Presence of coherence in national climate and agricultural policy in India measured through inclusiveness of the poorest and most vulnerable of society

Abstract

Policy coherence regarding social inclusion is an insufficiently researched subject. Firstly, insights into this subject are important, since policy coherence is necessary to achieve goals in synergy by aligning policies to one another. Secondly, social inclusion of the poorest and most vulnerable of society is a general objective across the SDGs. Insights are thus necessary to realize social inclusion across SDGs and hereby to realize sustainable development. This research focuses on SDG 2 zero hunger and SDG 13 climate action, since achievement of their goals is dependent on one another; emphasizing the need for policy coherence related to these field. Linked to this, the focus in this research is on India, since its large dependence upon the agricultural sector, related to these two SDGs. The focus is on women and marginal farmers, since they comprise major groups of the poorest and most vulnerable in the Indian agricultural sector. By analysing the National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture and National Food Security Mission, belonging to national Indian policies targeting climate change and agriculture, insights in to what extent policies are coherent, and how, are provided. A multidimensional framework is developed to research policy coherence on different elements of social inclusion: economic inclusion, political inclusion and capability, linked to different parts of the policy process: the policy document, budgeting and monitoring. Economic inclusion relates to economic opportunities, political inclusion relates to participation in the policy process and capability is focused on educational opportunities, which can influence the social status of poverty. Through this analysis it becomes clear that irregular patterns with regard to social inclusion related to different parts of the policy process are discernible, pointing towards the absence of social inclusion as a focus area in policies. Incoherence between the policies is present in economic inclusion, mostly between the policy document and monitoring. Within the policies incoherence is present between the policy document and monitoring. Additional research is therefore needed to provide insights on policy coherence regarding social inclusion and on how to attain it, for the academic world, and for the SDGs and related policies to be inclusive.