Development Economics

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Subscribe to Newsletter Audio Hub By Zonibel Woods Extreme heat has a unique impact on women's lives in Asia and the Pacific. Effective, gender-responsive strategies are needed to build resilience and ensure women’s health and economic security. Climate change is increasing the intensity, frequency, and duration of heatwaves, with 2023 shaping up to be the warmest year on record. In May, Viet Nam and the Lao People’s Democratic Republic recorded their highest temperatures ever, while in June, Bangladesh faced its most prolonged heatwave in decades.As the world grapples with a rapidly warming climate, we are only beginning to understand how to prepare for heatwaves with urgency. They pose threats to every aspect of our lives, including public health, economic productivity, food security, and environmental quality. While heatwaves will impact everyone, the experiences of women and men will differ significantly. Inequality and gender shape people's experiences of heatwaves. The poor, for instance, have a 40% higher exposure to heatwaves, and in places like Dhaka’s informal settlements, temperatures have been recorded at 12 degrees higher. Heat stress disproportionately affects women’s health, livelihoods, and security, presenting unique challenges that require targeted support and solutions.Consider the daily cycle of a woman living in a heatwave-prone area: a mother spends long evenings trying to cool off her children for sleep, often walking up and down a cooler outdoor area due to the prohibitive electricity costs of using a fan. Sleep-deprived, she begins her morning cooking over a hot stove, followed by work where heat is relentless. If she works outdoors, as is likely in informal sectors like agriculture, it’s often under the glaring heat of the sun. If she is a home-based worker living in an informal settlement, the tin roof on her home turns it into an oven, making temperatures unbearable.If she is from a country where there are cultural constraints on her mobility and clothing, she may not have a choice but to stay indoors and suffer through the heat. Despite limited access to water and sanitation, she may choose not to drink enough anyway if it means not having to look for a toilet too often.If she is pregnant, she faces particularly heightened risks during heatwaves, but may not have access to crucial information to prevent complications. School closures can force her to forego income to care for their children.Developing and implementing heat action plans, in consultation with women, is urgently needed to address the gendered impact of extreme heat, ensuring a more resilient and equitable future.Extreme heat will have the heaviest impact on men and women who work outdoors in sectors with high levels of informality, such as street vendors, agricultural and construction workers, and also affects those in workplaces needing cooling, like factories or garment industries.Among the ten countries with the heaviest labor losses predicted due to heat exposure, seven are in Asia, and the International Labour Organization estimates a potential loss of 5% in total working hours in South Asia. However, this loss is not uniformly distributed – women, who are more often informally employed than men, are disproportionately affected. In South Asia, women homeworkers make up nearly one quarter of total female employment, compared to just 6% of men.Social and gender norms also restrict women's mobility, often confining them indoors during heatwaves without access to cooler, shaded outdoor spaces. Consequently, women face a higher risk of adverse health outcomes from heat stress, including higher mortality rates, especially among elderly women.Research indicates that indoor heat significantly reduces women's work capacity. In India, home-based workers have reported up to a 30% drop in income due to indoor temperatures too high for work. A Cambodian survey likewise found that 22% of female factory workers reported reduced work capacity due to heat stress, with 6% missing work days, and 67% stating that heat stress at home affected their health.Other health impacts include workplace injuries, heat-related illness, and chronic kidney disease. These are prevalent among agricultural workers and in communities lacking adequate water and sanitation, like informal settlements. Additionally, indoor cooking during heatwaves can intensify health risks due to heat and pollution. The data on heat stress's impact on women, especially during pregnancy, is increasingly worrying. For instance, each 1°C increase in temperature has been linked to a 6% rise in preterm births and a 16% increase during heatwaves. Similarly, the risk of stillbirths grows by 5% per 1°C rise in temperature.Addressing heat stress demands a comprehensive, multi-sectoral approach, encompassing health systems, workplaces, schools, social protection, financial planning, and disaster risk management. These sectors must rapidly adapt and incorporate strategies that specifically address women’s unique needs in the face of rising temperatures.To adapt effectively to a warming planet, a deeper understanding of gender inequality's role in women's resilience to heatwaves is essential. Despite the increasing heat stress impacts, the multiple consequences on women have not been thoroughly examined, highlighting a critical gap in current research and action.Developing and implementing heat action plans, in consultation with women, is