The benefits of empowering and integrating women into the economy are widely known. But what exactly must be done to incorporate women into value chains, especially in parts of the world where women face cultural barriers to participating in their economies?

MEDA explained that the key to tackling this problem is understanding that women are actually active participants in most value chains, but they’re just “hidden.” For instance, the dairy industry in Pakistan is often considered to be male-dominated, but in fact women are heavily involved in management activities such as feeding, watering and housing. So identifying where women are engaged in the value chains is crucial.

Once locating where exactly women participate most in a value chain, MEDA uses their “sales-agent” approach to increase the number of women into the market systems. They look for women who have more mobility (i.e.: have the independence to attend trainings) and who possess entrepreneurial spirits. Once these self-selected women receive trainings on business skills (such as marketing or enhancing financial management), they then share their knowledge with the rest of their female colleagues/other producers. Thus, the sales-agent ultimately becomes the link who understands the demand of the market and what the producers can provide to fulfill the demand.

Through the years as MEDA helped increase women’s participation in local economies, their projects produced social benefits as well. It gradually changed social behaviors in the communities, such as women’s ability to make decisions in households (i.e.: nutrition, school enrollment for children) and women’s participation in district and provincial political councils. Ultimately these projects helped increase the overall well-being of women and children at a small-scale.

To date, MEDA has implemented several women’s economic development programs in rural Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Ghana. But it wasn’t easy for them to fulfill their goals immediately. As they progressed with their programs, they learned a few important lessons: the necessity of engaging men in the communities to encourage more women’s participation (often this meant speaking with community leaders such as Imams and tribal leaders), and the merit of involving local partners who understand the local culture and governance structures.

As more development organizations and agencies consider facilitating value-chain based projects to integrate women, MEDA emphasized the importance of building projects specifically-targeting women. Because of cultural constraints (especially in rural areas of developing economies), value-chain projects must be women specific and address the challenges they face to get results, not just the general challenges faced by the community-at large.

“The sessions in Dhaka and Kathmandu helped develop structure and set direction and proper governance guidance to our business associations, which usually tend to be run according to individual chairperson’s goals. Setting vision and mission based on a membership needs assessment is such a simple idea that we learned…so basic but yet hardly used as we tend to overlook membership requirements in our day to day chamber activities and operations” – Rezani Aziz, Sri Lanka

Despite severe challenges, Women Business Associations are playing effective roles in promoting interests of their members. However, CIPE has observed that most women business associations in South Asia are struggling to perform optimally.

CIPE took this challenge and an opportunity to work with a selected group of eleven business associations in the South Asia region aiming at strengthening institutional capacity to become stronger advocates for their members. In the first phase of this project, CIPE organized a two-day session for the group in Dhaka in January 2013.

The second workshop for the same group was held in Kathmandu, Nepal on 22 and 23 April. Post Dhaka session, Peshawar Women Chamber of Commerce & Industry embarked upon an advocacy project to identify barriers to women entrepreneurship in the terror affected Khyber Pakhtoon Khawa region and member opinion survey done by Lahore Chamber of Commerce & Industry focusing their 600 women members. These two case studies from Pakistan were presented to participants.

Aasia Saail Khan of Lahore Chamber said that, ‘only after attending the Dhaka event, I realized how important it is to speak to our members to identify their needs and how they perceive the chamber as their partner in business development’.

Shamama Arbab from Peshawar Women Chamber was of the view, “It’s a very healthy ‘best-practices-osmosis’ process, focusing on chamber development. It is so close to reality that soon after the first meeting in Bangladesh we have already started Policy Advocacy, in an effective and proven way, with a much clearer vision. We face a tough situation in Khyber Pakhtoon Khawa, but now we know how to progress.”

In Kathmandu, participants were taken through the process of aligning institutional vision and mission with their member-profile and needs, how effective policy advocacy campaigns work and also the process of developing a simple yet effective strategic plan.

CIPE will continue the process of this engagement and the next session will be held later this year. In the meantime, participants are required to implement ideas generated in two sessions in their respective business associations.

