New Arab Women Forum to support women entrepreneurship || Newspapers (Arabic)

The sixth annual New Arab Women Forum opened last Friday, the 1st of March under the auspices of first lady Wafa Suleyman. The forum tackled on the first day various issues related to Arab women and their interests, starting from the role of women entrepreneur who need to be recognised as the new engine for economic growth in the Arab world, to defining the current environment for Arab business women entrepreneur. The discussions also included the currently available opportunities to motivating entrepreneurship spirit among women in addition to developing an enabling environment for creativity as well as discussing the role of different parties in stimulating the women’s initiatives.
The subsequent sessions focused on ways of creating women entrepreneurs and the needed personal characteristics, and the importance for the educational sector to supply society with university students with the needed skills, in addition to the role of trainings in capacity building. Discussion sessions also focused on the role of big enterprises in supporting women initiatives in projects that have social and development dimensions.

In a keynote address delivered by satellite during the first day, Carlos Ghoson, the president of Renault-Nissan Company, pointed out to the impressive gains women have made in higher education in the Arab countries indicating that in Lebanon, 54 percent of university students are women, however, they only account for 25% percent of the workforce, and only 8% of leadership positions

Further discussions pointed out to the fact that women’s opportunities to get a bank loan is much lower than those of men, since usually it is hard or even impossible for a woman to acquire a loan for starting  up her private enterprise since the bank wrongly evaluate her potentials and capabilities in running and managing a business.

Day two started with a session that focused on success stories of women entrepreneurs, moving later to discuss how best to learn from regional and international practices, policies and programs supporting business women. In the course of this discussion, participants reviewed the efficiency of business incubators and their role in launching new enterprises and how women can benefit from the creation of such incubators.
Day two also witnessed the announcement of winners of WOW prizes namely the following;

• Civil Service: Lina Jubran – Kun Hadi, Lebanon
• Scientific Research and Technology: Dr. Khawla Al-Krayyea’ –President of the research center at the King Fahed National Center for Children’s tumors, KSA
• Business Entrepreneurship: Engineer Sarah Akbar – Executive Director of Kuwait Energy, Kuwait
• Business: Randa Bdeir, president of e-banking and card services at Bank Audi, Lebanon
• Media: Nima Abou Wardeh, Founder of Cashy.me, Jordan
• Artistic Expression: Reine Abbas, Co-founder of Wixel Studios, Lebanon

Source: Al-Mustaqbal, Al-Akhbar, Al-Nahar, Al-Safir, Al-Diyar 4 March 2013