With focus on participation in global trade & sustainability efforts, UPS Program to Empower Indian Women

By: WE Staff | Friday, 12 May 2023

500 women from India who were previously excluded have now obtained a foundational understanding of international commerce owing to a collaboration with a powerful Atlanta-based company that knows how to deliver.

To remove obstacles that have prevented women from fully engaging in the global economy, United Parcel Service Inc. launched its Women Export Programme in India last month.

The action is in line with UPS's commitment to empowering women via economic access, primarily in Asia but also in many other regions throughout the 220 nations and territories its services.

Additionally, it happened at the same time that Laura Lane, the company's executive vice president and chief corporate affairs and sustainability officer, was on a trip to India to highlight the company's dedication to women via various commercial and charitable endeavours.

The Women Exporter Programme has been implemented in a variety of nations, including Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and Vietnam. Ms. Lane claims that while specific challenges vary depending on the cultural and legal framework of each nation, women generally face the same uphill struggle.

In certain cultures, women aren't permitted to create bank accounts, own property, or obtain credit without a male co-signer. In others, women are prohibited from traveling, either domestically or internationally. Many people are prevented by these regulations from determining the course of their company, Ms. Lane said in an interview with Global Atlanta.

If you can't own the land and the assets you need to make the product, how can you operate a business? Ms. Lane said that there are disparities in access to money. "All small and medium-sized businesses must have access to funding for company expansion as well as trade financing to take advantage of exporting possibilities to expand and scale. How can you accomplish that if women aren't allowed to get that type of finance under the rules and regulations in place?

In order to promote top-down reform, UPS has been working inside multilateral organizations. It has pushed member countries of the World Trade Organisation to include wording prohibiting gender discrimination in their country's General Agreement on Trade in Services. That project was born out of a related one in the APEC Business Advisory Council, or ABAC, where Ms. Lane is one of three business members representing the United States in the Asian forum.

Since the Women Exporter Programme was established in 2018, UPS has also worked at the community level, teaching women essential skills like marketing, warehousing, customs, finance, operating e-commerce platforms, and more. Partners like Visa and Mastercard have been brought in to assist with credit and payment access, and businesses like Microsoft and Google have provided digital up-skilling.

In collaboration with the Delhi-based Ministry of Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises and the India SME Forum in Mumbai, Ms. Lane debuted the India edition in March. Over 2,000 applications were submitted for the first 500 available spots, significantly exceeding capacity.

"I frequently get asked, 'Well, it's only 500 women, but we want to make sure we have 500 success stories, so we're taking it slow and methodically working with every woman as an individual, understanding their unique product offering and their unique market opportunities, and making sure we're running right alongside them so they can be successful. Wash, rinse, and repeat will follow”, Ms. Lane added.

The day before she arrived in Atlanta to launch the third iteration of the Women's Export University program, a one-day event run in collaboration with the Mayor's Office of Immigrant and International Affairs, Ms. Lane talked to Global Atlanta. Go here to learn more about the program.

Although there was significant involvement in the Atlanta program, India's magnitude was far higher due in part to the country's greater need.

According to Ms. Lane, "There are a lot of women entrepreneurs outside the United States who don't have the benefit of being able to sell to a U.S.-size consumer market to be able to, and while many may be worried about the hazards of selling abroad, the training helps calm their anxieties.”

Many of these women-owned firms, she asserted, "recognize that they don't have to restrict their development potential, merely by how far their community spreads, provided we explain the hazards”.

Ms. Lane joined UPS team members in planting 900 trees and donating 4,000 feminine hygiene supplies. She also signed a contract with FICCI to assist small and medium-sized businesses examine their environmental effect and obtain certifications.

Following that, Ms. Lane participated in a panel discussion titled "The Startup Planet: Reclaiming Half the Sky" on the second day of the Raisina Dialogue, an important conference on geopolitics and economics that was held in Delhi.