CIPE’s Vice Chair Ms Karen Kerrigan attended a part of the session and met with participants. She said:

“Giving women business owners and entrepreneurs a voice and platform for advocacy, learning and support are vital to fostering an environment that will lift women economically and politically.  CIPE’s work in helping to build the capacity of women business associations and their leaders remains highly effective in strengthening key parts of the ecosystem that work to encourage entrepreneurship while increasing the visibility of successful women role models. The gathering in Kathmandu was an opportunity for attendees to share ideas and experiences, but just as important it was a forum for support.  I was inspired by the extraordinary women leaders at the meeting.  They operate under difficult conditions, yet are determined to make a difference for the women in their respective countries.”

Earlier this month, the US Embassy in Romania organized an event with women entrepreneurs and students titled, “Women Entrepreneurs in Romania: Perspectives from the Public and Private Sectors.” Speakers at the event included the Minister of SME’s, Maria Grapini, and Gabriela Chiriac, President of the Women’s Association of Entrepreneurs in Galati. Both guest speakers have been closely involved in all the activities dedicated to women entrepreneurs in Romania including the creation of the Coalition of Women Business Associations (CAFA) and are dedicated to consolidating entrepreneurship in Romania.

The discussion brought together several members of CAFA, women entrepreneurs, and students interested in opening their own businesses.  In discussing entrepreneurship and how to become successful in business, Minister Grapini shared her personal experience in developing a personal brand as a manager and entrepreneur.  While focusing on the idea that in order to be successful entrepreneurs need to unite, Ms. Chiriac stated very clearly, “Entrepreneurs unite your forces!”

Though both ladies emphasized the value statement behind the brand as the most important element in building a good and consistent reputation, their message to the young students and other women in the room was to be professional, stay with your values, and be consistent.  It is a very strong message as positive values need constant reinforcement these days, in Romania as well as in many other countries.

For more information, see the press release published by the US Embassy here.

Camelia Bulat
Executive Director
Regional Center for Organization Management

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In the Republic of Macedonia, the development of women entrepreneurs is still in a nascent stage. There have been a number of activities that aim to further development, however, the fact that only 4% of businesses are owned or managed by women shows that much more needs to be done. Over the past few years, many associations aimed at encouraging women entrepreneurs, but as of today there is still little progress.

In this context the association of women within the Macedonian Chamber of Commerce has developed serious initiatives such as mentorship programs, business promotion, and advocating on behalf of women owned businesses to strengthen the position of women in the business community.   With more than 150 member companies, the Macedonian Women Entrepreneurs at Service Chamber in Macedonia Chamber of Commerce will strive for the successful representation of women in business and pursue a high level of development for women entrepreneurs in Macedonia.

The president of Macedonian Women Entrepreneurs at Service Chamber in Macedonia Chamber of Commerce is Ms. Danela Arsovska (danela@royal.com.mk).  The Coordinator for the association is Mrs. Maja Saveska (msaveska@sojuzkomori.org.mk).

The association members of the Balkan Coalition of Women Business Associations got together for a series of two educational events which took place on March 20-22, 2013 in Istanbul, Turkey. The first seminar was titled “Primary Aspects of Managing Effective Human Resources” whereas the second seminar focused on businesses for migrants and people with disabilities.

The two events, hosted by the Women Entrepreneurs Association of Turkey (KAGIDER) as the Turkish Member of the Coalition, brought together over thirty representatives of women business associations from eight countries in the Balkan region (Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, FYROM, Greece, Romania, Serbia, and Turkey).

Two representatives of the Regional Center for Organization Management (RCOM) in Romania attended the events – RCOM Deputy Director Carmen Stanila and Program Assistant Paula Anastasiade.

The agenda of the seminar on human resource management included topics such as the importance of the human factor, the five main steps in HR planning training, how to motivate your team, how to deal with difficult employees and performance appraisal and management and ingredients of effective teams. During this workshop Carmen Stanila presented on how to manage conflicts in organizations.

During the second seminar, the participants exchanged information and experience on how to overcome existing challenges and empower migrants and disabled people to integrate in the labor market and entrepreneurship sphere.  The participants also talked about special incentives and support mechanisms, as well as about social entrepreneurship as a means to integrate migrants, disabled people and refugees. In this context, RCOM’s Paula Anastasiade gave an overview of the professional and entrepreneurial opportunities available for refugees in Romania.

