Online platforms such as Etsy, Amazon, eBay, Mercado Libre, Jumia, and Alibaba are providing a powerful opportunities for SMEs to reach customers around the world, export and import, and build their own global value chains.

 

To expand developing country SMEs' use of global online platforms, in 2017 Nextrade CEO built the Alliance for eTrade Development, a PPP between USAID and PayPal, Google, eBay, and King & Spalding and operated by Business for eTrade Development, aimed to define and advance the adoption of policies and regulations conducive to SMEs' use of online platforms for trade, and develop pilot projects for ecommerce development in countries in Latin America, Africa, and Asia.

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In 2018, the Alliance published its report which uses proprietary data to understand how very powerfully platforms enable SMEs to engage in trade, maps out the adoption of 60 policies and programs  conducive to SME ecommerce in 40 countries, and develops a policy roadmap for governments around the world to further ecommerce development in their economies.  See the report here. 

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The Alliance visited El Salvador, Guatemala, and Kenya, Thailand, and Vietnam in 2018-19, working to ideate new pilots and catalyze new projects for ecommerce development.