B'luru, Delhi in top 50 of Women Entrepreneur Index

Two Indian cities, Bengaluru and Delhi, featured on Dell's 2019 Women Entrepreneur Cities (WE Cities) Index, which was released earlier this month. The index, as the Dell report states, rates global cities' ability to attract and support high potential women entrepreneurs.

While Bengaluru occupied the 43rd rank, Delhi took the 50th rank. Both the cities recorded a dip from their 2017 ranking. The report, however, states that all 50 cities have made progress since 2017.  

The US city of San Francisco bagged the top spot with US cities holding six out of the top 10 positions. Mexico City had the largest margin of improvement - jumping from 45 in 2017 to 29 this year.

The index ranked the cities based on two broad environments - operating and enabling. It also looked at local policies, national laws and customs conducive for the growth of women entrepreneurs. A total of 71 indicators were taken into consideration.  

Under the operating environment bracket, three aspects were considered - if it's a fair and level market, if they're able to find the right talent and expertise and if there's equal access to capital to sustain businesses. The enabling aspects include culture and technology - how cities celebrate women entrepreneurs and how they enable businesses through technology.

While neither Delhi nor Bengaluru featured in the top 10 list of either of those five pillars this time, Delhi ranked 26th and Bangalore stood at 42 on the overall improvement list that indicated the rise in rankings from 2017 to 2019.

Delhi also improved in terms of frequency of events conducted for women entrepreneurs, according to the report.  

The report further stated that the high cost of living, lack of funding, insufficient government-led policies supporting women entrepreneurs and low representation of women in leadership roles were some factors impeding their growth globally.