossly inadequate.
On the positive side, we see an increased public debate and media attention to gender issues.This periodically leads to increase in budgetary allocations – for instance, when an epidemic strikes, or children die in large numbers due to malnourishment, or rape cases get highlighted in the media.
An assessment of budget allocations and expenditures of some of the key programmes and schemes targeted at reducing gender inequities leads to the conclusion that there is lack of serious intent in achieving the goals. The low allocations, huge fluctuations over the years in allocations, and the underspending clearly indicate that political interest in efficiently targeting the SDGs is marginal. Political interest is driven either for electoral gains or as firefighting mechanisms. But even as a firefighting response, the allocated resources are grossly underutilised. The Nirbhaya Fund for compensation of rape survivors and setting up of one-stop crises centres and domestic violence protection is a classic case of this missing political will. Similarly, allocations for maternal and child health programmes and primary healthcare are grossly inadequate and under-utilised. Clear benchmarks for budgetary commitments must be made in order to realise the targets for each of the SDGs.
Increased resource allocation and political commitment are crucial to ensure that the SDG targets related to welfare of women and girls are met.