Women Making A Mark On The Urban

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Mumbai’s draft city plan just took a historic turn with a chapter on gender and social equity, thanks to years of advocacy. But women still face barriers in urban governance, especially in smaller cities. While Coimbatore and Tumakuru have made strides, many others lag behind. Can inclusive leadership truly transform India’s urban landscape, or is there more to the story of gender parity in city planning, especially in the smaller ones?

Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation | Source: dreamstime

Recently, in an almost decade-long struggle in Mumbai, a lobby of women activists, academics and architects came together to challenge the draft city development plan. Following the movement, the BMC added an entire chapter titled “Gender, Special Groups and Social Equity” to the city’s Revised Draft Development Plan (RDDP) 2034. Nearly 90 land reservations have been made across the city for women-centric provisions, out of which an ‘Aadhar Kendra’ for skill development and a ‘child care centre’ are nearing completion.

While these developments in Mumbai are laudable and set an example for other cities to follow, they have also shed light on the fact that city planning and governance in India have been, for a long time, gender-blind. One reason could be that women remain under-represented in governance roles, both as elected representatives and as appointed public servants.

“As early as in 1992, the 74th Amendment of the Constitution pioneered gender-based reservation for local governance, mandating a minimum reservation of 33% of the total number of seats in Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) for women.”

As early as in 1992, the 73rd and 74th Amendments of the Constitution pioneered gender-based reservation for local governance, mandating a minimum reservation of 33% of the total number of seats in Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) and Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) for women. Over the years, a number of states like Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar and others, proactively exceeded the reservation to 50% for women in their local governments, even extending the tenures for women councillors.

The other way through which women participate as leaders in governance is through the bureaucracy. These are important positions, like that of the Municipal Commissioners, directors and secretaries, etc., through which women administrators can allocate resources for the citizens, and there has been considerable improvement in their general numbers in the services. From the 1970s, when women constituted only 9% of those entering the IAS, the proportion has risen considerably to over 30% in the last decade.

Current state of Women Leaders in Urban Governance

To understand the gender equation of women in urban governance, we looked at the 100 cities under the Smart City mission. These 100 cities represent a diversity of regions and sizes of cities across the country.

Of the 100 smart cities, while as many as 35 city governments have women as mayors, only 14 have women as the administrative head of the city government. 16 of the cities do not currently have a mayor due to impending elections. It is welcoming to see that the number of women mayors in this sample of cities is at least a third of all cities. An area of further research is the impact on the program outcomes in cities that have women mayors.

Furthermore, looking at the makeup of the Smart City Board, which constitutes the decision-making body of the Smart City company, we found that 32 of the cities do not have women on the board. Only six of the cities had more than 30% women on the board of the Smart City. Four cities stand out where over 40% of its Smart City board are women. These are: Vadodara (GJ), Coimbatore (TN), Tumakuru (KA) and Vijayawada-Guntur (AP). The interactive illustration below depicts the various smart cities and the number of women on the board.

Need of gender parity in urban governance roles 

Women in urban areas face critical challenges, bearing the brunt of issues associated with rapid urban growth like poverty, crime and environmental issues. To voice these concerns, it is important to have inclusion of women in the political decision-making processes. Studies conducted on the effect of women’s role in local governance showed positive results like improvement in human development outcomes, women’s entrepreneurship, health and education and police responsiveness to crimes.

An increase in performance has been attributed to women being more efficient, less corrupt and more likely to take independent decisions. While a larger chunk of these studies have contextualised local governance in rural areas, there is a critical need for research on women’s contribution in urban governance, especially since cities are more complex.

“An effective governance model is essentially the one that is pluralistic.”

It has been established in the last two decades that an effective governance model is essentially the one that is pluralistic. The support for gender quotas worldwide in public and private offices is not just based on the gender-equality agenda but also on diversifying the skills and experience, as the induction of women would bring a larger pool of directorial talent.

Research shows that gender balance improves the financial performance of organisations and is beneficial for their stakeholders and society. It was found that women use certain leadership skills like people development and participatory decision-making more than men.

Decisions, discussions and interactions among the board members were also proved to change in a positive way when boards were more gender balanced. The top-down policies of urban governance in India require cities to increasingly compete for opportunities and financial resources, and therefore they need to ensure that the systems extract the benefits of having diverse leadership.

There are many deterrents to women’s participation as leaders in city governance, but there are some promising opportunities. Training, mentorship and facilitation of young women leaders is a primary step to improve gender parity in government institutions. Nominating women in the topmost leadership is not necessarily equivalent to ensuring gender equality.

A study in 2006 reported that there needs to be at least three women on a board to make a substantial difference in enhancing governance, as it allows them to collectively participate in decision-making, especially in matters that need gender sensitivity.

The onus of improving gender parity relies on a motivated leadership that recognises the need for gender diversity and recognises women’s contribution in its own right. There is a case for reviewing recruitment approaches, establishing active committees and programmes, and a wider dissemination of gender-sensitive approaches in urban governance institutions. Only then can one be assured of cities that can cater to the needs of all citizens with a gender-inclusive approach.