Stories

New webinar series on e-commerce to support women-led businesses in the Middle East and North Africa

12 June 2020
ITC News

ITC ecomConnect, ITC’s e-commerce initiative, launches a webinar series to help women-owned small businesses recover from the impact of COVID-19 by harnessing the power of e-commerce

ITC is launching a webinar series for e-commerce entrepreneurs, with a focus on women-owned small businesses in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) to help them harness the power of e-commerce to recover from the impact of COVID-19.

Women-owned and run businesses tend to be smaller than those owned and run by men, as well as being less likely to trade internationally. But e-commerce can potentially provide an opportunity to facilitate access to markets.

E-commerce also offers a pathway to maintaining or even increasing sales and market reach for struggling businesses since COVID-19-related business closures and social distancing protocols also challenge traditional retail business models.

The webinar series is part of the 'MENA We-Fi E-Commerce Project' for women entrepreneurs in the MENA region. The project supports using e-commerce as a way to alleviate some of the constraints faced by women entrepreneurs in the MENA region.

In the future, the project will also train e-commerce advisors in seven target MENA countries − Algeria, Djibouti, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia - so they can offer face-to-face customized advisory services to women entrepreneurs.

In partnership with the World Bank Group and UPS, ITC ecomConnect will be delivering the following webinars:

  • 6 master webinars offering training in such key e-commerce topics as COVID-19 recovery recommendations, international marketplaces, shipping solutions and improving online visibility
  • 9 deep-dive clinic webinars providing an opportunity to meet MENA experts to discuss issues ranging from online payment solutions to social media advertising and targeting local customers

All master webinars will have simultaneous translation into English, French and Arabic. For the deep-dive clinics, only the discussion and Q&A will be in any of the three languages.

When?

Webinars will take place from Monday 15 June until Thursday 2 July 2020 on dates to be provided on ecomConnect.org, an e-commerce engagement platform with a particular focus on developing and least-developed countries

Who can participate?

The webinar series is open to any entrepreneur. However, the focus will be on e-commerce in the following countries: Algeria, Djibouti, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, and Tunisia.

Interested?

You can check the full programme on our ecomConnect platform. To register, you will need to create an account on ecomConnect.org, join the group 'We-Fi Project in the MENA region,' and register for the preferred webinars.