The Digital Transformation of Small and Micro-Businesses in Bangladesh

Women entrepreneurs in Bangladesh face many barriers that impact the digital transformation of their business. 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 been implementing the Build Back Better—Enhancing Recovery and Resilience of Small and Micro-Businesses (SMB) project in Bangladesh since 2020. The project aimed to build the digital and financial capabilities of 200,000 small and micro-businesses (SMBs) through e-learning modules across multiple channels.

This report provides an analysis of the second phase of the project, which entailed the development and provision of more advanced e-learning modules on the topics of financial negotiations, digital marketing, product pricing, cash flow management, loan management and e-commerce.