Empowering Women Collectives through Digital Initiatives in Chhattisgarh
January, 2020
Digital tools hold the promise of accelerating women’s empowerment, enhancing the effectiveness and efficacy of existing initiatives, providing new tools to improve knowledge, and creating new opportunities for women to connect and share information. Over the past year, the Initiative of What Works to Advance Women and Girls in the Economy (IWWAGE), an initiative of LEAD at Krea University, has been working with the Government of Chhattisgarh and other partners to map the current digitisation initiatives for women’s empowerment in the state, understand their effectiveness, and identify potential opportunities for improvement. Most of these initiatives revolve around Self-Help Groups (SHG), which are social support groups known for empowering women through social mobilisation and financial inclusion.
The SHG ecosystem in Chhattisgarh is managed by the state chapter of the National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM), Chhattisgarh’s State Rural Livelihood Mission (SRLM or CGRLM), also known as Bihan. Bihan has led initiatives to empower women collectives by improving their financial and market linkages, promoting access to entitlements, and providing capacity development support. IWWAGE aims to assist Bihan in its efforts to strengthen the SHG ecosystem, promoting and testing digital solutions that will allow women’s collectives to leverage their skills to access markets and services more effectively. This document serves to capture IWWAGE’s efforts with respect to summarising and understanding these digitisation initiatives, identifying gaps and barriers, and proposing potential use cases.
Resource Type Report
Partner Organisation NRLM, Chhattisgarh’s State Rural Livelihood Mission (SRLM or CGRLM), LEAD at Krea University, PRADAN
Topics Self-Help Groups, digital solutions, haqdarshak, women’s collectives
