Women’s entrepreneurship, a key pillar for India at G20

Promoting female entrepreneurship is among India’s top growth and equality priorities. It is a powerful vehicle that can accelerate India’s journey to become a $5 trillion economy. Moreover, it is one of the most important factors that will help increase household incomes, alleviate poverty and help us achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030, especially SDG-5 on gender equality.

promoting India a nari shakti it is reflected in various government initiatives. The National Rural Livelihoods Mission supports rural women’s entrepreneurship, with over 80 million women participating in 7.5 million self-help groups. The Mudra scheme enables access to funding and the GeM portal reserves 3% of all government procurement for women entrepreneurs.

Research conducted by Niti Aayog indicates that women’s entrepreneurship needs support to make it sustainable and self-reliant and to bring it into the formal sector. The job-generating capabilities of these enterprises are well documented and create spin-offs for society and the economy.

Under its G20 chairmanship, India has identified eight priority areas including Among other things women-led development and public digital infrastructure. In addition, the G20 Alliance for the Empowerment and Advancement of Women’s Economic Representation (G20 EMPOWER), led by the ministry of women and child development, aims to change the narrative from women’s development to women-led development. Women entrepreneurs are at the center of this change, leading G20 EMPOWER.

We must turn challenges into opportunities and accelerate the shift towards greater inclusion of women in the workforce and women-led entrepreneurship. As the SDGs demonstrate, adopting a gender lens and creating a culture that provides more opportunities for women requires collaborative and concerted action in our country and globally.

Digitization is a powerful tool that can help strengthen women’s economic participation. In addition, there are several sectors where telework can be a permanent feature and offer the opportunity to employ female labour.

The three priority areas of the G20 EMPOWER platform are turning these dialogues into action through the following approaches.

One, focusing on women’s entrepreneurship: Increasing women’s access to skills, capacity building, support infrastructure and finance to promote women-led and women-owned businesses. Second, to create a partnership to promote women’s leadership, aimed at increasing their public representation, access to public facilities and increasing participation in the workforce in the public and private sectors. Third, to work for an education that facilitates the representation of women in decision-making roles.

The Women’s Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP) is a key channel to bridge the knowledge gap: As Indian women and girls make rapid strides and transition from the education system to the world of work, India is creating a powerful entrepreneurial pathway for 55 more millions of women. who could enter the workforce by 2030.

Announced at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit 2017, WEP’s ideation and incubation took place at Niti Aayog. Today, it is a shining example of a robust public-private partnership that provides multi-sectoral support to women entrepreneurs. It builds a pipeline of women entrepreneurs through awareness, training, skilling, access to finance and marketing needs. WEP has also become a thought leader by producing data that helps better understand the entrepreneurial needs of women, with a strong focus on leadership and mental health. Also planned is a focus on technology, lowering barriers to allow women to benefit from more efficiencies without imposing a concrete traditional approach to optimizing growth.

In this year of India’s chairmanship of the G20, the world will witness the best collaboration between institutions, countries, initiatives and people. It will introduce India nari shaktiall of whom will emerge as pioneers of prosperous societies and economies.

Sangita Reddy is MD, Apollo Hospitals, Past President of FICCI, President of G20 EMPOWER and Co-Chairman of WEP Steering Committee. Anna Roy is Senior Advisor, Niti Aayog and Mission Director, WEP

The opinions expressed are personal