Reema Nanavaty

Bio

Reema Nanavaty is the head of Self-Employed Women’s Association of India (SEWA). Under her leadership, SEWA has grown to become the single largest union of informal sector workers in India. She focuses on women’s economic empowerment by building women-owned enterprises and women-led supply chains in energy, agribusiness, food processing, waste recycling, and textiles. As SEWA’s Secretary General, she led critical efforts to rebuild lives and livelihoods of earthquake-affected rural women and rehabilitation programs in crisis-torn Afghanistan and Sri Lanka. She also initiated SEWA’s food security program that covers one million households and spearheads the ‘Hariyali’ Green Energy and Livelihoods Initiative to provide women access to renewable energy. In 2013, the Government of India honored Nanavaty with the fourth highest civilian award, Padma Shri.