Skoll Entrepreneur(s): Arbind Singh
Award Year: 2012
Focus Area(s) Addressed: Education and Economic Opportunity

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Nidan champions informal workers in India’s north and east, who proudly call it their own organization. The country’s informal sector makes up  93 percent of the workforce, creating 64 percent of GDP. Nidan organizes these workers, incubates sector-based collectives and partners with government to demonstrate that models of rights-based, inclusive growth can work. It advocates, too, from local governance to state and national level governance structures and policy institutions. Nidan means “solutions” in Hindi.

IMPACT AS OF JAN. 2013:

• Nidan is an Indian-led organization that helps others see the invisible workforce that powers India’s economy. It believes solutions for the bottom billion in India can be found in the bottom billion themselves.
• Nidan improves livelihoods and financial security for workers, access to education and national policy change.
• It’s worker-led and controlled. Nidan organizes informal workers and incubates sector-based collectives. It builds institutions that communities own and govern, and empowers populations.
• Increased presence outside of Bihar: In 2011, Nidan continued to ramp up operations in Delhi.
• Increased focus on reform on social security schemes at the national level. Arbind was selected as chair of the national alliance in 2011.