NITI Aayog’s Women Entrepreneurs Platform (WEP) today signed five separate Statement of Intent (SoIs) with Shri Mahila Sewa Sahakari Bank Limited, Indiabulls Housing Finance Limited, SREI Infrastructure Finance Limited, Sreemanta Sankar Mission and the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA).

The WEP was established on the occasion of International Womens’ Day in March 2018 to substantially increase the number of women entrepreneurs who will create and empower a dynamic New India.

The WEP intends to undertake this task through its partner organizations, private as well as public organizations; by bringing their existing as well as new women specific initiatives on a single platform, which in turn will also address knowledge gaps, promote partner connects and will increase the outreach of partner programmes.

The SoIs signed with financial institutions such as the Shri Mahila Sewa Sahakari Bank, Indiabulls Housing Finance and SREI Infrastructure Finance shall be housed under the WEP-Finance vertical and will provide financial assistance to women entrepreneurs and address the finance related challenges faced by them through WEP.

WEP will partner with the Sreemanta Sankar Mission of Guwahati to empower established as well as aspiring women entrepreneurs in North East India through WEP North East Chapter and will work to popularize WEP in North East so that more women entrepreneurs in that region can avail benefits under the WEP initiative. Similarly, the SoI with the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), a trade union and as an organization of poor, self-employed women workers, includes commitments to mobilize women entrepreneurs in rural areas and promote them in Livelihood Entrepreneurship.

Through its partner organizations, WEP aims to create opportunities and support women in order to help them realize their entrepreneurial aspirations, scale up innovative initiatives, and chalk out sustainable and long-term strategies for their businesses. WEP website which will be enriched with entrepreneurial initiatives and support programmes would guide you to schemes, initiatives and products relevant to your requirement.

The WEP is an initiative under the NITI Aayog which was launched on March 8, 2018 on the occasion of the International Women’s Day. The idea of the Platform was first mooted by Shri Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog who announced the setting-up of a Women Entrepreneurship Platform in NITI Aayog at the conclusion of the 8th Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) held in Hyderabad in 2017 with an overarching theme of ‘Women first, Prosperity for All’.

Women entrepreneurship platform expands finance and outreach through partner SoIs to mobilize and scale women-led businesses. NITI Aayog's Women Entrepreneurs Platform executed five Statements of Intent with financial and social partners to centralize women specific initiatives, establish a WEP Finance vertical delivering financial assistance, and create regional and grassroots outreach-including a North East Chapter and SEWA collaboration-to mobilize, support, and scale women entrepreneurs via partner linkages and an enriched online platform.