The two events are part of a project titled “Balkan Women Coalition for Professional Qualification and Training in the Field of Business and Economic Science” (2012-2014), funded by the European Commission through the Grundtvig Lifelong Learning Program. The aim of the project is to establish and strengthen a coalition of Balkan women’s business associations, as well as to improve women’s entrepreneurial and professional skills. This project builds on a previous initiative supported by CIPE in 2005-2007 whose goal was to create an informal coalition of Balkan women business associations.

The Regional Center for Organization Management (RCOM) is a Romanian foundation that was established in 2007 by the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE). RCOM’s objective is to develop membership-based organizations and SMEs in Romania, the Balkans and the Caucasus, in areas such as management, public policy advocacy and leadership.

Last October U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton traveled to Peru. Clinton’s Peru trip barely made the headlines, but her remarks deserve attention and continue to ring true worldwide, especially in Latin America.

On her agenda: discussing bilateral and regional cooperation and delivering a keynote on women’s financial inclusion. In her remarks, she emphasized that economic strength is derived from social inclusion, and “at the heart of social inclusion [is] a commitment to women and girls.” But unfortunately the world’s attention was elsewhere, caught up in controversy over Libya and other regional priorities.

Even with a global economic downturn, between 2000 and 2010 economic growth in Latin America remained strong and inequality decreased. One major contributor to this trend was greater women’s participation in the workforce. During this period women’s labor participation increased 15 percent. Without this increase, the World Bank estimated that by 2010 extreme poverty in the region would have been 30 percent higher.

Despite these achievements, greater social and economic inclusion does not extend to all women, and weak institutions and a lack of legal education and secure property rights continue to disadvantage many. This is particularly true for indigenous women. For example in Peru, according to a recent study by ILD, indigenous women are among the most socially and economically excluded groups: in rural areas, 67 percent of women do not have an income, compared to only 5 percent of men.

To address these issues, CIPE partnered with the Institute for Liberty and Democracy (ILD) to support indigenous women’s entrepreneurial and advocacy capacity, with a focus on supporting women’s business associations. With a clear need for economic and social empowerment, emerging indigenous women’s organizations provide an important avenue for reaching the most women and supporting their ability to organize around policy priorities.

Working to empower indigenous women and to build the capacity of women’s organizations, over the last few months ILD and CIPE held two training workshops, one in the Amazonian region in Iquitos, and one in the Andes in Cuzco. Using a new manual developed by ILD, the workshops provided participants with the legal and economic tools to recognize themselves as entrepreneurs, to identify the rights that they have, and to press for the removing of the obstacles that affect their economic development.

In the Amazon, the main economic opportunities for the 43 women who attended the workshop — one traveling for 4 days to reach Iquitos — are arts, crafts, and agriculture. Most of these are informal businesses, making it extremely difficult for the women to access capital or credit, and next to impossible to scale-up their businesses. The workshop provided them with the opportunity to network with other women and to learn about their legal and property rights. For many, this was the first time they had become aware that they have the same right as men in their community to own land and participate in community affairs.

At the Cuzco workshop, the economic livelihoods of the 45 women from the Andes region were mainly handicrafts and raising guinea pigs (a local delicacy). Like their Amazonian counterparts, many of the participants were unaware that they had the same rights as men to participate in politics and own land. After two days of intensive training, they went back to their communities quite clear that legally they have equal rights, and with simple tools for how to protect these rights.

Broadly, participants at both workshops did not identify themselves as entrepreneurs or as members of the private sector. While labels may seem cosmetic, identifying with both of these groups is important for any business in terms of advocating for policy change and organizing for greater business benefits.

As a result of the workshops, ILD and CIPE hope that women in rural and native communities will be more conscious regarding the importance of being active agents of their development and become autonomous and self-reliant decision-makers and economic agents.

In Peru and beyond, it is impossible to build a truly inclusive democracy without including women, a group that extends from metropolitan elites to students to indigenous businesswomen. As Clinton put it, committing to women and girls in a community is at the heart of social and economic inclusion, and is also at the heart of economic and social prosperity for all.

