A three-day regional expert consultation meeting on “Women’s Empowerment for Agricultural Development in South Asia: Enabling Policy” was held at ICAR-CIWA here.
While inaugurating the function, Union Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Krishna Raj as chief guest expressed her happiness for organising the SAARC meeting in India. She emphasised the role of women and advocated that the ICAR-CIWA should be a global leader in the arena of women empowerment. She highlighted about various schemes and programmes for women empowerment of the Government of India.
DARE Secretary and ICAR Director General Dr Trilochan Mohapatra, who presided, stressed upon the establishment of a regional platform for women farmers and workers empowerment by SAARC countries, including ICAR-CIWA, Bhubaneswar.
Deputy Director General (Agril. Education), ICAR Dr Narendra Singh Rathore as the guest of honour, categorically mentioned that, the attempts of all SAARC member countries for empowerment of women must come along with accountability. He further emphasized on SWOT analysis of various programmes for enabling policies for women farmers and workers.
At the outset, Director of the institute Dr SK Srivastava welcomed all the esteemed guests and participants of the programme.
The representatives from SAARC headquarters countries, Dr Md Younus Ali, senior Technical Officer, SAARC Agriculture Center , Ma Estrella A Penunia, Secretary General, Asian Farmers’ Association and Fara Kabir, Action Aid, spoke. The programme was attended by 20 representatives from seven countries viz; Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal and Srilanka.
The SAARC Regional Expert Consultation comprised four technical sessions along with a field visit to ICAR-CIWA adopted village on the concluding day. There will be country paper presentations on ‘Women’s Empowerment for Agriculture Development in South Asia: Enabling Policies’ by respective SAARC country representatives.
The inaugural session was also attended by Dr PS Pandey, ADG, (EP&HS), ICAR, Dr SN Pasupalak, Vice Chancellor, OUAT, Directors and Heads of ICAR institutes located at Bhubaneswar and Cuttack along with other officials.
An exhibition was also arranged to display the women friendly technologies in agriculture. The vote of thanks was proposed by Dr Lipi Das, Principal Scientist, ICAR-CIWA and coordinator of the programme.