Business women attend Geneva forum
Kate Bonello Sullivan and Rosanne Galea, honorary life president and president of the Malta Association of Women in Business (MAWB) respectively, recently attended the Second Regional Forum of Women Entrepreneurs organised by the United Nations'...
Kate Bonello Sullivan and Rosanne Galea, honorary life president and president of the Malta Association of Women in Business (MAWB) respectively, recently attended the Second Regional Forum of Women Entrepreneurs organised by the United Nations' Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) in Geneva. Their flights were sponsored by Air Malta.
The annual forum is aimed at raising the awareness of the conditions and problems facing women entrepreneurs, promoting dialogue, expanding business contacts and networks.
The Second Forum brought together over 300 participants from 39 UNECE countries, including women entrepreneurs, members of the UNECE gallery of Excellent Women Entrepreneurs, representatives of women's business associations, representatives of government, academic circles, the private sector and international organisations.
The main theme of the Second Forum was focused on improving women's access to financing and e-business through the initiatives and best practices of governments, private sector and other stakeholders. These issues, particularly relevant to transition countries, had been identified at the First Women's Forum as the most important challenges to be addressed.
UNECE said that privatisation resulted in the redistribution of public assets in favour of men, leaving women with less collateral to apply for financial resources.
The traditional perceptions about women's role in society also create a less favourable social climate towards women entrepreneurs, by discriminatory treatment from state administration and/or access to bank loans and inadequate use of new technologies, especially e-commerce, and the foreign market was the second topic of the forum.
The number of women online has been rapidly increasing and reaches over 50 per cent of all Internet users in the US and around 40 per cent in Sweden and the UK.
However women entrepreneurs in transition countries are benefiting less from using ITC for developing their businesses however there is excellent potential for this to improve.