Abstract:
Access to Information (a2i) is a Government led nationwide program with
4,547 Union Digital Centers (UDCs) at every Union with two (one female
and one male) entrepreneurships. With the aim of investigating to what
extent ‘a2i’ is effective in promoting women empowerment through
women entrepreneurship, this paper analyzed primary data collected from
Shimulia Union Parishad (UP) and Muksudpur UP, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
This paper indicates that the socioeconomic barriers are causing a2i program
to have a less profound impact on promoting women empowerment
through women entrepreneurship. With different recommendations from
program level and policy level, this paper proposes that the design, redesign,
and implementation of the a2i program should have a flexible characteristic
so that it can address the socioeconomic challenges from within
the scope of the program.