[Index]
Financing
and Information and Communication
Technologies for Women Entrepreneurs
Second UNECE
Forum of Women Entrepreneurs
17-18 March 2003
(Palais des Nations, Room XVIII)
Geneva, 14 March 2003 - On 17-18
March 2003, the UNECE will hold its Second
Forum of Women Entrepreneurs, at which
the majority of participants will be women
entrepreneurs and representatives of women's
business associations from more than 28
countries including Armenia, Azerbaijan,
Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Georgia,
Germany, Kazakhstan, Italy, Malta, Poland,
Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine,
United States and Uzbekistan.
The Forum will gather
over 250 women entrepreneurs, their business
associations, SME policy makers, representatives
of Governments, international organizations
and non-governmental organizations. Many
of the participating women entrepreneurs
are members of the UNECE virtual Portrait
Gallery of Excellent Women Entrepreneurs
(http://www.unece.org/operact/gallery/).
Identified during the
first UNECE Forum as the most important
challenges to be addressed, the main themes
of the Second Forum are financing women's
businesses and access to new technologies.
These issues are especially relevant to
transition countries. Privatization 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 the
woman's role in society also create a
less favourable social climate towards
women entrepreneurs, discriminatory treatment
by the state administration and/or in
the access to bank loans and inadequate
use of new technologies in developing
business activities. Women entrepreneurs
also remain outside most formal and informal
networks, which provide information on
the availability of credit and opportunities
related to e-business.
The Forum will focus
on initiatives and best practices
of Governments, private sector and other
stakeholders aimed at improving access
to financing and new technologies (see
programme).
The Forum will also be attended by regional
banks and international organizations.
The keynote address on the session on
financing will be delivered by Ms. Noreen
Doyle, First Vice-President EBRD. Lessons
from support programmes for women entrepreneurs
in the United States will be presented
by Ms. Julia Weeks, Executive Director,
US National Women's Business Council.
The conclusions from a pilot project of
the Council of Europe Bank (CEB) and Nordic
Investment Bank (NIB) for women entrepreneurs
in the Baltic countries will be presented
by Ms. Siv Hellen, Senior Vice President,
NIB and Maria Seppàlà, CEB.
Initiatives of municipalities to improve
access to financing for women entrepreneurs
will be presented by the provincia di
Milano (Italy). In addition, the experiences
of Women's World Banking from Spain, micro-financing
schemes in Kazakhstan, women's cooperative
banks in Cyprus and Kyrgyzstan, activities
of support centers from Israel and other
countries will be discussed.
The improvement in women's
access to new technologies, especially
e-commerce and the foreign market, is
the second topic of the Forum. The number
of women online has been rapidly increasing
and reached over 50% of all internet users
in the US and around 40% in Sweden and
UK. However, women entrepreneurs in countries
in transition are benefiting less from
using ICT for developing their businesses,
but there is good potential for this situation
to improve. These women are well educated,
as compared to those in many developing
countries and they are also relatively
close to the major world markets.
Successful companies
from Belgium, Turkey, Serbia and Montenegro,
Uzbekistan and countries in central Asia
will share their views on how to use new
technologies for developing business activities.
For further information
please contact:
Ewa Ruminska-Zimny
Regional Adviser on Gender and Economy
United Nations Economic Commission
for Europe
Palais des Nations - Office 329-1
CH - 1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland
Phone: +41(0)22 917 16 98
Fax: +41(0)22 917 00 36
E-mail: [email protected]
Web site: http://www.unece.org/operact/enterp/women/forum2.htm
Ref: ECE/IREEDD/03/P04