The United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) has held a conference promoting women in business in the Middle East and North Africa.
'Promoting women's empowerment for inclusive and sustainable industrial development in North Africa and Middle East' was held at the Hotel Le Meridien in Amman, Jordan, yesterday (July 20th 2016) and featured speakers from Jordan, Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia, Palestine and parts of Europe in a bid to tap into the potentially vast pool of potential businesswomen and female entrepreneurs the region could be capitalising on.
Female representation in plastics is low on a global scale and not just in the Middle East but initiatives like this could help improve some of the data gathered by UNIDO.
The MENA region, compared to the rest of the world, has a high unemployment rate, with female unemployment coming in at 40 per cent. Female-led entrepreneurship is also low, as only 12 per cent of formal SMEs in the region are female-owned.
UNIDO puts the lack of participation from females in business activity in the region down to difficulties in accessing business support services and networks, difficulty accessing finances for new business ventures, lack of education and training opportunities and an under-equipped legal framework.
UNIDO
The organisation believes bringing more females into business could result in a 34 per cent increase in GDP for some countries and that productivity could rise by one quarter if discriminatory barriers were taken down.
"Investing in women’s economic empowerment will help to sustain not only economic growth which is a driver of poverty reduction, but will enhance women social inclusion and integration to reduce gender inequalities, gaps and strengthen, as a consequence, women’s confidence, leadership and voice in the private and business sector," UNIDO stated.
UNIDO has joined forces with the Italian Development Cooperation Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and the Union for the Mediterannean in a large-scale project to help women in the MENA region reach their potential in business.
Giampaolo Cantini, Director General of Italian Development Cooperation, said: "The aim of the project is to train women in entrepreneurial skills and to assist and accompany them in establishing businesses and in establishing business associations."
"I think the UNIDO project is the right choice meaning investing in the mid-long term," added Italian politican Emma Bonino. "Investing in women, in my opinion, is one of the best investments you can have."
And the project is already yielding success stories. Huda El Kadry, Al Majmoua, Lebanon, has been applying the help she has received from UNIDO to her work, while Hayat Tammary, also from Al Majmoua, said she was "encouraged and started dreaming of going to the next level" to build her own factory some day.