The United Nations Capital Growth Fund (UNCDF) and its companions have launched primary e-learning modules to assist small and micro-businesses (SMBs) in Bangladesh as a part of the Construct Again Higher – Enhancing Restoration and Resilience of Small and Micro-Companies challenge.
The challenge goals to enhance the digital and monetary literacy of entrepreneurs in Bangladesh, significantly ladies, empowering them to confidently undertake and leverage new digital providers that enhance their competitiveness and efficiency, mentioned a press launch.
UNCDF and Visa, together with native companions, Aspire to Innovate (a2i), ekShop and ShopUp, have developed a customized suite of primary e-learning modules – ekShop touchdown web page (https://academy.ekshop.gov.bd/)and ShopUp touchdown web page 1 and a pair of (https://weblog.shopup.com.bd/) – on finance and enterprise administration, together with audio-visual and app-based instruments.
Within the preliminary roll-out of the e-learning modules, the challenge will assist 200,000 SMBs together with 5,000 women-led and owned small and micro-businesses purchase the mandatory digital and monetary capabilities to entry and use the instruments they should develop their enterprise within the digital age.
These modules are embedded inside the onboarding platform of ekShop and ShopUp within the type of topic-based on-line classes permitting any small and micro-business on the platform to immediately entry these instruments.
The important thing matters of the fundamental modules embrace – Making a marketing strategy, Monetary fundamentals, Monetary administration, Selling a enterprise and Enterprise to e-business.
Along side the rollout of those modules, UNCDF will present coaching assist to help SMBs with the onboarding course of, with a concentrate on closing gender gaps in digital and monetary literacy.
Based mostly on suggestions from contributors on the fundamental modules, UNCDF and its companions will subsequently develop superior modules to cowl higher-order enterprise data and abilities, comparable to constructing monetary statements and record-keeping, enterprise threat administration and environmental sustainability.
The modules leverage Visa’s Sensible Enterprise Abilities (PBS) monetary academic programme, and they’re additionally particularly designed to focus on gender-specific gaps in conceptual capability and technical data, specializing in bettering data of curiosity and inflation price ideas and calculations in addition to offering instruments to help in incorporating these ideas for enterprise decision-making.
UNCDF and Visa additionally commissioned a Fast Wants Evaluation to guage the prevailing stage of monetary and digital literacy of SMBs that was launched at a web based occasion on 24 Might with contributors from throughout the main private and non-private sector organizations globally and in South Asia.
Their examine discovered substantial gaps within the digital literacy ranges of entrepreneurs in Bangladesh with the gaps being much more pronounced for girls entrepreneurs.
Over 50% of SMBs within the examine had a poor understanding of how digital and monetary providers may assist their companies.
Gender gaps have remained regardless of growing consciousness from women-led SMBs on the must be financially literate, plan and actively handle their private and enterprise funds.