Livelihood program for women artisans in Uttar Pradesh, India

MSC played a key role in the Uttar Pradesh Pro-Poor Tourism Development Project of the World Bank and the state government of Uttar Pradesh in India. This was a unique research where MSC covered multiple aspects—livelihood, tourism, gender, and youth.

MSC was tasked to identify and develop roadmaps for select creative industries in three regions of the state that have a large tourist footfall—Agra, Braj region, and the Buddhist Circuit. Under this project, a key task was to design a livelihood program for women artisans and developed a roadmap for the creative activities value chain. This involved assessing women’s livelihood activities that the tourism industry could promote.

The program has an impact on more than 3,000 women artisans in the state. At the time of writing, the second rollout and expansion phase was under development. The overall project amounted to USD 57 million and was funded by the World Bank Group.