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The World Economic Forum (WEF) ensured the Union Women and Child Development Minister, Government of India that it will take into account the participation of women at the panchayat level to rank countries in its upcoming Global Gender Gap index.
According to the ministry, the concern was raised that ‘completely ignoring political participation at the panchayat level in India is an unjust view on women empowerment”.
- The WEF has now agreed to include this for ranking. It will give a more factual picture of women's empowerment in India’’.
The WEF to establish a ‘Skills and Gender Parity Accelerator’ in India to identify and encourage targeted public-private initiatives to prepare the Indian workforce for the future.

Global Gender Gap Index:

It is released by the World Economic Forum (WEF).
The Global Gender Gap Index measures gender equality across 4 key dimensions:
- Economic Participation and Opportunity.
- Educational Attainment.
- Health and Survival.
- Political Empowerment.
It measures scores on a 0-to-100 scale, and the score can be interpreted as the distance covered towards achieving gender equality.

Global Gender Gap Index 2022:

India ranked 135 among 146 countries in the recently released Global Gender Gap Index 2022.
- In 2021, India ranked 140 out of 156 nations.
Iceland ranked at the top and it is the only country to have closed more than 90% of its Gender gap.
The Global Gender Gap Index was released by the World Economic Forum (WEF).
In the sub-index of “health and survival”, India has ranked (146th) as the worst performer in the world.
According to the report, India will take more than 132 years to reach gender equality.
India has ranked poorly among its neighbours and it is behind:
- Bangladesh (71)
- Nepal (96)
- Sri Lanka (110)
- Maldives (117)
- Bhutan (126).
In South Asia, only the performance of Iran (143), Pakistan (145) and Afghanistan (146) was worse than India.
India’s scored 0.629 (out of 1), and this was the 7th-highest score in the past 16 years.
The report mentioned that the labour force participation shrunk for both men (by 9.5%) and women (3%).

About WEF:

It was established in 1971 as a not-for-profit foundation and is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.
The World Economic Forum is the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation.
The Forum engages the foremost political, business, cultural and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas.
The Forum strives in all its efforts to demonstrate entrepreneurship in the global public interest while upholding the highest standards of governance.

Important Reports released by World Economic Forum:

GENDER GAP REPORT