Devaki Jain

Devaki Jain graduated in economics from Oxford University. She joined Delhi University as a lecturer and later became a senior fellow at the Delhi School of Economics. In 1976 she founded a research centre, the Institute of Social Studies Trust, which focuses on issues of poverty and gender. She has held fellowships at various universities, including at Harvard and Boston as a Senior Fulbright Scholar in 1984. She was awarded an honorary Doctorate for her contribution to international development by the University of Westville, Durban, Republic of South Africa.

Ms. Jain has represented her country for 30 years in national, regional and international fora as an active advocate of justice for the excluded. She has been a founding member of several national organizations, such as the Indian Association of Women Studies, and Kali, the first feminist Publishing House in India. Her efforts on the roles and struggles of poor women in developing countries led to the founding of a Third World network of women intellectuals, called Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN).

She has published more than 20 books and hundreds of articles with a focus on the situation of poor women. Her first book Indian Women was commissioned by the Government of India for the first UN World Conference on Women in 1975. Her latest book Women, Development and the UN – A Sixty-Years Quest for Equality and Justice is part of the United Nations Intellectual History Project.

She was one of two women to be recognized at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 for her outstanding achievements through professional and voluntary activities in promoting the advancement of women and gender equality for over 20 years.

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