Hitan Mehta OBE is the Executive Director of the British Asian Trust and here he shares extracts from his recent address at the G20 Ministerial Conference on Women’s Empowerment in Gandhinagar, Gujarat. He addressed the conference at a session entitled “Skilling Opportunities for Women”, drawing upon his role at the diaspora-led charity.
It’s an honour to be able to address this G20 Ministerial Conference on Women’s Empowerment especially given that I am part of the diaspora community and of Gujarati heritage and I am most grateful to the Indian Ministry of Women and Child for allowing me to participate in this way.
The British Asian Trust was founded in 2007, by the former Prince of Wales now His Majesty King Charles III and a group of British Asian business leaders to unlock the potential of disadvantaged people across South Asia by maximising the impact and support from the South Asian diaspora and beyond.
We have a strong track record of investing in solutions that work towards long-term, systemic change at scale, and since we were founded, we have had a positive impact on the lives of almost 12 million people. Our team has experience in the non-profit, business, and development sectors – both in the UK and in South Asia. And right from our team to our programmes and work, women are at the heart of everything we do. This is particularly true for our initiatives around skilling and employment.
We firmly believe that when women secure and sustain gainful employment, everybody wins. The socio-economic empowerment that comes with employment can create a ripple effect – starting with women and then extending outwards to their families, communities, and ultimately, their countries’ economies.
In India, we have the chance to unleash the full potential of the demographic dividend, and specifically, the potential of the female population, by equipping young women with the right tools and training needed to access jobs. By prioritising skilling and developing future-ready skills, we can meaningfully tap into the rich talent pool – which is predicted to reach a billion plus by 2030.
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Recognising this opportunity, both the government and the private sector have invested significantly in skill training and have demonstrated a deep commitment to proactively ensuring that more women are brought into skilling and vocational training programmes.
In alignment with this, to supplement this effort and infuse India’s skilling ecosystem with diverse streams of capital, we at the British Asian Trust have joined hands with the National Skill Development Corporation of India (or NSDC) and an impressive coalition of philanthropic and private sector leaders to build a first-of-its-kind partnership for skilling.
Launched last year, the ‘Skill Impact Bond’ is our $14.4-million fund that aims to benefit 50,000 young people across four years, 60 per cent of whom will be women, by equipping them with skills that lead to employment. What’s unique about the initiative is that we have convened a diverse mix of influential public, private, and philanthropic leaders to back the Skill Impact Bond, and contribute their resources, expertise, and innovative problem-solving skills to our bold vision. It is in essence a payment by results mechanism.
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With the Skill Impact Bond in particular, we have designed the initiative such that our risk investors – in this case the NSDC and the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation – sponsor the upfront working capital that our training partners require. The risk investors work closely with the training partners to ensure that our outcomes – skill training, job placement, and job retention – are achieved. When our targets are met, the risk investors are repaid (with interest!) by our ‘outcome funders’ – in this case, philanthropy and CSR with the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (or CIFF), JSW Foundation, HSBC India, and Dubai Cares and we have had the support of the British Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Department and USAID.
As a diaspora-led international development organisation, our ability to collaborative closely with these diverse stakeholders and secure alignment between each partner’s objectives has helped us build this initiative and ensure that global and local partners come together to work towards a shared mission. Our unique position enables us to work side by side with state and central governments, bilateral and multilateral organisations, private sector and CSR organisations, and institutional philanthropy and play a central ‘nodal’ role in bringing these actors together.
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Our Skill Impact Bond coalition has collectively prioritised this focus on ‘outcomes’ to ensure that our that the skill training we offer actually leads to job placement and retention – a win-win situation for all partners and more importantly, for India’s young women!
*Info: British Asian Trust