We Rise Initiative was introduced to raise women-led MSMEs in international markets

We Rise: Women Entrepreneurs Reimagining Inclusive and Sustainable Enterprises is a large project initiated by Women Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP) of NITI Aayog in collaboration with DP World. The programme is meant to empower women headed Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) to venture into the international market by mentoring, facilitating trade, and strategic global linkages.

Launch and Partnership

This was institutionalised within the Award to Reward (ATR) scheme of WEP by the signature of a Statement of Intent by Anna Roy, the Mission Director of WEP, in the presence of B.V.R. Subrahmanyam, the CEO of NITI Aayog. DP World, which is a leading logistics and supply chain management company in the world, will assist 100 high potential women entrepreneurs, enable them create export ready businesses with increased global competitiveness.

Programme Objectives

‘We Rise’ focuses on:

• Empowering export potentials of MSMEs headed by women.
• Mentoring, business strategy advice, and compliance.
• Easing the entry of DP World into the world logistics and market network.

They will also be given a chance to exhibit their products at the Bharat Mart in Dubai, which is located within the Jebel Ali Free Zone, which will provide them with a direct sight of the international customer and investors.

Role of WEP

The Women Entrepreneurship Platform was founded in 2018 by NITI Aayog and switched to a public-private partnership in 2022 and is a national aggregator of businesses run by women. WEP has six major pillars in the ecosystem:

• Access to finance
• Market linkages
• Skilling and training
• Mentorship and networking
• Legal support and compliance.
• Services in business development.

WEP has a current involvement of more than 90,000 female entrepreneurs and works with 47 partner organisations.

Award to Reward (ATR) Framework.

The ATR framework, which was introduced in 2023, encourages scalable partnerships to overcome major issues that women entrepreneurs encounter. We Rise is one of the flagship programmes of ATR which aims at facilitating entry into the global market and trade inclusion.

Significance and Impact

The partnership highlights the desire of India to have an inclusive economic development and women leadership in the international trade. Through the fusion of WEP, with support to the ecosystem and DP world, with its expertise internationally, the project is intended to create globally competitive women-led enterprises and ensure long-term sustainable development.