Rural women's new enterprise push

A quiet shift is underway in rural India: the conversation is moving from “self-help groups as savings circles” to “self-help groups as serious business”.

- TDG NETWORK

This week, the government launched a national campaign to boost rural women's entrepreneurship, an attempt to scale up the one thing that changes women's lives faster than almost anything else—an income they can control.

The campaign is anchored in the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana -National Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NRLM), the flagship programme for mobilising women into self-help groups (SHGs) and building livelihoods. The next phase is not only about membership, but about enterprises that can survive beyond a training session or a festival stall.