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| News from IFC GEM and the World Bank Group Global Gender News Inspirational Quote This Month's Spotlight | | Call for Consultant CVs Events Links to Resources Read PDF version of this newsletter |
| Global Summit of Women in Mexico Promotes Wider Economic Participation Nine hundred twenty five delegates from 75 nations joined the fifteenth annual Global Summit of Women in Mexico City to exchange ideas and strategies on starting and expanding a business enterprise. For fifteen years, the Summit has celebrated women’s leadership by bringing together women leaders from around the world. Mexico’s President Vicente Fox welcomed the record crowd that gathered at the opening ceremony of this year’s Summit on June 23. read more >> |
| Uganda's Minister of State for Investment Launches the GEM Gender and Growth Assessment, Holds Advocacy Workshops for Ugandan Women | |
| More than 120 Ugandan women and men attended the launch of the GEM Gender and Growth Assessment for Uganda in Kampala on May 18. The Assessment suggested that Uganda can grow faster by unleashing the economic power of women through speeding up the current process of removing barriers to business. read more >> | |
| Kuwait appointed its first female cabinet minister this June, one month after parliament voted to let women vote and stand for office. Massouma al-Mubarak, a political science professor and columnist, was named as planning minister and minister for administrative development. The recent changes in Kuwait mean that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are the only Gulf States that do not give women the right to vote or stand for public office. |
| The Middle East and North Africa Business Women's Summit in Tunisia gave more than 200 Arab women entrepreneurs from 15 countries across the region a sense of validation in their career choices and practical advice for growing their business. The women gathered from May 24 to May 26 for three days of panel discussions, roundtables, and business skills workshops. The participants connected with women from all parts of the Arab world, shared their experiences, discussed common challenges, and learned how other Arab women have worked to achieve their place in the Arab business world. |
| Thirty-five women in Hail, Saudi Arabia graduated in April from a training program that will prepare them to enter the job market. The women graduated | |
| in cooking, small-scale food industries, tailoring and fashion design after attending a three-month program. The training program was organized by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA). ESCWA has launched two projects in Saudi Arabia, both of which are directed toward Saudi women and are to be conducted in different parts of the Kingdom. | |
| The conference on "Supporting African Women in Business: For an Economic and Social Leadership" gathered almost 750 participants from 20 countries on April 18 and 19. As the first pan-African event in the field of women's entrepreneurship development, the conference was a great chance to raise awareness, develop strategies for cooperation and coordination, and come up with recommendations on how to more effectively promote women's entrepreneurship development and networking. |
| Zoe Dean-Smith, the Managing Director of Gone Rural Swaziland is this edition's GEM for her inspiring commitment to uplifting the rural women in Swaziland, increasing awareness of HIV/AIDS and enhancing local communities through her handcrafts business. Born and raised in Swaziland, Zoe is the public face behind Gone Rural, one of Swaziland's top three producers of handmade products and the country's most successful handcraft business. The organization provides rural women who would otherwise have few employment options with an income that greatly improves their quality of life and expands opportunities for their children. Today Gone Rural works with 772 rural women in 14 groups in the rural areas of Swaziland, and it employs 22 staff in at the workshop in Malkerns. The women create high-quality tableware, | |
| floor mats, baskets and clay pots that are exported to about 525 retail outlets worldwide. In 2004, Gone Rural won a World Bank Development Marketplace award of US$10,000 to facilitate HIV/AIDS workshops for their 772 women. Zoe has been the organization's tireless champion, advertising its work internationally and helping secure orders with companies such as the Conran UK stores in Paris and London. Zoe was one of the key speakers at the IFC workshop for Grassroots Business Organizations in Washington, DC in April 2005, where she met with senior World Bank officials, including the outgoing President James D. Wolfensohn to discuss her work and raise awareness about the devastating effects of HIV/AIDS in Swaziland. | |