SIDBI, Women’s World Banking, and SRLMs Collaborate to Empower Women Entrepreneurs

Patna: In a significant stride towards fostering economic empowerment among women entrepreneurs, the Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) has joined hands with Women’s World Banking (WWB) and Bihar State Rural Livelihoods Mission (SRLM) in association with Jeevika, along with UMED, Maharashtra-SRLM. This collaboration aims to extend the Prayaas scheme to Self-Help Group (SHG) Individual Women through Cluster Level Federations (CLF).

The memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed between the parties underscores the commitment to unlock the potential of Cluster Level Federations and establish a scalable credit distribution ecosystem. Under the pilot phase, SIDBI will partner with 35-40 CLFs across Bihar and Maharashtra, with the objective of providing affordable credit of up to `2 lakhs to 5,000 Women Entrepreneurs.

Women’s World Banking has been actively involved in collaborating with SIDBI and SRLMs to develop a market-driven solution that ensures long-term economic stability for Women-led SHG Cluster-level Federations. These federations will act as Partner Institutions with SIDBI for the project, with WWB providing manpower support to CLFs for capacity building and reinforcing technical and process know-how for the successful pilot. This initiative is supported by a grant from MetLife Foundation, aligning with its commitment to fostering inclusive economic mobility for underserved and underrepresented communities.

During the pilot testing phase, SIDBI has allocated `50 Crores to the proposed model. Upon successful implementation, the program will be scaled up to leverage the potential of Women-led Cluster Level Federations as lending partners, offering affordable credit to enterprising women members from SHGs. The program entails WWB working closely with select CLFs to identify enterprising individual SHG members eligible for individual loans, sanctioned based on Digital Assessment through Straight Through Process (STP).

Sivasubramanian Ramann, CMD of SIDBI, expressed his optimism about the partnership with SRLMs, aiming to facilitate affordable credit to aspiring women entrepreneurs from low-income groups. He emphasized that the program would strengthen CLFs and make affordable credit accessible to rural women across India, acknowledging the support of MetLife Foundation in this endeavor.

Abhilasha Kumari Sharma, Additional CEO of Jeevika, highlighted the partnership’s role in providing adequate and affordable credit to aspiring SHG Women, further strengthening efforts for higher growth funding or graduation support. She emphasized the potential of the pilot program to establish CLFs as lending partners, creating a new gender-intentional, efficient, and scalable distribution model.

Ruchesh Jaivanshi, CEO of UMED, underscored the partnership’s role in advancing financial inclusion across rural communities, particularly in empowering women. He expressed confidence in the positive impact of the initiative on economically and socially empowering women.

Kalpana Ajayan, Regional Head-South Asia, Women’s World Banking, stressed the significant credit gap faced by low-income women and women entrepreneurs in India. She expressed gratitude for the collaboration with SIDBI, Jeevika, and UMED, aiming to make the Prayaas program gender-intentional and provide more women access to affordable credit.

Ashish K Srivastava, MD & CEO of PNB MetLife, highlighted the foundation’s commitment to inclusive economic mobility through gender-intentional lending models. He emphasized the importance of enabling financial literacy and access to affordable credit for low-income women and women entrepreneurs, aligning with the foundation’s 2030 Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Commitments.