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On April 10th, a high-level roundtable was hosted at the Amari Hotel in Dhaka, Bangladesh with senior executives and managers from national and international corporations, women business owners of micro, small and medium enterprises, business associations, NGOs, donor agencies and high-level government officials from the Ministry of Commerce, including the Honorable Secretary, Shubhashish Bose.
Honorable Secretary Mr. Shubhashish Bose, Ministry of Commerce officially launching the event
“The roundtable brought together private industry leaders and other key stakeholders in a unique event to discuss the untapped potential of women business owners in Bangladesh,” WEConnect International Co-Founder and CEO Elizabeth Vazquez said. “Together, we can remove obstacles to market-access opportunity and put more money in the hands of women,”
According to studies conducted by WEConnect International, women-owned businesses earn less than 1 percent of all money spent on vendors by large corporations and governments worldwide.
Ms. Nihad Kabir, President, MCCI, sharing her remarks on the women entrepreneurship climate of Bangladesh and necessary steps
As part of this project, a survey was conducted to identify potential points of market entry for women-owned businesses in Bangladesh, and to find opportunities to connect them to local and global corporate value chains. Key findings from the survey were discussed at the roundtable event as well as recommendations and potential next steps.
Preliminary findings show the following:
The recommendation from the roundtable along with results from the suvey will inform an upcoming capacity building program for women-owned businesses that are poised for growth. The long-term goal is to help local and global corporations identify women-owned businesses that could be competitive and sustainable suppliers and to equip these business owners with the skills they need to succeed.
This roundtable is part of a World Bank Group project funded by the UK Department for International Development – “Strengthening Market Access for Women Business Owners” and is focused on export diversification and gender-related activities. The project builds better connections between women-owned businesses and corporate buyers, provides capacity building training, and helps promote the business case for sourcing from women in Bangladesh.
WEConnect International and LightCastle Partners are the implementing agencies of the program. WEConnect International is a U.S.-based nonprofit that identifies, educates, registers, and certifies women’s business enterprises based globally that are at least 51 percent owned, managed, and controlled by one or more women, and then connects them with qualified member buyers. LightCastle Partners is a Bangladesh-based management consultancy which support corporations and governments with market research and advisory services.
This article was originally published in The Financial Express: https://thefinancialexpress.
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