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White Papers on Policy, Technology and Programmatic Solutions to Enable Ecommerce Development

Laptop and Phone

Nextrade Group

The purpose of this report is to support especially developing country policymakers to track where their countries are on the journey of adopting policies conducive to MSME ecommerce. This report assesses the adoption of 75 specific policies conducive to MSME ecommerce in 14 major policy areas in 60 countries, most of them developing and emerging nations in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. The report is supported by the USAID-backed Alliance for eTrade Development II (eTrade Alliance), and updates and expands on the eTrade Alliance’s 2018 and 2021 policy reports. View the updated report here

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Kati Suominen and Bonaly Phrasavath

In recent years, there has been growing discussion on “digital public infrastructures” (DPIs). This paper seeks to promote dialogue on DPIs, the fundamentals countries should have in place to adopt DPIs, and the competition policy and business models in promoting digitization and digital services for MSMEs.

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Kati Suominen 

The purpose of this report is to offer a mapping out MSME ecommerce development projects around the world in 2018-23 and analyzing the various approaches and beneficiaries, such as women and rural enterprises.

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Kati Suominen, Erica Libertelli, Maria Luisa Boyce, Barbara Kotschwar, Erica Vambell

This paper explores how the Covid-19 crisis created greater gender disparities in the Latin American and Caribbean regions through disproportionately affecting women, and proposes ways that governments can support and empower women in the Covid-19 economic recovery.

Drone Delivery

Kati Suominen

The purpose of this report is to map out logistics technology companies enabling MSME ecommerce such as  last mile delivery solutions in different regions of the world and propose models for development partners to help scale “logtechs” and their services to MSMEs that are selling and buying online.

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Kati Suominen

This report seeks to connect the research and work on platforms and that on women-led firms in ecommerce to ask how development organizations, governments, and corporations could work with platforms to benefit women-led firms seeking to grow through ecommerce, and scale the impact on women-led firms.

Data transfer

Kati Suominen and Erica Vambell

The purpose of this report is to contribute to the growing discussions on cross-border data transfer policies in Africa, and to discuss regional data transfer policies that are compatible with the aims of free trade and MSME cross-border ecommerce. 

Brazil Flag

Nextrade Group

This paper is the third in a series of policy briefs aimed to promote regulatory reforms that enable Brazilian micro, small-, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) to export using ecommerce, and to support the Brazilian Government’s “Trade Facilitation 2.0” initiative. This series is led by the 13- member Alliance for eTrade Development Activity supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

Omni channel technology of online retail business. Multichannel marketing on social media

Kati Suominen, Erica Vambell, Bonaly Phrasavath

This report is the first attempt to measure ecommerce ecosystems' robustness and maturity, and develop an index supportive of interventions that bolster countries’ ecommerce ecosystems, and measure the impact of these interventions.

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Promoting FDI in developing countries' ecommerce ecosystems

Kati Suominen

The purpose of this paper is to identify the patterns, drivers and effect of FD in developing countries’ ecommerce ecosystems, in order to systematically promote policies and programs conducive to FDI in ecommerce.

Business Meeting

Empowering women-led firms in the digital economy: Roadmap 

Kati Suominen with Erica Vambell

This paper, co-sponsored by eTrade Alliance partner Visa, is a data-driven roadmap for governments, corporations, and the international development community to optimize capacity-building work to enable women-led firms sell online and thrive in the global digital economy. 

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Kati Suominen and Bonaly Phrasavath

The purpose of this brief is to support the ASEAN Members on the design and implementation of the ASEAN Digital Economy Framework Agreement (DEFA). This paper reviews design of other Asia-Pacific digital trade agreements and chapters for good policies and practices, rigorously examines ASEAN economies’ readiness to implement the DEFA, and provides a roadmap for the agreements’ implementation to be effectively monitored.  

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Kati Suominen and Erica Vambell

This paper creating a typology of creators and assessing the platforms they leverage to sell their work, leveraging Visa-sponsored survey data on creators in 17 economies around the world, to understand creators’ characteristics, performance, and challenges; and discussing emerging policy developments around the world that affect creators.

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Promoting digital payments interoperability in Southeast Asia for MSME Ecommerce 

Kati Suominen and Michael Poor

The purpose of this report is to promote dialogue on concrete policy and technology solutions to accelerate the interoperability of digital payments in the Asia-Pacific, in order to support MSMEs’ crossborder ecommerce.

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Kati Suominen

Developing country MSMEs see access to finance as a key constraint to their digital transformation. This brief reviews digital transformation fund models around the world, and discusses how businesses and governments could build on these efforts to unlock financing for digitizing MSMEs.

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Kati Suominen, Jobberman and PeopleTree 

This report reviews the results of a large-scale data and lessons-learned from an online survey measuring the cognitive abilities and skills of  27,216 Nigerian workers across a range of sectors, performed by the Jobberman employment portal of Ringier One Africa Media (ROAM) using a template developed by PeopleTree.

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Kati Suominen

This report maps the adoption of 130 policies conducive to MSME ecommerce in 10 major policy areas in 52 countries, most of them developing and emerging nations of Africa, Asia, Middle East, and Latin America.

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