Publication: The Indian Social Enterprise Landscape – Innovation for an Inclusive Future

India’s socioeconomic development in the last decades has been impressive, but it still faces challenges. Close to 70% of India’s population lives in rural areas with limited to no access to basic sanitation, health services, and electricity. The lack of access to these basic services has created multiple challenges to development, such as widespread poverty, unemployment, and increasing indebtedness of households. A number of social enterprises have emerged since the early 2000s in response to the access and affordability challenges that low-income and underserved populations face, and the movement has gained traction in the last few years.

This study first portrays the social enterprise ecosystem with the key stakeholders and their focus areas. Then it examines the social enterprise landscape at the sectoral level (Agriculture, Clean Energy, Education, Financial Inclusion, Water, Sanitation and Healthcare), highlighting their geographical presence and maturity, modes of engagement with the low-income and underserved population policy initiatives as well as start-ups working on meeting the SDGs in their sector. Finally, we identify the key trends for the sector, from both an entrepreneur’s and an impact investor’s perspective in the coming five to ten years and develop recommendations of how India and Germany can cooperate to create mutually beneficial partnership.

Please find the complete study below.