Sonia Gandhi Urges Commonwealth to Spearhead Inclusion of Women in Global Climate Change Debate

"Most of the Climate Debate so far has Been Gender-Blind"

LONDON, March 17, 2011 - Speaking minutes ago at the Commonwealth Lecture in London, Sonia Gandhi
called for women's voices and concerns to be heard in the global climate
change debate, to "help the world find a more sustainable and less
consumerist path to development".

"Among all the challenges facing humankind in the twenty-first century,
few are more pressing than climate change and global warming.
Unfortunately… most of the climate debate so far has been gender-blind. Yet
women have played a special role in raising environmental consciousness…
Indira Gandhi herself… in 1972, powerfully expressed the link between
poverty and environmental degradation, an issue which continues to shape the
current debate."

Mrs Gandhi also reminded the Commonwealth that "investing in women is the
highest-return venture", and said that "if urbanisation is the world's
future, we must design urban environments and services in ways that will give
women greater security".

Mrs Gandhi, President of the Indian National Congress Party and Chair of
the United Progressive Alliance, was discussing the 2011 Commonwealth theme,
'Women as Agents of Change'.

Mrs Gandhi set out in her lecture five areas in which women have emerged
as 'agents of change' in India. These included self-help groups pooling
savings and securing loans for local projects; new, elected roles for women
in rural self-government; social activism through the establishment of the
language of human rights for women; the establishment of local enterprise
collectives, some of which have been replicated elsewhere in Asia; and the
setting up of village information centres and IT kiosks.

She added that women's enterprise also played a role in regions ravaged
by violence and conflict, and within India, these groups had taken the lead
in mediating, peace-building and reconciliation in areas of strife.

"Today, women in India are becoming agents of change through their own
initiative, their energy and enterprise. Through individual and collective
action, they are transforming their own situations and indeed transforming
the broader social context itself… India is at the cusp of a 'demographic
dividend', due to its young and increasingly educated and skilled population.
Imagine what might happen when this demographic dividend is multiplied by a
'gender dividend'. It will, I believe, yield enormous economic gain and lead
to profound social transformation."

Ms Gandhi highlighted the "powerful" role of technology in reducing
gender inequalities through the creation of IT sector jobs allowing women to
live independently, and the proliferation of knowledge-based enterprises run
by women in rural areas, allowing them to access government services.

Mrs Gandhi concluded that she hoped the twenty-first century would be
when women achieved equality: "May this be, not the century of any particular
country, but the century when women finally come into their own, the century
when representative democracy is re-imagined to give women their due share,
the century when the vocabulary of politics and culture is re-engineered
fully to include that other half of mankind."

To read the full lecture please visit:
www.commonwealthfoundation.com

The Commonwealth Foundation, organiser of the Commonwealth Lecture, is an
intergovernmental organisation set up to strengthen civil society. It works
on behalf of the people of the Commonwealth, a voluntary association today
spanning 54 countries, five continents and almost a third of the world's
population.

    Media contact:
    Marcie Shaoul
    Commonwealth Foundation,
    m.shaoul@commonwealth.int
    +44(0)20-7747-6582

Media contact: Marcie Shaoul, Commonwealth Foundation, m.shaoul at commonwealth.int, +44(0)20-7747-6582