WEP, India

• Jul 30, 2025
• 2 min

The Women Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP), launched by NITI Aayog in 2018, is India’s first public-private digital aggregator platform dedicated to advancing women’s entrepreneurship. Designed as a holistic ecosystem enabler, WEP addresses six core needs of women entrepreneurs—training, finance, market access, business development, mentorship, networking, and compliance.

Since 2022, MSC has been a key technical and strategic partner to WEP. In 2024, we were appointed as the Project Management Unit (PMU), responsible for overall program management, stakeholder coordination, evidence generation, and design of flagship initiatives. We also lead strategic planning across WEP’s five core pillars: capital, markets and networks, digital, outreach, and data and platforms.

Led by MSC, WEP has created the following impacts.

• Government collaboration: Onboarded five central ministries to WEP’s Steering Committee. Designed and implemented national programs with MoMSME (Yashasvini) that led to the formalization of 450,000+ women entrepreneurs, and with the Ministry of Skill Development (Swavalambini), to nurture future entrepreneurs among female students.
• Financing Women Collaborative (FWC): Co-chaired by MSC and WEP, FWC brought together 15 financial institutions. It assisted the disbursement of USD 12.62 million in loans to women and delivered financial literacy training to 32,428+ women. It also provided technical assistance to FIs in designing gender-intelligent loan products.
• Policy advocacy: MSC and WEP’s joint submission with TU CIBIL led to the RBI’s 2024 circular mandating SHG member-level credit reporting, which impacted over 80 million women by enabling the creation of individual credit histories. 
• Evidence generation: MSC led multiple data-driven reports, including:
  • From Borrowers to Builders: Women’s Role in India’s Financial Growth Story (2025)
  • Women and Credit Report (2023)
  • Mentorship for Women Entrepreneurs: A Highway to Growth (2023)
  • Decoding Government Support to Women Entrepreneurs in India (2022)
• State-level impact: WEP deepened regional presence through state chapters in Telangana, Mizoram, and Goa, using local ecosystems to support women entrepreneurs.
• Enterprise acceleration: MSC anchored multiple Award to Reward (ATR) programs, including WEP Unnati, an accelerator for 15 women greenpreneurs across diverse sectors such as sustainable fashion, agro-waste, eco-tourism, and renewable energy.
• Digital Public Good (DPG) for Women: WEP evolved into a DPG offering scalable digital support assets like:
  • ASK WEP – A peer-mentorship and real-time helpdesk
  • WEP Cares – A wellness-focused initiative providing access to mental health experts
• Alternative credit scoring: With MSC’s technical assistance, MAVIM, a state-level women’s institution serving 1.8 million SHG members, created an alternative credit score and the expansion of enterprise financing.

The Gates Foundation commissioned the project.