About CGAP Foundation
Background Story
CGAP foundation aims at increasing awareness of women's leadership in local, state and national leadership spaces including political spaces. For this, in the last two years, we have focused on creating resources that identify areas for policymakers, policy influencers, governments, NGOs and researchers to empower women from grassroots to national platforms who have remained in a disadvantaged position.
CGAP’s high-quality scholarship is produced by a community of volunteers that include PhD scholars, Assistant Professors, Professors, Students of Gender Studies, Women’s Studies and Political Sciences. Through our research, we aim to highlight the work of women leaders and men who stand up for women to educate the Indian audience and people abroad about women leaders. We wish to bring forth the positive aspects of women’s participation in politics as candidates, position holders and voters. This demonstrates the upholding of Indian democracy and is a step towards the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 5 of Gender Equality. Some of our major initiatives and projects are detailed below.
We wish to continue our work to educate people on gender equality in India. We highlight the leadership of women role models working across critical areas of education, healthcare, poverty eradication and local development.
We work towards a Gender Inclusive Society
Key areas of our work
Education
CGAP aims at increasing awareness of women's leadership in local, state and national political spaces. As a charity, we not only work on filling the research gap, but also bring accessible high quality research and education on gender and political science to students and young professionals for free. We provide free access to all our research, education and awareness content. We also strive to improve access by translating our works into local languages. Our past work can be found in Hindi, Telugu, Bengali, Marathi and Urdu. We build educational resources that is free to access by the public to empower them with knowledge on leadership, allyship and gender equality.
Research
Our high-quality scholarship is produced by a community of volunteers that include PhD scholars, Assistant Professors, Professors, Students of Gender Studies, Women’s Studies and Political Sciences. Through our research, we aim to highlight the work of women leaders and men who stand up for women to educate the Indian audience and people abroad about women leaders.
Key Projects and Initiatives
Friendships, Networks and Solidarity: Women’s Political Participation through Self-Help Group Memberships (Pilot Study)
Our research project on Self Help Groups (SHGs) produced recommendations on women’s empowerment through SHGs as it provides a social network and access to information on local issues, candidates etc. This was found helpful by NGOs and researchers to empower women in all aspects of their life. Our research reached over 1000 people around the globe. This was featured by reputed educational institutions and nonprofit organisations. Professors from Stanford, Gauhati and Jadavpur universities were involved in guiding our team to publish this research.
Research Rountables
We organised a research roundtable to create dialogues and share knowledge between researchers in various aspects of women’s leadership. Attendees of this roundtable included professors and researchers from reputed universities across the world. The proceedings of the roundtable were published to benefit researchers, and it achieved high research interest when published on ResearchGate, a reputed platform for research studies.
Beyond Victims Series (Annual Publication)
Through this, we highlight positive aspects of the leadership of women sarpanches, parliamentarians and members of state assemblies who have worked at par with global leaders.
Women For Politics Initiative
Through our flagship initiative, Women for Politics, we are committed to replacing narratives that define women as victims, with recognition and celebration of women's achievements as political and community leaders.
Some of the projects under this initiative include Beyond Victims (mentioned above), Worth Asking Published Interview and blogs educating the public about women's leadership and men's allyship.
Publications
Meet The Team
Meet The Team
Akhil Neelam
Co-Founder, Director, Research & Operations
Akhil is a public policy practitioner and a gender rights advocate, working towards making politics gender-equal. Previously, he has worked with the state governments of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, where he strategised policy communications and planned the implementation of various public education initiatives and contributed towards implementing systemic changes for better implementation. He is also a Young India Fellow from Ashoka University.
Sugandha
Co-Founder, Director, Chief Editor
Sugandha has a background in gender, human rights law and policy. She holds two MA degrees; MA in Women’s Studies from Tata Institute of Social Sciences and MA in Human Right Law from School of Oriental and African studies, London. She has worked with non-profits, philanthropy and government departments, and is an active member of women and policy initiatives in India.
Technical Advisory Unit (TAU)
Sakshi Hallan
Member, TAU
Sakshi Hallan is an Economist (ODI Fellow) at the Ministry of Education and Sports in the Government of Uganda. Before this, she was a Research Consultant at Inclusion Economics India Centre, managing a data collection for a research study at the intersection of gender, politics, and environment. Previously, she has worked as a Consultant with the World Bank supporting projects in social protection, agriculture, and financial inclusion. She holds MA in International and Development Economics from Yale University. Sakshi is passionate about public policy, development economics, politics, and gender.
Devanik Saha
Member, TAU
Devanik Saha is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the School of Health and Social Care, University of Essex. He has a PhD from the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex. His doctoral thesis explores men's involvement in antenatal care in an informal settlement of Delhi. His areas of interest are gender, men and masculinities, migration, maternal reproductive health, and Indian politics. He is also a recipient of the Global Talent Visa by the UK government, wherein he has been endorsed as an exceptional talent in the field of Global Health and Development. He can be contacted on Twitter
Poonam Kakoti Borah
Sensitivity Reader
Poonam Kakoti Borah is Assistant Professor at Department of Women's Studies, Gauhati University. She completed her M. Phil and Ph.D from Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. Her areas of interest include Political Theory, Feminist Theory, Gender and Education and Gender and Governance. Before joining Gauhati University, she taught at Indraprastha College for Women, Miranda House and St. Stephen’s College in University of Delhi.
She has also published articles in journals and edited books by reputed publishers like Oxford University Press and Routledge. She is currently also a member of the North East Regional Committee under the Indian Association of Women's Studies.
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Women local representative sharing her experiences about tackling Covid crisis in her village
Women local representative sharing her experiences about tackling Covid crisis in her village
Women local representative sharing her experiences about tackling Covid crisis in her village
Women local representative sharing her experiences about tackling Covid crisis in her village