Despite Social Barriers, a Bangladeshi Mother Finds Success as an Entrepreneur

Momena Begum, 42, grew up in the heart of Bangladesh's ready-made garment industry, offering her the chance to work in the sector. However, as her family grew, balancing the demands of young children with her work became increasingly challenging. 

“My early years were filled with the love and care of my parents, and I recall spending my childhood surrounded by friends who were focused on their studies. I decided to leave my job in the garment industry, driven by a desire to do something on my own.”

In Bangladesh, the garment sector employs around 4.1 million people. Women represent 56 percent of the sector workers — a significant drop from 90 percent in the 1990s. While the industry has provided a steady income to many,  jobs are often low-skilled and poorly paid. Industrial automation has also put the jobs of millions of garment workers like Momena at risk.

With this in mind, and determined to make a better life for her family, Momena enrolled in an iDE and partner-led program funded in part by the H&M Foundation, which aims to enhance the employability of 1,500 women garment workers facing challenges from automation and digitization. The program is designed to equip and empower female garment workers by implementing a broad range of initiatives to improve the enabling environment for career progression.

Despite deep-rooted cultural barriers that often prevent Bangladeshi women from becoming entrepreneurs – only 4.5 percent of local businesses are run by women – Momena opened a grocery store with support from iDE. With the help of her husband, who contributed 50,000 BDT (US$420), her business soon flourished. She did this by earned the trust of her customers, who recognized her as reliable and fair. 

Today, her two sons help in the store when they aren’t doing their schoolwork, and her husband remains her strongest ally. Inspired by her success, Momena’s sisters-in-law have also decided to open small businesses of their own. When asked about her future plans, Momena dreams of a shop where “every employee is a strong, empowered woman,” encouraging others in her community to follow her lead.

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, projects that contribute to women’s empowerment by focusing on social and financial barriers (such as sensitization activities with partners to allow for equal decision making power over income and/or resources) are also significantly more effective in increasing household incomes, dietary diversity, food security and resilience than projects that do not address women’s empowerment.

In particular, results show that the number of people that see appreciable gains in their incomes increases by 5 percentage points and the number of people that see significant gains in resilience increases by 20 percentage points.

That’s why in 2024, iDE launched a ten-year strategy aimed at empowering 1 million women entrepreneurs to enhance prosperity for 100 million people in their communities. With more than four decades of experience, and a legacy of building value chains that reach into last-mile and peri-urban areas, we believe incubating and enabling women-led businesses will significantly accelerate human progress and deliver economic benefits for underserved communities.

Written by iDE Bangladesh Communications and Knowledge Officer, Prianka Rani Saha, and Communications and Knowledge Specialist, Maher Sayeed Chowdhury. Stay connected with iDE Bangladesh on our social channels here.