South Asia has the widest gender gap on Economic Participation and Opportunity as per Global Gender Gap 2022 Report by World Economic Forum. India too has seen decline in women labour force participation in recent years. The U.S. Consulate General Kolkata has a history of collaborating with the Government of Jharkhand on empowering women and girls of the state. One of the initiatives aims to build a regional support framework for women in the workforce in eastern and north-eastern India, Nepal, and Bangladesh to continue to advocate for women's access to active participation in the workforce and policy changes. U.S. Consulate’s long-time partner, non-profit Contact Base, headquartered in Kolkata and with presence at Nimdih in Jharkhand organized a Roundtable Meet on July 21 in Ranchi to facilitate stakeholder dialogue on developing a network to address low number of women in business leadership positions and augment career choices for girls and young women.
Adrian Pratt, Public Affairs Officer, U.S. Consulate General Kolkata chaired the Round Table Meet. He said, "U.S. Mission in India has been leading concerted efforts to address women’s economic participation and empowerment through diverse programming platforms. Here in eastern India, our various partnerships have proved that gender responsive budgeting, gender diversity in the workplace, and equal participation in decision making leads to greater consistency between economic goals and social commitments." Incubators and stakeholders in entrepreneurship eco system, employable skill development, funders, investors from organizations like ICRW, iLeadHR, Center for Change (C3),Breakthrough, Jharkhand Angels, BIT Mesra, XISS, Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, ConnexDoor, TEDx Kanke, 366Pi and others participated.
Mehr Kaur from Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics who is researching on the issue of decreasing female labour force participation highlighted the need for spaces where women can work and create networks. Ashish Kulkarni from FICCI AVGC forum shared on emerging opportunities for women in sectors of animation, gaming, music, art etc while concluding all agreed that Government, academia, Corporate need to work together to create enabling conditions for women's leadership in all sectors.
A Mentoring Network Platform (www.women4economy.net) has been launched to support women-led start-ups in eastern and north-eastern India for offering seamless access to mentors. Some of the benefits will be access to sector specific mentors, support to test proto-type, information on funding sources etc.
