Taking a major step to end the gender-based barriers that pose important obstacles to women entrepreneurs across India, Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), NITI Aayog, has came with the collaboration with the Indo-German Development Cooperation Project ‘Economic Empowerment of Women Entrepreneurs and Start-ups by Women (Her&Now)’ commissioned by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and jointly executed by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH and The ministry is headed by Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan to help women play a greater role in the economy as entrepreneurs.
This Entrepreneurship represents an important opportunity and space which is created for women development to increase the participation of women in the industry & economy and to realise India’s growth potential.
The partnership between AIM and Her&Now will impart the ‘WINcubate Training Programme’ to the AIM Incubators and Innovation Centres and equip them in supporting a gender-focused approach. It will help the participants to design and execute women-centric incubation programmes. The WINcubate Training Programme has been developed by Her&Now together with the Indian NGO Dhriiti – the Courage and support within and is based on best practices of women entrepreneurship support programmes executed in the country since 2019.
Aim
To end gender-based barriers for Women Entrepreneurs across the country. To acknowledge that the growth & support needs of women entrepreneurs often differ from that of entrepreneurs of other genders due to specific gender-related barriers. It will emphasize designing and implementing women-centric support programs in order to promote enterprise creation and growth by women entrepreneurs.
Training
Involves equipping incubators with the knowledge, devices, and strategies for holistic programming to absorb gender-sensitive approaches into common incubation programming and courses. The practice consists of live lectures, offline modules, exercises, and film screenings.
A Statement of objective was signed by AIM and Her & Now 02 March 2022. Dr Chintan Vaishnav, Mission Director, Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog, while declaring the partnership stated, “ There are multiple factors responsible for the low participation of Indian women in any section and one of the biggest factors is gender- basedbias.However, also for women, clearly there are more snakes, If we consider it as a game of snakes and ladders. This network has to be ended and I'm sure we, with the boost of GIZ, can develop in this direction.”
Considering the social ethics on the part of women with regard to marriage and household duties, women are exposed to further undeserved challenges, he added.
Adding to this, Julia Karst, Head of the Her & Now'' design at GIZ India, stated “ Together with Dhriiti – the Courage Within we've developed the WINcubate training with the ambition to produce a position playing field for women entrepreneurs in India. This training supports incubators across the country to borrow women-centric incubation programmes that address the specific challenges and requirements of women entrepreneurs. Our new collaboration with AIM will be crucial in achieving this ambitious aim.”
The collaboration will feature aiming and executing women-centric support programmes in order to elevate enterprise creation and growth by women entrepreneurs. The premise of this training exercise is to acknowledge that the support requirements of women entrepreneurs frequently vary from that of entrepreneurs of different genders due to specific gender- related barriers, which makes it required for incubators to design and redeem support programmes that specifically address these requirements.
