Experts highlight women traders’ vulnerability to COVID-19, other stressors

Women entrepreneurs are generally engaged in informal businesses. The business environment can made more enabling for such entrepreneurs if informal businesses are formalized. (Photo: Jitendra Bajracharya/ICIMOD)

Women traders in the Hindu Kush Himalaya face many constraints and the COVID-19 pandemic has severely disrupted their economic activities. This and other issues and challenges were highlighted at a webinar that we organized along with CUTS International on 11 March.

The objective of the webinar titled “Bringing mountain women across borders – A case of women traders in the Hindu Kush Himalaya” was to share preliminary findings of an explorative study that we conducted together with CUTS International across four transboundary landscapes of the HKH region: Hindu Kush Karakoram Pamir Landscape (HKPL), Kailash Sacred Landscape (KSL), Kangchenjunga Landscape (KL), and the Far Eastern Himalaya (HILIFE). The other objectives were to bring together stakeholders from the HKH transboundary landscapes to discuss the formal and informal trade in the landscapes and the challenges faced by women traders; to identify shocks and vulnerabilities, including the impact of COVID-19; and to identify priority actions to enhance their resilience to shocks and vulnerabilities.