The second full day of the World Entrepreneurs Investment Forum (WEIF 2022) on Tuesday, saw women entrepreneurs demanding better opportunities and better access to financing to help ensure a more equitable, sustainable role in business development in the Arab region.
Along with this headline event focused on women, the Forum, taking place in Dubai, also held a ministerial panel on the importance of Micro-, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, known as MSMEs, for post-COVID recovery. Discussions also highlighted the power of Africa’s youth generation as crucial to attracting future foreign investment in the continent’s development.
Let Arab women shine
Addressing the panel on uplifting women's entrepreneurship, Farida Al Awadhi, the Chairperson of Emirates Businesswomen Council, said: “Unfortunately, women in Middle East and the Arab countries have been undermined or media has misrepresented them.”
Sonya Janahi, CEO of RA’EDAT Arab Woman Portal, agreed, and added: “Arab women have been unprecedented in many things, but unfortunately, there’s a lack of international knowledge [about what they are doing]. So let us focus on letting Arab women shine, creating opportunities together to work and collaborate, and focus on how to train and develop women so their entrepreneurship journey can also be an investment journey.”
However, all the participants agreed that boosting entrepreneurship and achieving gender parity in the business world required that women have more opportunities and better access to financing, with the aim of putting women entrepreneurs on par with their male counterparts.
Tackling unequal power dynamics
Jessica Neumann, an Investment and Technology Promotion Expert and Gender focal point at the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) said that the agency is in the process of finalizing its gender lens investing and training e-learning course.
“We decided to design [this] virtual e-learning course with free access to really stop focusing on women and trying to fix them because we are beyond the conversation on what women should do to raise funding for the business, and rather raise awareness [about] the [unfair] power dynamics that exist in the finance industry,” she explained.
UNIDO, she continued, had long been focused on gender analysis “and in every project we do, we look at the power dynamics as to where women are excluded, and we take steps and measures to see that they are equally benefitted from our projects. So, this time we are not doing another woman accelerator, we are talking to the men now and trying to make them understand that there is a real business in investing in women.”
Economic empowerment of Arab women
The conclusion of the Advancement of Women's Entrepreneurship workshop also saw the graduation of a number of Arab women entrepreneurs from Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, who were trained on how to develop, sustain and grow their projects.
This training course, entitled ‘Economic Empowerment of Arab Women’, was conducted virtually online by the UNIDO Investment and Technology Promotion Office.
Held under the aegis of Dubai Exhibition Centre at Dubai Expo 2020, the bi-annual World Entrepreneurs Investment Forum (WEIF 2022), which is co-sponsored by the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO)/Investment and Technology Promotion Offices (Bahrain), will continue on Wednesday 30 March.
Along with this headline event focused on women, the Forum, taking place in Dubai, also held a ministerial panel on the importance of Micro-, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, known as MSMEs, for post-COVID recovery. Discussions also highlighted the power of Africa’s youth generation as crucial to attracting future foreign investment in the continent’s development.
Let Arab women shine
Addressing the panel on uplifting women's entrepreneurship, Farida Al Awadhi, the Chairperson of Emirates Businesswomen Council, said: “Unfortunately, women in Middle East and the Arab countries have been undermined or media has misrepresented them.”
Sonya Janahi, CEO of RA’EDAT Arab Woman Portal, agreed, and added: “Arab women have been unprecedented in many things, but unfortunately, there’s a lack of international knowledge [about what they are doing]. So let us focus on letting Arab women shine, creating opportunities together to work and collaborate, and focus on how to train and develop women so their entrepreneurship journey can also be an investment journey.”
However, all the participants agreed that boosting entrepreneurship and achieving gender parity in the business world required that women have more opportunities and better access to financing, with the aim of putting women entrepreneurs on par with their male counterparts.
Tackling unequal power dynamics
Jessica Neumann, an Investment and Technology Promotion Expert and Gender focal point at the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) said that the agency is in the process of finalizing its gender lens investing and training e-learning course.
“We decided to design [this] virtual e-learning course with free access to really stop focusing on women and trying to fix them because we are beyond the conversation on what women should do to raise funding for the business, and rather raise awareness [about] the [unfair] power dynamics that exist in the finance industry,” she explained.
UNIDO, she continued, had long been focused on gender analysis “and in every project we do, we look at the power dynamics as to where women are excluded, and we take steps and measures to see that they are equally benefitted from our projects. So, this time we are not doing another woman accelerator, we are talking to the men now and trying to make them understand that there is a real business in investing in women.”
Economic empowerment of Arab women
The conclusion of the Advancement of Women's Entrepreneurship workshop also saw the graduation of a number of Arab women entrepreneurs from Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, who were trained on how to develop, sustain and grow their projects.
This training course, entitled ‘Economic Empowerment of Arab Women’, was conducted virtually online by the UNIDO Investment and Technology Promotion Office.
Held under the aegis of Dubai Exhibition Centre at Dubai Expo 2020, the bi-annual World Entrepreneurs Investment Forum (WEIF 2022), which is co-sponsored by the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO)/Investment and Technology Promotion Offices (Bahrain), will continue on Wednesday 30 March.