The Women Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP) under its Award to Reward initiative, launched the pilot to support women MSMEs to scale up their businesses in the beauty and wellness sector. A baseline study conducted by MicroSave Consulting identified four key sectors with more than 100,000 women MSMEs: beauty & wellness, textile manufacturing, retail trade and food & beverages. The pilot marked the launch of the inaugural cohort focusing on beauty and wellness sector. This pilot initiative aims to develop process templates by leveraging insights and learnings gathered through the program and upscaling women MSMEs nationwide.

Urban Company will spearhead the program, collaborating with other key stakeholders to identify women working in micro-units and support their business growth. The process will begin with the selection of a cohort based on open application and 25 women will be shortlisted from Delhi NCR based on a specific criteria. The program will empower these women by providing comprehensive training and support, enabling them to scale their salon businesses and achieve greater success in the beauty industry.

WEP, incubated in NITI Aayog in 2018 as an aggregator platform, transitioned into a public-private partnership in 2022. WEP aims to strengthen India’s women entrepreneurship ecosystem to promote women-led development a reality. It provides a forum for all ecosystem stakeholders across government, business, philanthropy, and civil society to collaborate, converge, and align their initiatives towards scalable, sustainable and effective programs, enabling a larger impact for women entrepreneurs. WEP has over 20 public and private sector partners collaborating to strengthen women entrepreneurs in India. As an aggregator platform it provides an opportunity for existing stakeholders to collaborate and converge towards meeting the six ecosystem needs of entrepreneurial growth, namely Access to Finance; Market Linkages; Training and Skilling; Mentoring and Networking and Business Development Services.

In 2023 WEP took a decisive step towards institutionalizing the partnership with the launch of the Award to Reward programme under which stakeholders come together to meet specific needs of women entrepreneurs and also felicitating the successes. It is a plug-and-play framework, enabling various ecosystem stakeholders to collaborate in developing programs of a size and scale that generate meaningful impact. Through this partnership, WEP and Urban Company are committed to empowering women entrepreneurs in the beauty and salon industry.

With over 30,000 women entrepreneurs already engaged with WEP, the partnership with Urban Company is a unique public-private collaboration aimed at promoting and supporting women in the beauty and wellness sector. This public-private collaboration will not only equip women with the skills and knowledge to manage their businesses independently but also open doors to new opportunities and increased earnings.

"Supporting women entrepreneurs is vital to achieve women-led development. WEP provides comprehensive support to women entrepreneurs right from training, skilling, access to resources, mentors and networks. This continuum of support enables them to accelerate their entrepreneurial journey. Women dominate the beauty and wellness sector, it is critical that they build more profitable enterprises in this sector. Our collaboration with Urban Company is a significant step toward creating a robust ecosystem for women in the beauty and wellness sector, enabling them to create more sustainable businesses," said Ms. Anna Roy, Principal Economic Adviser, NITI Aayog and Mission Director, WEP.

 

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