How does UNCDF in Bangladesh support entrepreneurs

Women entrepreneurs in Bangladesh face many barriers that impact the digital transformation of their businesses. These include low financial and digital literacy rates, social norms that impact mobile phone ownership and family support, and low confidence.

Identifying the value proposition and support mechanisms for digitalization and providing capacity-building can accelerate the digital journey of women e-commerce entrepreneurs and help them overcome these restrictive social norms.

UNCDF, in partnership with Visa, ShopUp, a leading full-stack business-to-business platform, and ekShop, an e-commerce aggregator platform, has implemented UNCDF’s ‘Build Back Better—Enhancing Recovery and Resilience of Small and Micro-Businesses (SMB)’ project in Bangladesh. The project helped to build the digital and financial capabilities of 200,000 small and micro-businesses through e-learning modules across multiple channels.