Welcome to the Low-How, from Bopinc. Where we share our know-how about low-income markets. 

In this episode: Women trailblazers making money at the last mile. Development agencies and big companies are investing in networks of sales agents in hard-to-reach corners of Bangladesh and Pakistan. Why? Because even in far-flung “last mile” locations, there’s demand for needed goods and services. And there’s potential for women to earn money by becoming sales agents in these distribution networks. The Low-How hears from women involved in one of these networks directly to understand the positive impacts they can bring and talks to Bopinc experts about the promise and pitfalls of setting them up. What drives the interest of big companies in these networks? What are the essential ingredients of a successful last-mile distribution network? And what’s a realistic benchmark for success in such a tough market anyway? Tune into The Low-How to find out.  

Want to learn more? 

• The Pushti Ambassadors Partnership creates opportunities for women entrepreneurs in Bangladesh with the goal of contributing to better nutrition in rural Bangladesh while also advancing women’s economic empowerment. DANIDA supports this project, in partnership with Arla Foods, which sells affordable dairy products. Bopinc brings its expertise on marketing and distribution to the project, which is also implemented by iSocial, which coordinates networks of rural female micro-entrepreneurs. Although changes are coming soon that will shift the project away from engagement with female entrepreneurs in Bangladesh, the lessons-learned from this project are still useful for other last-mile distribution partnerships involving women sales agents. 
• Meanwhile, the Empowering Pakistani Women Partnership (“Guddi Baji”) in Pakistan is implemented by Bopinc, Unilever, Jazzcash and RSPN, with support from DANIDA. The Empowering Pakistani Women Partnership is working to break down these barriers by equipping rural women with entrepreneurship skills, coaching and a basket of health, hygiene and digital financial services that they can sell in their communities. As a result women increase their income and provide much-needed products and financial services to other women in their community.
• Monisha, the woman who spoke with us in this episode, is a “dyuthi” sales agent in rural Bangladesh. She is involved with another last-mile distribution program involving Bopinc, called Bright Innovations, which shares many similarities to the Pushti Ambassadors Partnership and Guddi Baji programs. Find out more about Bright Innovations here. 
• Last mile distributors (mostly women) distribute all kinds of things, including solar panels! Listen to our episode “Shedding light on selling solar in Africa” for more on that topic. We even recorded the episode partially using solar energy.
• Explore our approach and our projects on the Bopinc website.