Plan for every Child, Gender Vulnerability Index Report 1

Plan India In an attempt to develop collective perspectives and generate a normative consensus on the status of girls and women in India, has broken new ground and pioneered a gender vulnerability assessment tool designed to be used by policymakers, development practitioners, academicians, gender experts, Non-Government Organisations among others.

The Gender Vulnerability Index (GVI), is an initiative towards a landscape analysis taking into account four core dimensions: The salient objectives of the initiative are as below:

a) Education

b) Health and Survival

c) Poverty

d) Protection

It is well understood that the four dimensions are complementary and improvements or shortfalls in one domain may to lead to corresponding changes in any or all of the others. We present the rationale of the four chosen core dimensions and indicators, as well as a bird’s eye view of the state of girls in India. Every girl and woman is vulnerable to many other aspects and circumstances outside the purview of the four dimensions. However, we resort to these for the sake of consistency across the Indian states. With a hundred and seventy indicators, our aim is to comprehensively capture and track national efforts on empowering girls and young women and in creating a safe, equitable and supportive environment for them to learn, lead, decide and thrive.