The mission of SEICs is to contribute to sustainable development in rural areas by empowering entrepreneurs to invest in the full use of local human, social and natural resources through establishing profitable businesses that benefit their local areas. These high-return businesses will usually be linked economically with large-scale investments in natural resources (energy, water, mining) as well as transport, telecommunications, food processing and related sectors that are basic to the quality of life. SEICs will be structured as Joint Ventures with companies making these large-scale investments and will return capital to their owners. WILMA is implementing this strategy in cooperation with an innovative program for private sector development in the DR Congo, called the Congo Infrastructure Hedge Fund. For information about this program, see the paper Introducing the Congo Infrastructure Hedge Fund (CIHF).

WILMA aims to show that SEICs add value to these large-scale investments, in terms that are relevant to the goals of their investors: that is, Corporate Social Responsibility for large private companies; high returns with social responsibility to other private investors (investing through mutual or hedge funds); and accomplishment of public mission for official agencies. Responding to demand thus created, WILMA will facilitate the growth of SEICs as local service platforms, supplying this value-added in a systematic way in locations impacted by current, large-scale investment. WILMA's role in this process must be catalytic and highly leveraged, as WILMA as an organization is tiny (see History page). WILMA can serve as an offshore center for informational and technical support (as well as connection with official Washington) for the propagation of SEICs. WILMA emphasizes the principal of autonomy-building self-help with plenty of LICR — Local Initiative, Control, and Responsibility. While the internet is a powerful tool for disbursed networks such as WILMA, "high tech" needs to be combined with "high touch" to build LICR on the ground, so as to overcome the inevitable hazards that local business leaders encounter. Through its growing number of Network Partners in various local areas, WILMA will work with its business partners to engage excellent leadership, management, and governance for SEICs and to hold this structure accountable to WILMA's principles and purposes.