The Leathertrace Bangladesh Policy Blueprint: A strategic roadmap for enhancing the adoption of digital traceability in Bangladesh's leather sector

This report presents the Leathertrace Bangladesh Policy Blueprint, a strategic roadmap for accelerating the adoption of digital traceability across Bangladesh’s leather sector. It responds to a rapidly changing global trade environment in which sustainability, due diligence, deforestation-risk regulation, buyer verification requirements, and responsible sourcing standards are reshaping market access for leather and leather goods. Focusing on Bangladesh’s leather value chain, the report identifies a critical policy gap: while the country has several laws, standards, digitalisation initiatives, environmental regulations, and trade facilitation mechanisms relevant to traceability, it lacks a coherent national framework for embedding digital traceability as a sector-wide compliance, competitiveness, and sustainability tool. Drawing on the Leathertrace Bangladesh project and stakeholder engagement, the report proposes an evidence-based policy blueprint organised around eleven mutually reinforcing policy pillars, including governance, legal reform, standards, finance, digital infrastructure, capacity building, data governance, environmental compliance, enforcement, stakeholder coordination, and international market alignment. The blueprint is designed to support end-to-end chain-of-custody verification, geolocation-based origin data, environmental performance monitoring, and due diligence readiness across farms, slaughterhouses, collection points, tanneries, manufacturers, exporters, and buyers. Ultimately, the report argues that digital traceability should be treated not merely as a technical intervention, but as a national policy priority capable of strengthening Bangladesh’s post-LDC export competitiveness, improving environmental and social compliance, reducing buyer risk perceptions, and sustaining access to high-value global markets.