Supporting Small Projects for Women “The workshop of Empowering Women to Conduct Their Private Business” Come to an End [Archives:1999/33/Business & Economy]
August 16 1999
Ismail Al-Ghabiry
Yemen Times
Under the title of “Planning and Managing Small Enterprises” a seminar, held in the period from August 7-10 1999, was organized by the Ministry of Planning and Development. The seminar was attended by more than 70 women representatives from different governorates. foreign organizations and women societies. The seminar was dedicated to providing women with knowledge and that will enable them to plan and manage their jobs effectively and efficiently. A discussion about the experiences of Lebanon and Palestine in the field of financing small projects and enterprises was also held in the seminar. Besides a discussion of different papers which make women aware of the importance of small projects in the development process. The participants also discussed the hurdles and obstacles facing small projects and the methods that can be used to overcome them.
Mr. Mutahar Al-Abbasi, the Deputy Minister for Macro-Planning and Studies, said that the inauguration of such a workshop is a sign of the initiatives of the Administration of Women Affairs in the Ministry of Planning and Development which aims at opining channels of continuos contact with organizations of urban society that are interested in women issue and to enhance their role in the society. The number of women participated in this workshop from our country are 16 from all the governorates. “Women should be given the chance to polish their merits and express their knowledge which will enable them to handle their private projects effectively and efficiently” the Deputy Minister for Macro-Planning and studies said. He also added that we have tried to coordinate with different organizations working here such as SDF and SEDU to enhance and strengthen the support for women.
Regarding the Lebanese experience Randa El Husseini, the Program Manager in the UNIFEM, said: I work for the UNIFEM which is an activist organization working for women and coordinates with other sister agencies and other non-governmental organizations, national and international and with governmental institutions for the improvement and advancement of women conditions in the whole world. I came to present our experience in Lebanon in economic development for women and improving the education and awareness in health. Our experience dates back to 94 and my colleague Aitemad Muhanna, United Project Coordinator, came to talk about the UNIFEM experience in Palestine.
About the objectives of the workshop she said: the objectives of the workshop are to share experiences among UN agencies and governmental institutions, to introduce participating women to the business awareness concept and as I said the main thing we are aiming at is developing business plans by learning together with the participants how to generate business ideas, how to put a market plan, how to put production steps required and then try to sell and negotiate with institutions who were present at this workshop for the financing requirements because UNIFEM can do a lot for giving access to services which are not financed. I am really impressed by the speech of his excellency the Deputy Minister of Planning who said “we should facilitate the role of women and at the same time soften the conditions required by banks and credit institutions for enhancing access to women who do not have any guarantees for creditors because they are credit worthy and also for identifying then legal requirements and legal steps for establishing a business in the formal sector, as it is very week.”Regarding the point of strengthening the women relationship here in Yemen and other countries she said: I believe in the sisterhood and brotherhood across the Arab world. I hope the achievements that were done in the past years and the strong commitment of the government will be translated on the ground. Women will be given opportunities in economy and political seats. Encouragement is not sufficient, we should prepare the ground and have an active participation on the ground. We should have an active participation on the city level and on the level of villages. We should also have an active participation and exposure of women to the political arena and at the same time have this strong support for them to have a good presentable presentation at different constitutional institutions. In her draft in this workshop she talked about the UNIFEM trends to support women empowerment, institutional buildings, support two enterprise development, engendering statistics and in particular about the problems we face in our humble experience in Lebanon to learn from each other. About her idea of the Yemeni women she said that she had a good impression about them through the workshop.
Aitemad Muhanna, The UNIFEM Project Coordinator in Gaza and Palestine is also a participant in this workshop. She said that her project has been implemented in Gaza for three years. It can be considered as an implemented show, training women on macro-enterprises, on technical skills that are needed for starting up or improving enterprises or income generating activities that could be developed. We have a good experience. We could build the capacity of the ministry of social affairs’ staff, the co-partner in the implementing agency of the project. When we stared implementing the project the ministry did not have a vision towards women’s enterprises. There was no clear understanding of the importance of income generating and macro-enterprises for women. Then we stressed the following:
First, to eradicate poverty which is the main strategy and the main concern of the Palestinian government, second the ministry interest to integrate women into the whole structure of the government. By doing this women are trained and then they are able to start their own business. Another good indicator of success is in advocacy and media. We could integrate media which used to be male dominated and mostly concerned with political issues. Now the development of women’s role is part of the media activities. We all the time advocate women for taking a role in enterprises. By organizing this workshop here in Yemen I see that the main objective of this workshop was to encourage women through women’s organizations in Yemen and to get the basic skills of starting up a new businesses or to encourage women to participate in the private sector while the objective of our participation as UNIFEM in this workshop was to present our experience as we belong to Arab countries and we in a way or another face the same problems like political conflicts, poverty and other things. This workshop have a strong focus on women to encourage them and give them access to education, health, employment, technical skills and political sphere to be part of the political life. Women should not be concentrated in households. Women should also be aware of this and the media should play a vital role in this. I am advising the Yemenis’ NGOs, people, decision makers to use a combination of strategies, concentrating on education and health as the most important thing and give women opportunities to participate in the private sector.
The workshop came out with a number of recommendations stated in the last session. A number of certificates were also distributed for the participants. The recommendations pointed at requesting the Ministry of planning and development to continue holding some programs and objective training sessions that aim at providing women with knowledge that will help them manage and handle their own enterprises, consultation centers should be established to give advice and support to women who run independent business, extending the duration of paying loans back to banks from 3 years to 5 years, attempts should be made to let Yemen participate in the regional unity for supporting the small enterprises and coordinate with the United Nations Fund for women development and requesting NGOs and non-NGOs for women to cooperate with each other and to exchange information, experts and experiences.
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