BUILD in collaboration with The International Trade Centre (ITC) and the Ministry of Commerce, GoB organized a national stakeholder consultation meeting recently in Dhaka.
The purpose of the workshop was to present the new She Trades Outlook (STO) policy tool, discuss good practices, as well as identify areas for collaboration aligned with Bangladesh’s policy priorities. The event in Bangladesh follows the launch of the pilot phase in Malaysia, Jamaica, and Ghana, with a view to administer surveys in 25 countries by the end of 2019.
Chaired by CEO, BUILD Ferdaus Ara Begum, the inaugural ceremony was attended by Dr. Judith Fessehaie, Policy Lead, SheTrade Initiative, who explained how this initiative has been working in other countries where policy commitments for supporting Women in Business is very important.
Dr Selim Raihan, Professor of Economics of Dhaka University and Executive Director, SANEM was also present. Mashfique Ibne Akbar, Private Sector Development Adviser elaborated how UKAid is supporting the program and has a plan to expand it. Highlighting role of women in the economy, the CEO of BUILD informed that Bangladesh attained 48th position among 148 countries and is top among South Asian countries in gender equality. SheTrades could be a supporting element for further development of women in business in Bangladesh.
Funded by the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID), SheTrades in the Commonwealth was launched in April, 2018.
It aims to deliver training, strengthening and mentoring activities to 3,000 women-owned businesses in Bangladesh, Ghana, Kenya, and Nigeria, as well as provide Commonwealth-wide support to governments through advisory services and tools to encourage more gender-responsive trade and trade-related policies including through SheTrades Outlook.
The STO, a key output of the She Trades in Commonwealth project, assists users in assessing, monitoring, and improving the extent to which the ecosystem supports women’s participation in international trade. It is supporting evidence-based policy-making by collecting and analyzing data, identifying gaps, and enabling dialogues and consensus on high impact policy measures. Taking into account different dimensions, contexts, and geographies, the STO creates an innovative digital tool for Commonwealth governments, trade and investment support institutions, development partners, lead firms and women’s business associations to pinpoint actionable items and benefit from evidence-based policy change.
In the initiation of launching of Bangladesh pilot of STO, more than 30 government and private organizations supporting different initiatives of Women in Business were present to inform different policies in the country. Group work was held to identify institutions, good practices to share with the international community as a feedback on some indicators covering areas such as: Trade Policy, Business Environment, Culture, Legal Basis, Access to Finance and Access to Skills. The survey will be enriched from the inputs given by the workshop participants.
Senior and mid level officials of Ministry of Finance, Agriculture, Environment Forest and Climate Change, Commerce, Women and Children Affairs, Planning, and BIDA, along with representatives from Dhaka University, Bangladesh Bank, SME Foundation, BFTI were present. Private sector representatives from MCCI, DCCI, SANEM, TTBC, ICCB, BGMEA, PRISM, LFMEAB, Institute of Hotel Management and Hospitality, Rahimafroze etc. were present and interacted in the workshop.
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