Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA)
Pilot in India
Presentation by Arathi Laxman
WEConnect International
November 2010
Some Statistics…
• According to The World Bank, women-owned businesses
represent 25-33% of all private businesses in the world,
but represent less than 1% of all vendors to corporations
and businesses
• Women do 2/3 of the world’s work, receive 10% of the
world’s income, and own 1% of the means of production
• Women make 70% of purchasing decisions in the home
so their impact on value chain creation is key
• Women represent 50% of the world’s population, but they
are almost invisible in the global value chain as suppliers
to corporations and governments
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About SEWA
• Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) is a trade
union registered in 1972
• Organization of poor, self-employed women workers
• Of the female labor force in India, more than 94% are in
the unorganized sector and since their work is not
counted, their work remains invisible
• SEWA has many sister organizations focused on specific
activities like crafts, insurance, food products, and agro
• SEWA organized women rag pickers into a group called
Gitanjali as a union focused on the needs of rag pickers
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Rag Pickers – Their Story
• Rag pickers pick up waste from the roads, door-to-door
collections, and landfills
• A day’s worth of labor results in collecting 3-5 kilos of
waste, which post segregation yields 2-3 kilos of saleable
waste giving them a per day wage that ranges for Rs 1050
• With the privatization of garbage/waste collection their
livelihood is being eroded
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SEWA Pilot and Stakeholders
• The pilot brings together the World Bank Private Sector
Leaders Forum, Self Employed Women's Association
(SEWA), WEConnect International, UN International
Trade Centre, Walmart, Ernst & Young, Accenture,
Staples and Giftlinks.
• The objective of the pilot is poverty alleviation through
business opportunities for cooperatives of women
entrepreneurs
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SEWA Gitanjali Pilot Goals
• Demonstrate the business case for a more inclusive
value chain in the clean and green paper products
industry
• Document a process that can be replicated across
industries and geographies
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SEWA Pilot Launch Status
• Pilot was launched in India in August of 2010
• In order to provide sustainable income to the waste paper
picker members of SEWA, SEWA provides training to its
members on how to make paper based office products
• Paper based products include: pens, paper bags, folders,
registers, box files, spring files, notebooks, bookmarks,
letter boxes, pen stands, CD covers, envelopes, etc.
• SEWA has organized 31,505 waste paper pickers with
125 women working on developing paper based products
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Opportunity
• Create an initial group of products that meet the quality
and quantity requirements of key buyers
• Set up a means for products to be marketed and
distributed through the preferred channels
• Evangelize SEWA paper products throughout pilot
network
• Create production centers with repeatable processes for
consistent production, quality control, and mechanisms for
reliable business communication with buyer organizations
• Create learning centers and repeatable processes for
training of women workers to ensure sustainability
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Major Challenges
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Developing reliable and affordable sources of paper input
Hygiene of the products produced from recycled paper
Literacy of the workers and the management
Ability to scale to meet the quality and quantity
requirements of large buyers
• Ability to offer competitive pricing
• Packaging and marketing
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Contact
• For more information, please visit:
www.WEConnectInternational.org
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