This project aims to identify and examine how social and economic barriers impact inclusion, accessibility and opportunities for persons with disabilities in Tamil Nadu. Background An estimated 3.2 million people in Tamil Nadu live with some form of disability. Persons with disabilities face several socio-economic barriers in accessing essential services such as healthcare and education, employment opportunities, transportation, as well as care and rehabilitation services. The World Bank has initiated a project (RIGHTS) to support the state in improving outcomes
Completed
Consultation with Stakeholders at National Farmer’s Forum Network
Partners: Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), Farmer’s Farming Network Sabina Yasmin, Research Fellow, LEAD at Krea University, participated in a meeting actioned by SEWA and the Farmer’s Forum Network aimed at bridging the gap between being a producer and becoming an entrepreneur. The focus of the meeting was on business development and surveys on developing rural communication services so that farmers can easily grasp skills required. LEAD specifically presented the findings from a survey with around 4880 women farmers associated
Technical Assistance: Business Management Training
Partners: RBVPL and NRLM As a part of our ongoing technical assistance to the non-farm team at National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM), we conducted training for approximately 450 district and block level staff across 13 states. This 6-day training in each state included sessions on product pricing, operations management, record keeping and financial management, and customer management. The sessions included business plan preparation, field immersion exercises among other participatory training tools.
Understanding How Social Interactions Shape Women’s Entrepreneurship
This qualitative study documents gender-specific barriers faced by women entrepreneurs and how their interactions with the ecosystem affect their business decisions and outcomes.
COVID-19 Enterprise Response Research
This study aimed to understand how women-led rural businesses fared during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and it was conducted across four states in India.
Policy Dialogue on Innovative Solutions for Achieving City-Wide Inclusive Sanitation
Partners: Asian Development Bank, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Japan International Cooperation Agency, Japan Sanitation Consortium, Stanford University Sujatha Srinivasan, Senior Research Fellow, LEAD at Krea University participated and shared insights in an interactive policy dialogue convened by ADBI and Stanford University on city-wide inclusive sanitation (CWIS) policy. She spoke on how monitoring and evaluation can improve accountability, M&E challenges in CWIS contexts and elaborated on existing evidence from evaluations in urban sanitation. The conversation also featured elected government officials,
Measuring What Matters: An Indian Index for Women Entrepreneurship
Partners: Global Alliance For Mass Entrepreneurship (G.A.M.E), India Morchan Karthick, Data Scientist from LEAD was a panelist in a webinar on creating an index for women entrepreneurship suited to the local context, organised by Global Alliance For Mass Entrepreneurship (G.A.M.E India). Speakers included senior policymakers, researchers and industry experts spoke on systematically measuring and tracking women entrepreneurship in India: Moderator: Suresh Gundappa, CEO, G.A.M.E India Yamini Atmavilas, Senior Program Officer, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Medha Girota, Director, Communications at
Calling the Shots: Determinants of Financial Decision-making and Behavior in Domestic Migrant Households in India
Vinith Kurian, Shashank Sreedharan and Fabrizio Valenti
Households, like individuals, rely on a variety of financial products and services: they use cash and credit cards to make payments and they make investments to finance future expenses, buy insurance to manage risks to themselves and their assets, and borrow money to finance large expenses or in times of emergency. Migration constitutes one of the most widely used household financial strategies. There is a critical need to understand what factors drive financial decision-making in migrant households and how these
Moving the Clean Cookstoves Sector Forward: Six Principles for Investors
Fabrizio Valenti, Mitzi Perez Padilla
Around 3 billion people across the world rely on solid fuels for their daily cooking needs. The adverse effects of traditional cooking methods on health, socio-economic and environmental conditions, especially among women, are well documented. Clean cookstoves promise a solution to these issues, but the effectiveness of this sector in achieving different impact objectives highly depends on how investment decisions are made. A recent study by LEAD at Krea University, supported by FMO, the Dutch development bank, consolidates evidence on the impact of clean
Roadmap for Digital Technology to Foster India’s MSME Ecosystem—Opportunities and Challenges
Sharon Buteau
Digital technology can significantly enable India’s MSME segment, provided the emerging infrastructure has joint buy-in from the government, solution providers and importantly users. The digital landscape catering to micro and small entrepreneurs has drastically changed in recent years. The challenges reside in addressing a complex and heterogeneous MSME segment, dominated by micro-enterprises at different stages, and different levels of digital readiness. This article highlights a combination of policy interventions by the government and innovative practices by private players that can