WASHINGTON, United States (CMC) — The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) says it will facilitate access to remote working technologies to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Latin America and the Caribbean as the region deals with the coronavirus (COVID-19).

The IDB said it will join with TransparentBusiness, the platform for verifiable management geographically distributed teams, to undertake the initiative.

IDB’s Social Sector and ConnectAmericas for Women, the IDB platform that connects women entrepreneurs with business opportunities and with learning tools to improve the management of their companies, will be implementing the alliance.

“In the context of the Coronavirus’ rapid expansion, companies are being forced to implement work programmes from home and use technologies that allow transparent collaboration among distributed work teams — a key factor for the sustainability and success of remote work programmes,” the IDB, said adding that the alliance aims to bring training and technology to Latin America and support female entrepreneurs in successfully managing remote work teams.

Coronavirus has already affected hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. Millions of workers in Europe and Latin America are immobilized from their homes to prevent the spread. In this situation of maximum emergency, it is critical to act quickly to avoid disruptions and minimize the coming economic impacts in countries, the IDB said.

TransparentBusiness is a Software as a service (SaaS) platform designed to assist companies and government agencies with a tool for coordinating and monitoring remote workers, providing information on the status of budget expenditures and projects in real time, increasing productivity and protecting companies’ institutions of overbilling.

“Many companies are in transition and fear for the lack of control that the sudden implementation of remote work will bring. The key to making these new schemes work is for technology and processes to be used to solve the challenges associated with managing distributed teams, which are lack of trust, coordination, and accountability,” said Silvina Moschini, President and founder of TransparentBusiness.

As part of the collaboration, TransparentBusiness will offer three-month free licenses for startups and SMEs led by women to support remote job management during the Coronavirus outbreak and support the acceleration of distributed and inclusive work models.