Ecommerce

17 August 2023 - Kudzai Makombe Simon Hess

Taking the reins to drive a sustainable trade agenda

EIF support contributed significantly to policy reviews, alignment of legislation, development of consumer protection standards, and enhancing the capacity of sector stakeholders, including through recruitment of technical staff.

25 July 2023 - Kudzai Makombe Hang Tran

Happiness and trade make an ideal match – lessons from Bhutan

The partnership between Bhutan and the EIF stretches back to 2009. Directly contributing to several UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 8 on decent work and economic growth, the EIF facility was well aligned to work within the context of Bhutan's development philosophy. The EIF supported the development of Bhutan's trade agenda roadmap, improving policies supporting pro-poor trade and strengthening institutional coordination, including human capacity for trade and development. Beyond this, the EIF contributed to building the productive capacity of farmers SMEs and facilitated the country's ability to leverage additional funding through catalytic project support.

20 June 2023 - Annette Ssemuwemba

After the pandemic storms, digital trade offers LDCs rays of sunshine

Gaps in technology, infrastructure and skills, especially in Least Developed Countries (LDCs), highlighted the need to help entrepreneurs grasp the possibilities of digital transformation.

19 July 2022

It's time for public-private partnerships to drive digital trade in the most vulnerable nations

Unlike in 2013, PPPs are today widely embraced as a vehicle to promote digital trade. Now, they need to be used in places where they have been scarcer, such as the LDCs.

5 July 2022

Taking tourism exports online

The Ministry of Tourism hosts the handicraft and Souvenir Development project, which is supported by the Enhanced Integrated Framework (EIF); with among other objectives being improving quality, standards and marketing tourism exports such as souvenirs to boost foreign exchange.

27 April 2022 - Ratnakar Adhikari

Unlocking e-commerce in LDCs: Governments hold the key

The EIF recognises that our contribution to creating a thriving e-commerce ecosystem in LDCs is part and parcel of a bigger effort bringing together the expertise and skills of many others. While some are working together with the private sector, including small businesses, others are working with governments. While some invest in building digital infrastructure, others impart knowledge to build digital skills and yet others provide support to prepare and implement e-commerce policies.

15 March 2022 - Daniel K. Kalinaki

Cambodia shows LDCs how to get into ecommerce

LDCs have traditionally relied on high-cost, low-impact means of showing off their goods by, for example, hiring booths at trade shows and expos. Ecommerce platforms allow them to exponentially grow the number of products they can show off to potential customers, simplify the selling process, reduce transactional costs, increase trade revenues, and boost economic growth.

21 September 2021 - Deanna Ramsay

Women-run businesses getting a boost in Rwanda and Zambia

Small businesses are receiving support to access much-needed finance

14 September 2021 - Deanna Ramsay

In Tanzania, tackling markets to bolster small business

New project focusing on selected value chains from seaweed to honey in Tanzania.

6 July 2021 - Deanna Ramsay

In Cambodia, going with the (rice) grain

Resilience is necessary in the rice trade, developing it requires many About 80% of Cambodians are rural farmers, and rice is the country’s main crop. But, until the last decade or so, the sector had not been living up to its potential.

24 June 2021 - Deanna Ramsay

Where’s the money in shea?

How strategic funding can help to ensure a global beauty industry creates local profit

22 June 2021 - Annette Ssemuwemba

A year of digitalization for women entrepreneurs?

The COVID-19 pandemic transformed the trade ecosystem for women in the developing world

18 May 2021 - Helen Castell

UNCTAD LDC Report: putting productive capacities first

Expanding and diversifying productive capacities will better position least developed countries (LDCs) to tap the financing and e-trade opportunities that will underpin their Covid-19 recovery. This was a recurrent theme in the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Least Developed Countries Report 2020, which cautioned however that the international community must first rally with resources, policy space and better international support measures.

24 November 2020 - Dr. Karishma Banga

Can digital platforms help mitigate agricultural losses from COVID in Uganda?

The government of Uganda put containment measures in place to tackle COVID-19. These included quarantines; bans on public gatherings and weekly markets; closures of schools, borders and nonessential retail outlets; and the suspension of international flights.

5 November 2020 - Deanna Ramsay

Supporting an evolving ecommerce ecosystem in Myanmar

Myanmar was already moving to get its businesses online. With COVID-19, they were able to speed things up.

17 August 2020 - UNCTAD

Ugandan ecommerce platforms power recovery from COVID-19 crisis

Partnerships with development agencies and government efforts to boost the digital economy are helping soften the economic blow of the pandemic.

