From this year onwards, ACCESS is embarking on a new strategy, where several 1-day conferences on specific themes will be organized throughout the year. The idea is to bring together a pool of thought leaders working around the theme and delve in some detail and offer recommendations to the Government to strengthen the enabling environment.

The first thematic conference under the banner of Livelihoods India focuses on women empowerment through enterprises styled as “Breaking the Glass Ceiling- Investing in Women Led Enterprises”.

ACCESS and Women on Wings have come together to partner in bringing stakeholders to exchange ideas, insights and experiences on promoting sustainable women led community enterprises. While the conference will celebrate the accomplishment of women entrepreneurs, it will also aim to highlight critical gaps that need to be met to create an enabling environment within which more women are able to break the glass ceiling. Both ACCESS and Women on Wings bring over 10 years of experience, committed to developing poor and rural communities and seeing women as agents of change. The conference will be held in Hotel Le Meridien, New Delhi on Thursday April 19, 2018.

A growing body of evidence illustrates that advancing women’s economic empowerment has multiplier effects across the spectrum of development and is central to achieving gender equality. With an income of their own, women have increased status, can provide for their families, and become empowered in other parts of their lives as well, such as making decisions about education, housing, food choices, and medical care. Of course, harnessing the full potential of women can impact the national GDP too.

However women across India, especially those belonging to rural and disadvantaged communities, still cannot fully exercise their rights to decent work and full and productive employment. Unleashing the entrepreneurial spirit and leadership of women provides a unique opportunity to dismantle some of these barriers. By setting up and managing a business, women can achieve economic independence, overcome poverty through asset building and improve their well-being as well as that of their families and communities. Empowering rural women financially, also results in lesser migration to urban.

Although research confirms that women led or women focused enterprises are successful for the empowerment of women, they still face many limitations like significant barriers in relation to access to loans and credit; skills development; discrimination; and balancing familial and societal commitments. Therefore a gender-responsive entrepreneurial ecosystem needs to be created, that enables women led enterprises to access resources and support needed to develop their businesses, scale up and make them sustainable.

Recognizing that the positive impacts of women led enterprises are manifold and acts as a catalyst for advancing women’s empowerment, ACCESS and Women on Wings will organize a Conference on Breaking the Glass Ceiling – Investing in Women Led Enterprises. Through this, the effort will be to bring together stakeholders that are engaged in promoting women’s enterprises with the intent of sharing and dissemination of experiences and best practices around the theme.

On the occasion, ACCESS and Women on Wings also plan on bringing out a compilation of cases of successful experiences in promoting women led enterprises, particularly group based, where women entrepreneurs come from low income households.

Mark your calendar and join us on Thursday, April 19, 2018 and share your experience on how to break the glass ceiling for women led, or women focused enterprises. Let’s give women wings!