UN appoints ICECD for national level study on women entrepreneurship

In a bid to promote enabling environment for women entrepreneurs in various countries in Asia and the Pacific, United Nations (UN) ESCAP in partnership with Goldman Sachs has selected International Centre for Entrepreneurship & Career Development (ICECD) to conduct a study on the same.

The study, titled 'National Study on Creating and Enabling Environment for Women's Economic Empowerment through Entrepreneurship in India', will be prepared by ICECD to identify strategies and policies that will serve as a tool to create an enabling environment to advance opportunities for women's economic empowerment through entrepreneurship.

"The study will be conducted in India since it offers a right model for researching environment of women entrepreneurs among countries in Asia and the Pacific. For instance, out of the total number of entrepreneurs in India, only eight per are women. Results of the study would look to offer solutions for numerous challenges that women entrepreneurs in India face today; be it access to capital or growth challenges," said Hina Shah, founder and director of ICECD.

ICECD along with UN ESCAP had also organised a consultative meet involving other government agencies, departments and NGOs such as KVIC, MSME development institute, gender resource centre, national mission for empowerment of women, FICCI ladies organisation, VIKSAT, Taleem Research Foundation, Aga Khan Rural Support Program and other stakeholder groups from Gujarat.

"The consultative meet was focused on existing legal and policy environment; key trends, obstacles and needs of women entrepreneurs, with a view to proposing a framework of recommended actions. A comprehensive consultation of national policies, laws and gaps in policies was done in the meet," said Shah.

The study is likely to be completed by ICECD within a year. Meanwhile, the study would also look at policy changes needed to augment women entrepreneurship.

"Progressive outlook and understanding of the basic gender issues in government initiatives for women development is a prerequisite for change in the scenario. Though the government policies and schemes are blessings in disguise for women entrepreneurs, most of them are unaware about it. Therefore, the extension approach for bridging the gap between government policies, programs, protocols and women entrepreneurs must become the core theme of the organisational efforts for women development," Shah added.