|  Women entrepreneurs in the MENA region (IFC)
Through the regional initiative Women Entrepreneurs in the Middle East and North Africa which CAWTAR and the International Financial Corporation (IFC) jointly carried out in 2006, CAWTAR hoped to further convey the necessity of encouraging women’s entrepreneurship and to address methods by which challenges to female participation in business may be overcome.
This regional report, designed to create a better understanding of women’s entrepreneurship issues across the Middle East and MENA regions, employed a combination of questionnaires, interviews and meetings to identify the needs of businesswomen and the obstacles they face. CAWTAR acted as an umbrella organization that oversaw the implementation of five national case studies of the nature of female entrepreneurship in Bahrain, Jordan, Tunisia, Lebanon, and UAE. Utilizing this information, a regional report was created that, in addition to examining current constraints on female participation in business, also identified specific areas for improvement and made recommendations addressed to policy makers, financial institutions and women’s business organizations in the region. For example, at the IFC-CAWTAR MENA Research Project Meeting held in Tunis in April 2006, participants identified the importance of profiling firms and business owners, of understanding obstacles to women’s involvement in business (which has been shown to have a dynamic effect on reducing unemployment, promoting national economic growth and reducing poverty), of organizational capacity building, of increasing public awareness, and of creating positive change in areas needing improvement. CAWTAR also contributed to the capacity building of all partners in this initiative, including research centers, business women and journalists, and helped to strengthen regional communication and advocacy networks such as the Arab Network for Gender and Development (@NGED).
Under the patronage of Her Royal Majesty Queen Rania Abdallah, the regional report was launched during an international event conveying experts, policy makers, actors from the public and private sector, donors as well as media representatives from the region and worldwide to share and discuss the findings of the reports in the perspective of building upon concrete action plans. This event took place on June 5th 2007 in Jordan, and received very encouraging feedback on the relevance of such results to better address the challenges facing women entrepreneurs in the region. It has also benefited from international media coverage, such as the Financial Times and Specialized Media actors in the region.
It is the hope of CAWTAR that partners will continue to build upon the momentum generated at the April and September 2006 meetings on this important issue and to employ CAWTAR’s @NGED network to generate further research and discussion regarding the output of this report.
|
(right click, save as):