urgently needed. We need innovative and accessible solutions, like passive cooling and nature-based approaches, particularly in urban areas to counter the 'heat island effect'. Such solutions not only offer immediate relief but also build long-term resilience, especially for women and the economically disadvantaged.Countries in the region, and their development partners, need to focus on developing knowledge, gender-responsive planning, and identifying innovative solutions to tackle the gendered impact of extreme heat, with a particular focus Bangladesh, Cambodia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Tajikistan. By equipping women to face the challenges of a warming world, we pave the way for a more resilient, equitable future. As we confront the reality that extreme heat will change every aspect of women's lives, the question arises: Are we ready? The answer is clear. We're not ready yet, but with the right steps, we can be.The blog is based on research related to the project Strengthening Women’s Resilience to Heat Stress in Asia and the Pacific, which is featured in discussions at COP28. Published: 4 December 2023

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Subscribe to Newsletter Audio Hub By Bimbika Sijapati Basnett, Hema Swaminathan Women in Asia and the Pacific face significant gender disparities in agrifood systems. Tools and national metrics can help design and evaluate the success of projects aimed at improving gender equality and resource access. In Asia and the Pacific, women are crucial in agrifood systems as farmers, retailers, wage workers, entrepreneurs, and consumers. However, they face disparities in wages, assets, and information due to entrenched gender inequalities within and beyond the household, as highlighted in FAO’s 2023 publication on the status of women in agrifood systems. This impedes progress on sustainable development goals.Gender roles and power dynamics have a powerful impact on the agricultural sector, which in the region is dominated by small family farms. Farm decisions - crop selection, work distribution, technology use, what to sell or consume, participation in value chains – all intertwine with broader household choices on finances, food, work, care responsibilities. For transformative solutions, we need to prioritize measuring women’s empowerment in agrifood systems – their ability to make decisions and control their own lives within these systems.Here are four ways to do that:Look beyond access to resources: Women lack access to resources like land, technology and employment; their ability to use these resources effectively must be measured. An example includes a woman’s ability to use land she recently purchased jointly with her spouse for making decisions on crop selection and financial management, self-belief in her capacity to manage her farm, and her ability to pool resources and share knowledge with other members of producer cooperatives to negotiate better prices.Use the available tools: Deep-rooted gender roles and norms can hinder project outcomes but are hard to factor in project duration. Even if there is no deliberate attempt to address these, an understanding of within-household gender dynamics as pathways of impact can improve project design.There is no need to reinvent the wheel, and available tools can be adapted. One such example is the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index and its variations—such as the project-specific version of the index, the version for market inclusion, and the Women’s Empowerment Metrics for National Statistical Systems—which provide a robust framework for assessing and quantifying women’s empowerment.These tools cover key areas, including intrinsic agency (autonomy in income decisions, self-efficacy, attitudes towards intimate partner violence, respect among household members); instrumental agency (decision making in production, asset ownership, income control, work balance, and mobility); and collective agency (group membership and influence).Data is collected from both women and men in the household to construct indicators for overall empowerment and gender parity within households. The project-level Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index for market inclusion has been developed for measuring women’s empowerment across value chains, adding dimensions like entrepreneurial mindset and autonomy in work, to assess empowerment for producers, entrepreneurs, and workers.Measuring women’s empowerment in agrifood systems is crucial for addressing structural gender inequalities and achieving sustainable development goals in Asia and the Pacific.Learn what works: Impact evaluations provide insights on what drives successful women’s empowerment outcomes in projects. A recent evaluation of nine agrifood projects in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa found that projects intentionally focused on women’s empowerment, rather than simply including women or addressing their needs in project activities, yielded better outcomes.Successful projects often targeted multiple dimensions of empowerment, such as improving women’s control over credit (instrumental) and building their confidence in financial management (intrinsic).Conversely, projects that only emphasized women’s group membership, without addressing workload constraints like childcare provisions, saw diminished impact, as women’s agency over time use declined.Engaging men and community leaders is vital to support sustainable changes and