Description

Supporting women entrepreneurs to digitalize their businesses

FWEAN as an umbrella organization for Women Entrepreneurs Association of Nepal (WEAN) chapters has been working for the empowerment and betterment of women entrepreneurs throughout Nepal. Realizing the need to improve and boost the businesses of women entrepreneurs that stagnated during the COVID-19 lockdown period, FWEAN has been leading and implementing a pilot project ‘Revitalizing Women’s Businesses amidst COVID-19 Pandemic’ together with EMERGE (Knowledge Partner) and Thulo.com (Technical Partner) as part of which products of women’s business enterprises and entities are being promoted through online marketing, promotion and sales using the platform of Thulo.com. FWEAN gradually plans to promote the products of its members by activating its own platform (Women in Business) WinBiz.com e-portal in the future. #FWEAN #FWEANEMPOWERS 

For more details and for your support towards this initiative read the press release below:

Announcement Press Release

22nd July, 2020

MA-Udhyami Campaign for Digitalizing Women’s Business amidst Covid-19

Pandemic

MA-Udhyami (Mahila Udhyami) campaign, launched on July 8, 2020 at Thulo.Com, an e-commerce platform in Nepal, is a campaign initiated as a part of the project ‘Revitalizing Women’s Businesses amidst COVID-19 Pandemic’ with the support of USAID’s Tayar Nepal. The project is led by Federation of Woman Entrepreneurs’ Associations of Nepal (FWEAN) in collaboration with EMERGE (Enterprise for Management, Economic Reform and Gender Equality) and Thulo.Com.

Due to COVID-19 lockdown, the method of selling products physically, by visiting stores became almost non-existent, which affected the supply chain of majority of the local women-led micro and small scale businesses, as they got disconnected with their customers and are having a hard time surviving due to lack of cash flow. So, the focus of this project is to overcome difficulties in forward supply chain and cash flow management of women-owned/led businesses by linking them to the digital economy.

COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of e-commerce in Nepal, and introducing women entrepreneurs to the digital economy was the need of the hour. Therefore, FWEAN partnered with Thulo.Com to promote and sell the products of local women and link them to the digital economy, through its e-commerce platform. For this Thulo.com conceptualized the campaign MA-Udhyami, which means ‘Mahila Udhyami’ with the tagline – ‘Digitalizing Women’s Businesses’ to bring women entrepreneurs and technology together.

Currently, this campaign is in its pilot phase, and there are 17 women led-businesses, mostly from marginalized groups, running micro and small scale production businesses, of Kathmandu and Lalitpur area, comprising both members and non-members of FWEAN. Under this pilot phase of MA-Udhyami those women led-businesses which have not been connected or made robust sales through other digital platforms,with products that meet the criteria as set by the project in terms of product quality, labeling and packaging, have been on boarded. Currently, the products listed are essential food items – pickles, spices, honey, safety and hygiene products – eco sanitary pad, masks, body oil, sanitizers, etc. 

It is expected that these women entrepreneurs will be able to generate cash flow from sales of stocked goods, manage the business, and pay salary to staffs, and be able to manage the crisis bought by COVID 19. They will also get connected and get accustomed to the digital way of doing business (promotions, branding, sales, payments). Under this campaign, FWEAN and Thulo.com together with EMERGE are also doing product promotions, running contests and media promotions with the aim to improve the performance of selected women’s businesses.