Reviving The Nano and Micro Enterprises: Restoring Livelihoods for the Poor in a Post COVID World

The COVID-19 lockdown has negatively affected the livelihoods of a very large number of mostly invisible poor people. These are the self-employed, very small entrepreneurs and unregistered enterprises which are not being considered in any relief packages of the government or private sector or might fold up by the end of this year due to lockdown.

Government data suggests that there are 6.3 crore such Unincorporated Non-Agricultural Enterprises with 11 crores people working for them. Out of this, 20% of these are women-owned enterprises which are mostly home-based and these enterprises earn just enough to ensure the survival of the family.

SEWA works largely with informal sector workers like street vendors, home-based workers or small and marginal farmers. Due to onset of Covid-19, have lost incomes and depleted savings in the last two months, in some cases already falling towards informal sources of credit for survival. As markets re-open, each will need immediate assistance with patient and cheap/free capital to kickstart their livelihood. Women in informal sector also lacks digital literacy and have no knowledge of using smartphones which disables their capacity to use online payment mechanism, online marketing etc.

In order to help the nano-entrepreneurs SEWA Bharat has helped to form many collectives which reach them services of various kinds as well as create market linkages. Some of which are finance collectives such as Cooperatives to capitalise the nano entrepreneurs, social Security collectives to reach health care, insurance and child care etc.

Our plan of action includes:

1.   Restoring Capital: Proposing cash transfer of Rs 10,000 to each entrepreneur supplemented by a loan product from a SEWA financial institution.

2.   Reaching Markets: Assisting street vendors to sell their products online since the offline market may not operate for a long time due to Covid-19. With the crisis opening doors to new demand of goods like sanitizers, gloves, masks, PPE kits or soaps, SEWA will assist nano-entrepreneurs in getting orders and accessing the raw materials.

3.   Reskilling and Training: SEWA will train and skill women in making PPE kits, tapping new market opportunities and selling their products digitally.

4.   Digital Access and Literacy: SEWA plans to make women digitally independent; give them access to smartphones, digital literacy (train them on how to use communication tools like zoom, digital payments etc.) and digital tools for livelihoods (whatsapp marketing, data collection) etc.

Reaching out 12,000 women nano/ micro-entrepreneurs with working capital assistance, a cash transfer of Rs 10,000 to each entrepreneur to be supplemented by a loan product from SEWA financial institution and assisting women garment workers who might fear the loss of job due to COVID-19 with SEWA's marketing support.