India is a developing country and ready to emerge as one of the leading economies in the world over the next decade in light of a positive political and economic scenario. The Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSME) will be very vital in the emergence of the Indian economy. India’s GDP is expected to reach 8.5 per cent, with the country likely to be a USD 5 trillion economy by 2025. The MSME opportunity is to develop entrepreneurship and support growth led by innovation over the next decade by:

• Improving the MSME sector and increasing contribution to GDP from the current 8 per cent to 15 per cent by 2020.

• Creating employment - more than doubling the current MSME workforce of 106 million across agricultural, manufacturing and services sectors.

• Accelerating the share of MSME contribution across key public and private industry sectors fulfilling increasing domestic demand, growth in exports, indigenisation and import substitution.

The core tenet of any growth is that stronger the ecosystem, the higher the chance of success for micro enterprises. However, currently in our country, there is a lack of strong ecosystem to support this growth. Given this premise, it is important to understand the various constituents of an entrepreneurial ecosystem, the relationships and interactions between them, and the processes that can build a strong ecosystem.

Entrepreneurship for Empowerment programme - an endeavour of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) and Development Alternatives Group (DA) believes that in the absence of a nurturing ecosystem, entrepreneurship growth will be stifled. Therefore, the need to create a robust ecosystem that fosters local and inclusive entrepreneurship is a must.

The programme recognises the immense work being done through various people in silos, but also addresses the need for convergence. It, thus, innovates platforms like regional coalitions, melas and enterprise facilities and hubs that move multi-stakeholders to break out of their silos and work in synergy towards accelerating enterprise development. It encourages that the strong ecosystem around an enterprise is covered under the following C’s - Community, Climate, Culture, Continuous learnings by building capacity and co-creation & collaboration through the various platforms such as:

• Awareness campaign and trainings

• Coalitions

• Mela and TARAhubs

• Enterprise development facility

Awareness campaign and trainings - As community is the strongest part of an ecosystem, in order to strengthen community and to create a buzz around the people awareness generation and capacity building have been the initiation points for the ‘Entrepreneurship for Empowerment’ programme.

Coalition - The coalition is a learning and action platform for building a strong ecosystem for micro enterprise development across the target geographies. The main motto here is to create a joint group that enables various stakeholders like government banks, MFIs ,DIC, market aggregators and other private sector to co-create solutions with a network of partners including representatives of government, financial institutions, academia and civil society, along with entrepreneurs. These solutions will then be prototyped for large scale impact.

Mela and TARAhubs - With the aim to explore approaches to a green, sustainable and inclusive economy; the platform showcased efforts and initiatives of local entrepreneurs who displayed their products and services at one place. This could be one place where suppliers and buyers can fulfill their requirements and also entrepreneurs can learn and interact with each other.

Enterprise development facility - This is a platform where all kinds of facilities and services can be availed by entrepreneurs. So they can get an experience of entrepreneurship until they can actually set up an enterprise. This experiential centre provides entrepreneurs with first-hand experience of both current and future offerings in a conducive environment that satisfies their ambition.

Like this, through the various platforms and activities, ‘Entrepreneurship for Empowerment’ programme aims to create a robust ecosystem. As the financial aspect is a very important component for a strong ecosystem, a financial platform and advisory committee is also being formed to feed into the strengthening of networks to promote entrepreneurship and support the entrepreneurial ecosystem. ■

Rupali Gupta
rgupta@devalt.org