Our role in the project is pivotal in achieving two primary goals. Firstly, we work to enhance the financial independence of women garment workers. This involves sensitizing policy stakeholders, including public sector representatives, associations, and policymakers, towards recognizing the interventions required for these workers to achieve financial autonomy. We advocate for the institutionalization of digital financial literacy and seek opportunities to shape a policy environment conducive to their financial independence. We also facilitate the piloting of new business models and delivery channels, collaborating with service providers to implement gender-sensitive Digital Financial Literacy (DFL) training programs at scale. These programs cover both soft skills like communication and negotiation and hard skills such as financial planning and digital service utilization. Additionally, we support the growth of innovative digital finance solutions addressing health, security, finance, and digital literacy needs. Secondly, we strive to improve access to existing welfare and social security schemes for women garment workers and their families. We work on enhancing the policy environment and public-private dialogues, and pilot initiatives to upgrade the infrastructure and delivery systems of social protection and welfare services. Our aim is to empower these workers economically and provide them with better access to vital services.
The UNCDF makes public and private finance work for the poor in the world’s 46 Least Developed Countries (LDCs). With its capital mandate and instruments, UNCDF offers “last mile” finance models that unlock public and private resources, especially at the domestic level, to reduce poverty and support local economic development. The “last mile” is where available resources for development are scarcest; where market failures are most pronounced; and where benefits from national growth tend to leave people excluded. UNCDF’s financing models work through three channels:
(1) inclusive digital economies, which connect individuals, households, and small businesses with financial eco-systems that catalyze participation in the local economy, and provide tools to climb out of poverty and manage financial lives;
(2) local development finance, which capacitates localities through fiscal decentralization, innovative municipal finance, and structured project finance to drive local economic expansion and sustainable development; and
(3) investment finance, which provides catalytic financial structuring, de-risking, and capital deployment to drive SDG impact and domestic resource mobilization.
Our partnership with Oporajita closely aligns with the mission and approach of the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) with our focus on leaving no one behind in the digital era. UNCDF specializes in effectively leveraging public and private finance to uplift impoverished communities facing significant economic challenges. Oporajita's mission to empower women garment workers in Bangladesh strongly resonates with UNCDF's core mission, as it focuses on unlocking financial resources, particularly at the local level, to alleviate poverty and promote local economic development. Garment sector contributes significantly to the country’s GDP and also employes women, which is a priority given UNCDF’ strategic focus on women’s economic empowerment. UNCDF and its associated entities have been actively working in the arena of garment sector digitization, with special focus on wage digitization, over the past few years with the intention to take the benefits of digitization to the last mile women beneficiaries.
Oporajita operates in areas where resources for development are scarcer, and market challenges are more pronounced. UNCDF's market systems approach clubbed with financing models, emphasizing inclusive digital economies, local development finance, and investment finance, seamlessly complement Oporajita's efforts to enhance financial independence and access to welfare and social security schemes for women in the garment industry. Together, we are dedicated to creating lasting, positive impacts in these communities, addressing crucial development challenges and fostering economic empowerment.