avoid resistance. Designing projects with impact evaluation objectives ensures outcomes are measured, impacts attributed to projects, and insights gathered for continuous learning and improvement.Broaden the gaze: Project outcomes are not immune to the broader societal trends affecting gender inequalities. Assessing women’s empowerment helps identify barriers, guide actions, track progress and evaluate impacts to improve future efforts.Women’s disempowerment is rooted in broader social, legal, and policy contexts that perpetuate inequality in the region, such as unequal power relations within household members, norms that restrict women’s economic activity including ownership of assets, or beliefs that justify violence against women.Analyzing these structural issues alongside measuring women’s empowerment at the population level reveals how these structural challenges affect women and their subgroups. This then can inform policies for lasting improvements, such as property rights reform, care infrastructure development, safe markets, and public spaces.Tools like women’s empowerment metrics can be integrated into national surveys and align with Sustainable Development Goal 5 indicators (Achieving gender equality and empowerment of all women and girls). These tools offer a cost-effective way to gather data on the extent and severity of disempowerment as well as the contributing factors.The Women's Empowerment Metrics for National Statistical Systems assess areas of agency, similar to the project-specific Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index, but also include resources that enable empowerment, such as access to information and communication technology, financial services, and property rights. This is useful for informing large-scale policy decisions and programs and/or evaluating their impacts for future improvements.Despite the importance, gender equality and women’s empowerment are rarely treated as a high-level policy priority with dedicated resources across the region. To address this, women’s empowerment data can be leveraged to show its connection to other development priorities like poverty reduction, nutrition, and climate action.For instance, demonstrating how empowering women can address stunting among children or increase uptake of renewable energy in the home makes a stronger case for financing gender equality initiatives.Measuring women’s empowerment is not just about gathering data; it is about identifying structural barriers that women face within and beyond their homes. By paying careful attention to what drives and hinders empowerment, policymakers and development practitioners can design better interventions that go beyond inclusion and actively support women in taking control of their lives.With just over five years until 2030, driving actions to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment is urgent for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. Published: 26 September 2024

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As India’s population of 1.4 billion people becomes the world’s largest, its GDP is forecast to expand dramatically. Goldman Sachs Research projects India will have the world’s second-largest economy by 2075. For India, a key to realizing the potential of that growing population is boosting participation within its labor force, as well as providing training and skills for its immense pool of talent, says Santanu Sengupta, Goldman Sachs Research’s India economist. “Over the next two decades, the dependency ratio of India will be one of the lowest among regional economies”, he says, pointing out that India’s population has one of the best ratios between its working-age population and its number of children and elderly. “So that really is the window for India to get it right in terms of setting up manufacturing capacity, continuing to grow services, continuing the growth of infrastructure.” We spoke with Sengupta about the underpinnings of India’s economy, the demographic factors driving GDP forward, and the country’s ambitions for green energy. What are the main drivers of Goldman Sachs Research’s long-term forecasts for India’s economy? India has made more progress in innovation and technology than some may realize. Yes, the country has demographics on its side, but that's not going to be the only driver of GDP. Innovation and increasing worker productivity are going to be important for the world's fifth-biggest economy. In technical terms, that means greater output for each unit of labor and capital in India's economy. Capital investment is also going to be a significant driver of growth going forward. Driven by favorable demographics, India’s savings rate is likely to increase with falling dependency ratios, rising incomes, and deeper financial sector development, which is likely to make the pool of capital available to drive further investment. On this front, the government has done the heavy-lifting in the recent past. But given healthy balance sheets of private corporates and banks in India, we believe that the conditions are conducive for a private sector capex cycle. Finally, favourable demographics will add to potential growth over the forecast horizon. India’s large population is clearly an opportunity, however the challenge is productively using the labor force, by increasing the labor force participation rate. That will mean creating the opportunities for this labor force to get absorbed and simultaneously training and upskilling the labor force. How