Business Exchange For um: Bahraini and American Experience
November 2-3, 2008-11-04
Kingdom of Bahrain
The Business Exchange For um: Bahraini and American Experience held on 2-3 October at the Kingdom of Bahrain to enhance the potentials of businesswomen in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and reinforce the role of women in the decision making. The event was organised by the Bahrain Businesswomen Society (BBS) and supported by the Council for Arab Businesswomen (CAB), Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), Economic Development Board and Bahrain Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
President of the CAB Hussa Saad Al Abdulla Al -Salem Al- Sabah and Foreign Affairs Consultant at Holland and Knight Julie Waddle Minerva and many other local, regional and international experts participated in the deliberations and paper discussions.
The forum in its second and third days tackled various woman-oriented topics that are related to business and women empowerment in economic and investment as well as promote females to be appointed in top positions.
The sessions of the first day tackled many topics including “Active Leadership, Decision Making, Management and Challenges of Successful Strategies” that associated Arab and foreign experts and headed by Shaikha Dr Hussa that stressed the importance of exchange experience between Arab and Western world, especially in America to enhance the image of Arab women in general and Bahraini and Gulf women in particular. She also called for the reinforcement of the Joint e-Network project.
The Free Trade Agreement with America was discussed as an American expert said that the agreement could open new trade channels between the two parties and opportunities for businesswomen to explore new projects. The expert hailed the strength and courage of Bahraini women, especially entrepreneurs who are keen to face challenges.
The second day of the forum discussed the government and its support to small and medium projects, as the forum stressed upon the government to allocate a percentage of its purchasing budget to buy from those organisations. On this regard MP Dr Abdulaziz Abul highlighted that Bahrain had no programme or policy to adopt the initiative and highlighted the need to issue a law aiming at supporting small and medium businesses.
The Executive Chairman of Tamkeen Abdulellah Al Qasimi said that Tamkeen was formed to create new job opportunities for local manpower and make Bahraini employees the first recruitment options. He said that 90 per cent of foreign investments go to construction sector, banking and finance and communication and transportation and 51 per cent of companies prefer Bahrain because of its strategic location.
United Nation Organisations for Industrial Development Dr Hashim Hussain said that the success ratio of small businesses reach 20 per cent in the US and 40 per cent in Europe , while it is up to 70 per cent in Bahrain. Hussain said that challenges facing medium companies in Bahrain are the same at all Middle Eastern countries.
The sponsors gave briefed on their products and services including the Women Gateway that presented a paper on this ambitious project to empower women in technology and be the gateway and a source of information for all women through the internet.
The following are the forum’s recommendations
1- Seeking mechanisms to enable women to reach the legislative authority to tackle discriminated laws
2- Associating women in the decision making in the private and public sectors and NGOs
3- Pushing for a law to promote the allocation 5% of government purchases budget to buy product from small and medium businesses.
4- Creating up-to-date database on gender equality
5- Improving curricula to promote talents of students, especially females.
6- Highlighting pioneer experiences by women
7- Determining certain criteria in selecting women for top posts
8- Reinforcing the role of media for the issuing of laws that empower women
9- Reinforcing the role of networks and channels to empower women.
10- Benefiting from telecommunication in the enhancement of networking
11- Introducing more policies to support small and medium businesses
12- Forming women delegation to promote businesses run by women
The participants agreed that BSS will follow up the implementation of the recommendations.
List of speeches and papers available
Ms. Afnan Al Zayani Speech
Paper of Ms. Barbra Kasov
Paper by Ms. Julie Kirk
Paper of Women Gateway