Leadership, Labour, and Leverage:
A Multi-Domain Model of Women’s Empowerment for Global Transformation
In recent years, India has redefined its development trajectory through a transformative shift from women’s development to that of women-led development. This shift gets solidified during India’s G20 presidency in 2024 under the concept of Nari Shakti (women’s power), meaning that Indian women are not merely beneficiaries but active architects of social, economic, and political progress. A critical component of this vision lies in empowering women at the grassroots, particularly within the local governance systems, informal/formal economies, entrepreneurial activities, and community institutions. Drawing on the research report “A Framework for Women-led Development: India’s Initiative for Global Transformation”, this blog highlights the role of grassroots women leaders and presents a strategic framework for making women a prudent engine for sustainable development.
The Twin Engines of Women-Led Development: Employment and Entrepreneurship
The report presents the “twin-engine” framework, which identifies employment and entrepreneurship as the two primary pathways for achieving women-led development.
Employment: The First Engine
Why Employment Matters?
Employment gives women financial independence, which translates to greater decision-making power in families and communities. It enhances social mobility and challenges restrictive gender norms. When women work, intergenerational benefits emerge from higher school retention of children to improved nutrition and healthcare. To look at the current landscape, as of 2022-23 – • 37% of women aged 15 and above are in the labour force, up from 23.3% in 2017 (PLFS). However, the quality of employment remains a challenge. Women are overrepresented in low-paid, informal, and unpaid work, especially in agricultural and domestic work. Also, there always remains a lingering fear of social protection, job security, and formal recognition
Entrepreneurship: The Second Engine
Why Entrepreneurship Matters?
Entrepreneurship is one of the most important engines for achieving transformation. It empowers women not just as workers but as owners, innovators, and job creators. It allows them to:
• Exercise control over economic resources.
• Drive local economic development.
• Challenge socio-economic hierarchies and build community resilience.
The current landscape suggests that –
20.5% of registered MSMEs in India are women-led, but they generate only 18.7% of employment (PIB, 2024). Informal sector businesses (e.g, street vending, tailoring, food services) are heavily women-dominated, but often lack access to Capital, markets, business networks, digital tools, and much more. While distinct, employment and entrepreneurship are deeply interconnected. Both pathways are essential to nurturing leadership. However, these pathways need to be supported by a lifecycle-based approach that provides women with continuous access to education, health, safety, skills, and leadership opportunities from childhood to old age.
A Cyclical Framework for Empowerment
Leadership does not emerge in isolation. It is the outcome of multiple enabling factors that span a woman’s lifecycle. Hence, the report proposes a cyclical framework that integrates established models like the LongWe framework and the Domains of Leadership and Gender Framework to construct a cyclical model of women-led development. According to this integrated approach:
• Fundamental inputs such as education, healthcare, skill development, and safety must be provided consistently throughout a woman’s life.
• Intrinsic factors like motivation and emotional resilience work in tandem with extrinsic factors such as community support, institutional infrastructure, and financial access.
• These outcomes create a feedback loop, influencing development at the individual household, community, and organisational levels and, in turn, reinforcing back into the system.
The Untapped Value of Informal Work and Invisible Labour
India’s economy is deeply dependent on informal and unpaid labour, a sector overwhelmingly dominated by women. Over 62.9% of agricultural workers and millions in caregiving, street vending, and domestic roles are women. However, most of this labour is undervalued or unrecognised in GDP calculations.
Global data from the ILO (2020-22) indicates that 73.5% of women in wage employment lack social protection, which mirrors India’s gaps in the informal economy. Hence, a higher visibility in the sector is required in the form of a policy response.
Self-Help Groups as Platforms for Collective Agency
SHGs serve as incubators for women’s empowerment agencies, enabling them to negotiate social norms, influence local governance, and manage community resources. With over 10 crore women mobilised under the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojna-National Rural Livelihood Mission (DAY-NRLM) (PIB,2024), creating grassroots platforms for:
• Micro-entrepreneurship
• Financial literacy
• Peer mentoring
• Social bargaining and norm transformation
These SHGs serve as seedbeds for leadership, enabling women to acquire the skills and confidence to participate in decision-making arenas in markets and eventually in local governance.
Developmental Gaps and Policy Implications
Despite a wide array of governance schemes customised to various stages of a woman’s life, e.g., from Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao to Stand-up India, the report identifies several limitations:
• Inconsistent implementation, especially in rural and underserved regions.
• Lack of continuity across life stages, e.g., inadequate support for women re-entering the workforce post-maternity.
• Poor awareness among beneficiaries, with information barriers preventing access to entitlements.
Additionally, skill development schemes have low employment conversion rates due to a lack of industry alignment. Entrepreneurship programs need high-end marketing and networking components tailored to the beneficiaries, as it is crucial for sustainability
Recommendations: From Short-Term Action to Long-Term Strategy
Short-Term Priorities
• Re-skill women post-maternity.
• Provide leadership training and mentorship for existing and aspiring women leaders.
• Integrate gender-sensitive early education programs.
• Launch digital and financial literacy drives in rural areas. Long-Term Strategies
• Build leadership forms school age through public speaking, negotiations, and financial literacy. • Ratinonalise overlapping scheme for greater efficiency
• Strenghten monitoring an devaluation mechanisms for impact assessment.
• Expand indicators beyond SDG 5 to better capture women’s leadership and structural barriers.
Conclusion
While women contribute significantly to food production, processing, and education, these contributions are not adequately recognized or rewarded in formal employment structures. The Women in Agribusiness Report 2025 brings a clear and factual picture of the multiple interconnectedness barriers that women face across the agribusiness value chain in India. Although the female labour force participation rate (LFPR) has increased to 41.7% in 2023-24, much of this growth is attributed to unpaid or informal work, particularly in rural areas. Similarly, women make up 33% of the agricultural labour force and 48% of independent farmers, yet their visibility in formal agribusiness roles remains low. These gaps represent both a loss of potential and a misalignment between educational investments and employment outcomes. Ultimately, advancing gender equity in agribusiness is not only a question of fairness- it is a matter of economic efficiency and sectoral resilience. As India’s agribusiness sector continues to evolve amid digitalization, climate change, and changing consumer demands, leveraging the full talent pool, including women, is essential for long-term sustainability and enhancements.