The NIRD's rural development vision places emphasis on gender equality and women's advancement in the country. To effect this vision of serving as the policy setting and capacity building agency for ensuring equal participation of women along with men in all development processes, the NIRD makes concerted efforts for combating problems of women in difficult circumstances, mainstreaming gender perspectives in rural development, and enabling women empowerment. The NIRD has set up an exclusive Centre for Gender Studies(CGS) to handle the capacity building as well as the research and policy advocacy issues. NIRD Specifically seeks to address the problems of the women in difficult circumstances through social evils, crime and violence, destitution, food security, poverty,adverse sex ratio, deseases and ill health.

Currently, NIRD is focusing on anti-human trafficking and mainstreaming of the
HIV/ AIDS in rural development training and capacity building

In addition to the initiatives of CGS, the NIRD through its various other Centres also organizes capacity building programmes with convergence towards gender equity in wage employment, self employment , education, technology, decision making, rural infrastructure and skill development among women .

Special efforts on Combating Trafficking in Women and Children

• On realizing the cause-consequence relation of poverty and victimization prevalent among the women and girls of Indian villages, since 2008, the CGS of NIRD has taken up anti human trafficking efforts in a catalytic mode . The prevention centric anti-human trafficking initiatives aim at better rural development for poverty alleviation and networking with other stakeholders of law enforcement, justice delivery and local governance. In the recent past the NIRD organized a number of mainstreaming and networking programmes of consultations, workshops, training programmes and micro level studies with other stakeholders for the purpose . The NIRD's integrated efforts of anti-human trafficking are targeted to sensitise district level officers of Judiciary, Police, Administration, Panchayati Raj and Women Development agencies and to strengthen their efforts of prevention,rescue,rehabilitation and reintegration so as to combat trafficking in women and children.