do India's demographics compare to other large countries in terms of aging and fertility? In India, the demographic transition is happening more gradually and over a longer time period than the rest of Asia. This is primarily due to a more gradual decline in death and birth rates in India compared with the rest of Asia. The population growth will continue. What we focus on is the dependency ratio, which is the non-working-age population that is dependent on the working-age population. For India, that will be among the lowest among large economies for the next 20 years or so. So that really is the window for India to get it right in terms of setting up manufacturing capacity, continuing to grow services, continuing the growth of infrastructure. There's a lot of infrastructure creation that is going on now, primarily led by the government's focus on setting up infrastructure in terms of roads, railways and so forth. We believe this is also the appropriate time for the private sector to scale up on creating capacities in both manufacturing and services which has the potential of creating jobs and absorbing the large labor force. What are some of the risks to Goldman Sachs Research’s forecasts for India’s economic growth? The main downside risk would be if the labor force participation rate does not increase. The labor force participation rate in India has declined over the last 15 years. If you have more opportunities — especially for women, because the women's labor force participation rate is significantly lower than men's — you can shore up your labor force participation rate, which can further increase your potential growth. Growth upside can come through higher productivity growth. India has taken a giant leap in terms of digitalization of the economy, both through wider penetration of Internet and mobile Internet. But along with that you've had the unique identification number, or what is called the Aadhaar, the world's largest biometric ID system, by which you are now able to verify identification of the 1.4 billion population both online and physically. So it makes public service delivery much easier and more targeted. It widens the credit net, leads to smaller businesses getting more credit, and that can provide an upside to growth from an increase in productivity. What are some of the other key factors to understanding India’s economy? It's a very domestic-demand-driven economy compared to many others, especially in the region which are more export dependent. India’s growth until now has been mainly driven by domestic consumption as the main driver, around 55-60% of the overall economy, plus domestic investments. Net exports have always been a drag on growth, because India runs a current account deficit. In recent times, we are seeing some progress on that front. Services exports have been increasing, and that is somewhat cushioning current account balances. The other important factor to keep in mind is how commodity prices affect the macro economy — inflation, fiscal deficit, and current-account deficit. India imports most of the commodities that are required for a large population. And when commodity prices globally go up it obviously shows up in macro imbalances. Over the last few years, those macro imbalances are reducing, and you're getting less macro vulnerability from, one, inflation targeting and, two, through services exports, which is cushioning the current account balance. And which commodities are particularly noteworthy for India’s current account? A large population has its energy requirements. Although the per-capita consumption of energy is way lower than not just the Western world, but also other emerging economies, the large population means a large energy import bill and shows up in India’s current account imbalances. This was more true around 10 years back. Over the last five years or so, there is growing resilience in the external balance dynamics through a structural improvement in current accounts through services exports and due to the central bank consciously building reserve buffers, which gives more cushion during episodes of dollar strength. Is green energy and the energy transition an opportunity for India? Absolutely. India has announced that it aims to reach net zero emissions by 2070 and for 50% of the power generation capacity to come from non-fossil sources by 2030. The government is also pushing EVs and green hydrogen, and is targeting 500GW of renewable or clean energy capacity by 2030. Ultimately, transitioning to green energy is a large investment opportunity, but it'll take time. In the interim fossil fuels are going to be the majority share in energy needs until India transitions to green energy. This article is being provided for educational purposes only. The information contained in this article does not constitute a recommendation from any Goldman Sachs entity to the recipient, and Goldman Sachs is not providing any financial, economic, legal, investment, accounting, or tax advice through this article or to its recipient. Neither Goldman Sachs nor any of its affiliates makes any representation or warranty, express or implied, as to the accuracy or completeness of the statements or any information contained in this article and any liability therefore (including in respect of direct, indirect, or consequential loss or damage) is expressly disclaimed.

NEW DELHI: Tomatoes, an essential ingredient in Indian cuisine, have witnessed an alarming price hike of 445%, surpassing the cost of petrol.