Arthan Conference 2025 Champions Gender Equality & Climate Change

By: WE staff | Tuesday, 16 December 2025

• The Arthan Annual Conference 2025 was conducted in New Delhi on 11th December
• The event included preparing the Indian workforce for the challenge of gender equality, climate transitions, and community innovation
• The talks featured women’s enterprises and Panchayati Raj Institutions’

The Arthan Annual Conference 2025 hosted in New Delhi on December 11 brought together various stakeholders to review strategies on how the Indian workforce is to be prepared for change on issues pertaining to gender equality, climate change, and community innovation.

The Centre for Catalyzing Change (C3) at the event featured case studies from Bihar on the importance of businesses run by women and Panchayati Raj Institutions in the development of the rural economy.

The panel discussions, which consisted of panchayat representatives and women entrepreneurs, discussed the challenges that women-owned businesses face in rural settings and their requirement for formal credit, technology, specific business advice, and market access.

Panchayat representatives also gave examples of efforts made to ensure economic engagement of women. Mukhiyas like Tripti Kumari said, “Shakti Salah Kendras” have been set up, which is a forum where women can share views regarding job development.

Then there is Rubi Devi, who spoke on changes in societal viewpoints, referring to women seeing her involvement in a business.

It can be said that Shakti Dhara, a program of C3, brings women-headed panchayats to the forefront of grassroots engagement in businesses, which connects small-scale entrepreneurs with technology, investment, and new markets.

In the first plenary, “Who Designs and Who Decides? Capital, Corporates & Communities in Building Green, Equitable Work,” the group assessed methods of achieving inclusive, participatory, and green transition.

Vineet Rai of Aavishkaar Group pointed out that it was necessary to change power structures that had previously excluded women from representation as a result of making women's representation a key performance indicator.

Sessions emphasized that climate transition should be people-centric, transitioning from being carbon-centric to context-centric.

Samar Verma, Independent Knowledge Partner, underscored "the critical role of just transitions that take lived experience as a form of knowledge seriously and require democratic transformations that seek diverse perspectives and foster civic agency." In his speech, he said that "progress is far better measured by qualitative data than by quantitative data."

One of the important lessons from the conference was the significance of local institutional capacity and the comprehensive design of ecosystems in enabling rural women-led businesses to facilitate resilient and inclusive economic growth.

This reflects a collective commitment to building livelihood models with inclusivity and co-creation with affected communities.