I would like to welcome
participants to the Second UNECE Forum of
Women Entrepreneurs. This is a particular
pleasure for me as I did not have the opportunity
to meet with you at the First Forum in 2001.
Just to recall: the First
Forum initiated the UNECE activities supporting
women entrepreneurs. The Forum was held
in October 2001 and gathered together about
300 participants from 30 countries. Many
of them are now present. It has already
had a positive impact on building networks
at national, sub-regional and regional levels.
One such example is the establishment, as
a result of the Forum, of the All-Ukrainian
Association of Women Entrepreneurs.
The idea of the Forum is
to (i) promote a regional dialogue on women's
entrepreneurship, (ii) exchange experiences;
(iii) forge partnerships among governments
and other stakeholders; (iv) facilitate
the process of policy convergence based
on best practices. But it also builds personal
contacts and networks among women's business
associations and individual entrepreneurs.
Building partnerships among
stakeholders at national level is a key
element in efficiently promoting women's
entrepreneurship. So far, women's business
associations and NGOs have been the main
actors promoting women's entrepreneurship.
Best practices already exist in a number
of countries. We will have presentations
of partnerships with governments from the
United States of America and Finland as
well as municipality initiatives from Provincia
di Milano.
The UNECE Forum could also
contribute to bridging the gap between women
entrepreneurs within a Wider Europe, facilitating
contacts between women entrepreneurs from
accession and non-accession countries, especially
in central Asia and the Caucasus. We will
listen to presentations of successful companies
which use E.Business.
The Second Forum of Women
Entrepreneurs focuses on (1) best practices
in improving women's access to financing
and (2) E-business. These two themes were
decided upon as the most important at the
First Forum of Women Entrepreneurs in 2001.
As a part of the Second Forum other activities
will be organized: the opening of the Exhibition
and Informal Networking Sessions and tomorrow
at a lunch time meeting of the Presidents
of Women Business Associations.
The Forum will also acknowledge
best women entrepreneurs. Tomorrow the UNECE
Award of Excellent Women Entrepreneurs will
be given. These Awards are intended to promote
role models for other women in the region
and show women's contribution to economic
growth and development of SMEs. The Awards
will be given in 6 categories.
Entrepreneurship is a key
element of growth and development prospects
for all countries, and it is most relevant
to transition countries. Countries which
create good conditions for SME development
have higher growth rates and better development
prospects. Despite individual successful
women, and MANY such women are in this room
today, women's entrepreneurial potential
remains largely untapped.
A new UNECE publication
on women's entrepreneurship points out that
in eastern Europe and CIS countries for
which we have data, men start their own
business usually twice as often as women.
This is the case of the Czech Republic where
self-employed women have only 9% in total
employment as compared to 18% for men.
Longer term trends indicate
that during the 1990s the gap between men
and women's entrepreneurial activities widened
in transition economies. This trend contrasts
with trends in developed countries, especially
the United States but also the United Kingdom,
France and others where women-run companies
are the driving force of the SME sector.
The situation of women
entrepreneurs differs by country and depends
on progress in the process of building a
market economy. Accession countries in most
cases (if I exclude the agricultural sector)
do better than non-accession countries.
The very low level of entrepreneurial activities
in most countries in central Asia and in
the Caucasus is an indicator of slow progress
in building market economies.
Women face not only general
barriers for SMEs (weak institutional support
to SMEs, lack of access to credit) but also
gender specific barriers -such as lack of
collateral due to uneven sharing of privatisation
gains, lack of networks and traditional
views on women's role. They have greater
difficulty in obtaining credit, finding
business partners, getting information on
business opportunities.
The gender gap in women's
entrepreneurship is bad economic policy
for a country. But it should also be seen
in the context of United Nations principles
of gender equality. UNECE concerns for women's
entrepreneurs reflect core United Nations
values reflected in the Millennium Declaration
and other United Nations documents, especially
the Beijing Platform for Action and the
agreed conclusions from the Regional Preparatory
Meeting on the 2000 Review of the implementation
of the Beijing Platform, which was organized
by UNECE in January 2000.
A major conclusion in the
area of economy relates to increasing employment
opportunities through fostering women's
access to self-employment and entrepreneurship.
This conclusion, adopted by all UNECE member
States, is the basis for the UNECE programme
on women's entrepreneurship, part of which
is the Forum of Women Entrepreneurs.
The UNECE programme aims
at collecting data and analysing the situation
of women entrepreneurs, raising awareness
of issues and problems, and formulating
policy recommendations to assist governments
in implementing their commitments expressed
in the Beijing Declaration in the area of
economy.
The key elements of the
programme are: The Regional Forum of Women
Entrepreneurs, virtual Gallery of Excellent
Women Entrepreneurs, on-line network of
Women Business Associations, and the Team
of Specialists on Women's Entrepreneurship.
The first UNECE publication
on trends in women's entrepreneurship and
key issues has just been issued and is based
on the materials of the First Forum of Women
Entrepreneurs and meetings of the Team of
Specialists.
It is accompanied by the
exhibition presenting women-run companies,
business network facilities.
UNECE develops the programmes
in cooperation with UNDP, UNIFEM, ILO, other
United Nations organizations and international
organizations, such as ITU, OECD, as well
as sub-regional organizations especially
the Central European Initiative (CEI). I
would like to welcome representatives of
all these organizations. We also develop
cooperation with associations of small businesses
-such as WASME, which is represented at
our Forum today and the International Council
of Small Business, where UNECE is a track
leader for a conference on women's entrepreneurship
(Belfast June 2003).
The cooperation with CEI
is especially close-UNECE co-organizes each
year a Round Table session on women's entrepreneurship
at the CEI Economic Summit, such as in Skopje
2001 and at the forthcoming Summit in Warsaw
(November 2003).
In conclusion I would like
to wish success in your deliberations and
express the wish that the Second Forum of
Women Entrepreneurs will be a contribution
to further strengthening and widening the
economic and social development of our societies.
Thank you.
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