Pakistan – The Peshawar Women’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry organized its first focus group meeting as part of a CIPE-funded initiative to identify and address policy-related barriers to the development of women’s entrepreneurship in Pakistan. Access to finance was highlighted as a major issue that will need to be addressed, both to encourage greater participation by women in entrepreneurship and to support the expansion of women-owned firms.

Afghanistan – The Impressive Consultancy Company and the Women’s Economic Empowerment Center conducted an exhibition of products made by women-owned businesses on February 14 to mark Valentine’s Day. Several students from CIPE’s Tashabos youth entrepreneurship course participated in the event, setting up booths to display and sell their products, providing them with a chance to improve their marketing skills.

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Zimbabwe – CIPE partner the Women’s Alliance of Business Associations in Zimbabwe (WABAZ) conducted a Womenomics Dialogue Forum in cooperation with its members the Professional Women Executives and Business Women’s Forum, the Zimbabwe Women’s Resource Center, and Network (ZWRCN) and UN WOMEN. The Forum provided an opportunity for 55 women participants to discuss the budgetary process, focusing on women’s attitudes towards participation in the budget process and how they can advance their participation in the formal sector. The attendees were encouraged to be part of organizations that advocate on their behalf. Action plans from the Forum included addressing women’s lack of knowledge of the budgetary process and the resulting disadvantages. Several of the host organizations pledged to provide support to these action plans. For example, ZWRCN will be responsible for research and obtaining information on gender-based budgeting, PROWEB will ad vocate for a quota system were women can sit in on decision-making boards, and WABAZ will disseminate information to its members to increase women’s participation in budgetary process.

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“Studies show that investing in women is a high yield investment as gender equality in access to education, healthcare, political participation, and economic participation is key to a country’s competitiveness and prosperity. It is a fact that women-run small and medium-sized enterprises (SME’s) drive economic growth and create jobs. This is true in my country and it is true around the world.” – Melanne S Verveer and Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asia.

According to the World Bank, South Asia has the largest number of economically deprived and undernourished people in the world. Despite this it also has the world’s largest working age population and 25% of world’s middle-class consumers. If stabilized, the benefits of economic growth in the region would not only help alleviate policy, but would also extend to developed countries by supplying quality goods and services. On top of everything, peace in this region will also be ensured.

One of the ways to improve the economic conditions of South Asian countries is engaging women in economic development through entrepreneurial activities. To help support women interested in entrepreneurship, the U.S. State Department organized a two-day South Asia Women’s Entrepreneurship Symposium in Dhaka on 9-10 December. One hundred and twenty women entrepreneurs from eleven countries in the region, including Central Asia, participated in the event, which focused on creating cross-border linkages between women entrepreneurs and leaders in South Asia. During the symposium, participants in breakout sessions discussed the challenges and opportunities for women entrepreneurs in technology, governance, trade, and entrepreneurship.

Speaking at the closing ceremony, Robert O. Blake, Jr., Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, said that “from the beginning, the Obama Administration has emphasized women’s empowerment as an essential lynchpin in our global outreach strategy and a critical aspect of our foreign policy. Advancing gender equality and economically integrating women throughout the region is a key objective for the South and Central Asia Bureau that I lead, and a cornerstone of our vision to build regional ties and networks.”

On the whole, the most discussed issues in each session were access to capital and lack of knowledge about the stiff regulatory environment for women-owned businesses. Discussing the outcome of the breakout sessions and the entire symposium, the steering committee decided to appoint country focal persons to take forward recommendations, including the development of frequently-asked questions (FAQs) for doing business in each country.

At the same time, complementing this excellent initiative by the US State Department, CIPE recently launched its own program to address issues facing women entrepreneurs in South Asia. CIPE’s project seeks to strengthen the capacity of women’s chambers and associations, so they can better serve the needs of women entrepreneurs, including through policy dialogue. To begin this effort, CIPE will first focus on building an effective network among South Asian women’s business associations, so they can share experience and ideas. The project will kick off with a meeting on February 1-2 in Dhaka, bringing in approximately 15 leaders of key women’s chambers and associations from across the region. CIPE and the State Department have discussed how to build synergies between these two initiatives, and create a multiplier effect to benefit women entrepreneurs in South Asia.