E-commerce platforms promise to revolutionise women entrepreneurship by granting instant access to a broader market, enhancing efficiency, and boosting productivity. These platforms provide integrated marketing tools, payment capabilities, and logistics services; enabling rapid business scaling and higher returns on investment. They also offer flexibility, allowing women entrepreneurs — who often bear disproportionate care responsibilities — to set their own work schedules and operate their businesses from home or remotely.
Despite these benefits, in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region, there is a gender gap in use and access to e-commerce platforms.
Policy initiatives
Many governments across the APAC region, have initiated programmes to empower women through e-commerce and technology. In Bangladesh, the Tottho Apa Project, led by Jatiyo Mohila Sangstha, aims to empower women through ICT, creating approximately 100,000 female entrepreneurs annually, with 15,000 already on-boarded on the e-commerce platform “Laalsobuj” by 2021.
India’s Mahila E-haat Platform, launched by the Women and Child Development Ministry, facilitates the socio-economic empowerment of women by enabling them to sell products online and by 2016, it had 300,000 registered entrepreneurs, transacting $3.1 million. Another example is of the ‘Connecting Women to the Digital Economy’ initiative launched by the Philippines and supported by the USAID has helped 380 women establish online stores, generating significant sales, as of 2021.
International organizations like United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) and the European Investment Fund (EIF) have also partnered to enhance e-commerce access for women entrepreneurs in South Asia through capacity building/training.
Furthermore, Digital2Equal initiative, launched in 2018 by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) in partnership with the European Commission, brought together 17 leading technology companies operating across online marketplaces to create more opportunities for women in emerging markets such as India, Indonesia and Malaysia.
In India, Ubuntu Consortium brought together 45 women’s entrepreneur associations from 10 States, providing skill development programmes and training to 10,000 women in digital marketing. Amazon Saheli, launched in 2017 by Amazon India, SEWA, and other NGOs, has empowered over 1.7 billion women-owned businesses and assisted 80,000 women artisans with training, marketing support, and financing.
Despite the above achievements, most initiatives have focussed on onboarding women entrepreneurs to domestic e-commerce platforms rather than promoting their access to global value chains.
Moreover, these policy initiatives often fail to address the structural barriers linked to cross-border trade like cross-border payments and return-consignment related issues.
On average, women-owned firms operate with smaller and less-diverse networks than men and have less access to information.
To empower women entrepreneurs, APAC countries should implement policies tailored to their needs, prioritising digital literacy, e-commerce training, skill development, capacity building, and social security. International organisations like UNESCAP can provide support by creating a platform for training and sharing of best practices. .
In India, government can support training and capacity building for women entrepreneurs to exports through e-commerce platforms by having certain provisions in schemes like the Niryat Bandhu Scheme, under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
Mukherjee is Professor and Srishti is External Consultant, ICRIER. Views expressed are personal
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E-commerce. Empowering women
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