The United Nations (UN) India, in partnership with Niti Aayog on Thursday launched an investor consortium that aims to strengthen women’s entrepreneurship.

The consortium is expected to bring together key ecosystem stakeholders, including venture capitalists and impact investors, international donors and funding agencies, private sector partners, various state governments of India and UN agencies, to work with women entrepreneurs on funding of startups, job creation and financial inclusion.  Women entrepreneurs are identified through key partners including Women Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP), UN Women and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

“It has been led by Niti Aayog which invited a consortium of interested parties to come in and suggest the viable models to bring investors and women entrepreneurs who may already have a successful business or want to start a business and upscale it to a mid-size business,” said Yuri Afanasiev, UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative in India.

The platform is designed to assist women entrepreneurs in the various issues they face while building an enterprise. 

“Niti Aayog gives this platform that UN had been planning to launch, an outreach on a pan-India basis,” said Anna Roy, Joint Secretary of Financial Services, Niti Aayog.  Afanasiev also said that the global agency is keen to tie up with the state governments to bring more expertise to the platform.

The Karnataka government in 2017 launched Elevate 100 programme, in which state provided grants to the entrepreneurs, with special focus on women entrepreneurs.