India, Jan. 20 -- Across rural India, women are redrawing the map of local economies. What begins as an attempt to survive scarcity often evolves into innovation that not only sustains households but creates new markets. These are not the unicorns of urban India, but enterprises built from goats, grains and solar panels; ventures that generate income, empower communities, and weave new circuits of demand and supply. This shift rests on one of the world's largest social and financial inclusion platforms, an infrastructure of women's collectives unmatched in scale across the developing world.

In Bihar's Gaya district, for instance, Santra Devi, a widow with no land, accessed a government scheme to build a goat shed and bought a few animals...