31 July 2020

Blockchain and LDC trade during COVID-19

The macroeconomic context for developing country trade in the time of COVID-19

29 July 2020 - Michelle Kovacevic

Making it faster and easier for South Asian women to take businesses online

Recently launched ecommerce training program and portal will help hundreds of women entrepreneurs in South Asian LDCs become part of regional and global supply chains.

15 July 2020 - UNCTAD

Cambodia’s digital startups help blunt economic impact of COVID-19

An uptick in business, especially in the delivery of food and essential items, is enhancing resilience in the wake of the crisis.

10 June 2020 - UNCTAD

Kiribati sets sights on overcoming hurdles to ecommerce

Digital solutions implemented to combat the spread of COVID-19 give fresh impetus to efforts to harness the development gains of ICT and ecommerce.

28 May 2020 - UNCTAD

Tanzania, Malawi prepare to reap benefits of digital economy

UNCTAD has assessed the state of play in the two countries and identified policy actions required to harness ecommerce for development.

25 May 2020 - Annette Ssemuwemba

How women in developing countries can harness ecommerce

Originally published in World Economic Forum Agenda on 24 April 2020

5 May 2020 - UNCTAD

Senegal's ecommerce sector helps country cope with COVID-19

Trade ministry fast-tracks measures to ease access to essential goods and services during the pandemic.

26 March 2020 - Padmashree Gehl Sampath

Industry 4.0: What next for least developed countries?

The possibility of reconfiguring manufacturing processes through new digital technologies and data provides opportunities to reboot industrial development in least developed countries.

18 February 2020 - Ratnakar Adhikari Fabrice Lehmann

Least developed countries can become authors of their technological revolution

Originally published in OECD-Development Matters on 5 February 2020

13 February 2020 - Mischa Tripoli

A window of opportunity for Africa: Agricultural innovation, integration and entrepreneurial ecosystems

Agriculture 4.0, fuelled by innovation and technology, is driving more productive, efficient and sustainable food systems.

8 January 2020 - UNCTAD

Tuvalu lays ecommerce groundwork to spur development

UNCTAD's assessment identifies available opportunities and barriers to overcome for e-commerce to flourish in the country.

7 November 2019 - Chidi Oguamanam

The partnership imperative for African innovation in the fourth industrial revolution

The entrepreneurial uptake of computer technology and the entrenchment of digitisation have made Africa a demonstrable source of intellectual power in the digital sphere.

4 November 2019 - Juan Felipe Rodrigo López Craig Atkinson

Digitally transforming Sudan’s economy

Enabling growth via ecommerce, trade facilitation and geographical indications

30 October 2019 - Enhanced Integrated Framework (EIF)

EIF covering environment, 4IR and global trade climate in new analyses

The Enhanced Integrated Framework’s Trade for Development News is launching a new series of articles focusing on three major trade conversations happening today.

30 October 2019

Global growth is slowing. For the world's poorest countries, what does this mean?

10 October 2019 - Fabrice Lehmann

Globalisation, robotics and pathways to development

A conversation with Richard Baldwin

3 September 2019 - Cécile de Gardelle Deanna Ramsay

How can developing countries seize returns from the fourth industrial revolution?

Without action, one out of every four people living in LDCs will be offline due to the lack of digital skills

28 August 2019

6 ways the least developed countries can participate in the Fourth Industrial Revolution

Originally published by World Economic Forum Agenda on 13 August 2019

26 August 2019 - Cécile de Gardelle

Ramkrishna Adhikari: With a young, tech-savvy population, Nepal forging ahead on its ecommerce path

Nepal’s Under Secretary at the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies talks all things trade – online

1 August 2019 - UNCTAD

Lesotho ready to channel its growth to go digital

New report on Lesotho shows how the small, mountainous nation could unlock its digital market to diversify its economy.

19 June 2019 - Dan Ciuriak Maria Ptashkina

A strategy to leverage the digital transformation for development

The digital transformation provides developing economies new opportunities to leapfrog industrial age infrastructure, to draw on the vast knowledge spillovers from the internet, to take advantage of new markets offered by digital platforms and to exploit production possibilities enabled by digital technologies.

30 April 2019 - Cécile de Gardelle

H.E. Dr. François Xavier Ngarambe: Aiming for ecommerce success in Rwanda

Following UNCTAD’s Ecommerce Week in April 2019 and on the cusp of a new partnership with EIF to boost ecommerce, Rwanda’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations and other International Organisations in Geneva discusses the state of play for online trade in the country

25 April 2019 - Deanna Ramsay

Agnes Hugot: On aiming for a win-win-win for trade

Virtual connections, transparency and financing through one platform can make for just the right combination to support MSMEs

16 April 2019 - Sven Callebaut Cécile de Gardelle

Kemvichet Long: On helping Cambodia’s businesses enter the global ecommerce marketplace

During UNCTAD’s Ecommerce Week in April 2019, Deputy Director General for International Trade at the Cambodia Ministry of Commerce talks all things e-trade

9 April 2019 - Michelle Kovacevic

Small market, big ambition

Bhutan’s potato ‘stock market’ goes online

10 December 2018 - Enhanced Integrated Framework (EIF)

GTPA partners with the EIF Programme as part of Africa eCommerce Week

The Global Trade Professionals Alliance (GTPA) is delighted to partner with the EIF Programme on a session focussed on building skills for the digital economy through education, interaction & advocacy as part of Africa e

8 August 2018 - Justine Namara Deanna Ramsay

Making ecommerce connections in the Pacific

Geographical barriers, including isolation from main markets, have resulted in issues for Vanuatu to access international networks and grow its businesses

7 August 2018 - Simon Hess

EIF address at the launch event of the Vanuatu National Single Window Project and the eTrade Readiness Assessment

Launching of these specific initiatives demonstrates the progressive vision of Vanuatu to stimulate the economy and leverage opportunities through international trade for delivering growth and development

6 August 2018

Taking trade online

What do a mountainous landlocked country, a post-war African nation, and three small island developing states have in common?

26 July 2018 - UNCTAD

Solomon Islands and Vanuatu gear up for e-commerce

Consumers and businesses in two remote Pacific island nations can look forward to a better connected and more prosperous future, according to assessments made by UNCTAD of their readiness to benefit from electronic commerce

19 July 2018 - Enhanced Integrated Framework (EIF)

Infographic: Vanuatu eTrade Readiness Assessment

The Government has shown a strong interest in adopting economic and social policies that can facilitate the development of the Internet economy, of which e-commerce is one segment. Unlocking its potential will also reduce distance to markets, reduce “sealockedness” and enable Vanuatu to leapfrog certain barriers associated with physical trade

19 July 2018 - Enhanced Integrated Framework (EIF)

Infographic: Solomon Islands eTrade Readiness Assessment

The current low use of ecommerce in Solomon Islands belies significant potential for the sector to grow swiftly and make economic and socioeconomic contributions to the country

20 June 2018 - Craig Atkinson

An Internet of Rules for all: Can "Trade Policy 3.0" foster inclusive trade?

The distinctive character of trade policy 3.0 is that, in addition to “writing down the rules” of trade in natural language (trade policy 1.0) and use of “single window systems” that replicate paper-based delivery in the digital realm (trade policy 2.0), countries are able to publish computational rules to the Internet in a standard way

24 April 2018

Five things to know about least developed countries (LDCs) and ecommerce

New tech uses present challenges – and a host of opportunities – for the world’s poorest countries.

24 April 2018 - Deanna Ramsay

Taking action for digital business in Least Developed Countries

Week of discussions fleshes out research results and next steps for electronic trade in the world's poorest countries

18 April 2018 - Deanna Ramsay

Five things to know about Least Developed Countries and ecommerce

New tech uses present challenges – and a host of opportunities – for the world’s poorest countries

16 March 2018 - ICTSD

Talking ecommerce with Alioune Sarr, Senegal’s Trade Minister

The challenges with which African countries are faced in the context of ecommerce – and which hinder its development – are multifaceted

8 December 2017

Ecommerce in the Pacific: Challenges and opportunities

Ms. Mere Falemaka, Permanent Representative of the Pacific Islands Forum to the WTO in Geneva, shared with us some precious insights about the specificities of the region.

10 November 2017 - UNCTAD

Samoa takes important steps to becoming ecommerce ready

The Pacific Island nation of Samoa has made considerable progress in recent years in getting businesses and consumers online but still faces challenges before being fully ready to benefit from e-commerce, an UNCTAD and EIF assessment of the country says.

10 July 2017 - Lyonpo Lekey Dorji Ratnakar Adhikari

Digital can lift the developing world out of poverty. Here's how

Originally published on 10 July 2017 in the World Economic Forum Agenda

Telling the trade stories of least developed countries

Brought to you by the Enhanced Integrated Framework (EIF)

Ecommerce

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