Female participation crucial for growth ambitions
Bangladesh will not achieve double-digit GDP growth without the participation of women in business and economic activities, said Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi yesterday.
At present, only 7.2 per cent of small and medium business owners are women.
“This is not very impressive. We still have a long way to go to reduce the gap,” said at the opening session of the Corporate Connect 2020 Conference & Business Fair.
The World Bank and the commerce ministry organised the event in collaboration with WEConnect International and Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi) at the capital’s Radisson Blu Dhaka Water Garden hotel.
The government is taking initiatives to improve the business culture for women, Munshi said, while lauding female students for outdoing their male counterparts in the last decade.
“The conference provides a platform for the government, private sector and institutional partners to support women entrepreneurs so that they may make a mark on both the local and global economy.”
Munshi hopes the programme will encourage companies to buy from women-owned businesses which provide innovative home-grown products and services.
Women-owned businesses in Bangladesh need better access to markets and corporate value chains in order to boost the country’s inclusive growth strategy and create more jobs, said Wendy Werner, country manager of the International Finance Corporation.
In Bangladesh, only 5 per cent of formal micro, small and medium-sized companies are owned by women, she said.
“As an investor in emerging markets, the IFC strongly believes that to enable companies and economies to grow, we must reduce gaps between women and men in the private sector,” she added.
Riding on the success of a recently completed pilot, the WB and WEConnect yesterday launched a project that aims to help 1,200 women-owned businesses potentially connect with large local and multinational corporate buyers, a WB statement said.
The project, supported by We-Fi, will help enterprises access value chains and expand their business.
The Washington-based multilateral lender provided capacity building training to more than 150 women entrepreneurs and facilitated links with large corporations through various networking opportunities during the pilot project, which led to the country’s first Supplier Diversity Advisory Committee.
Nearly 90 per cent of the beneficiaries reported improvements in their businesses.
“The development of supply chain strategies is critical to the success of any business but women-owned firms are often overlooked as key participants,” said Caren Grown, a WB senior director.
Over the next three years, the project will help create a database for Bangladeshi women entrepreneurs in order to increase their participation in corporate value chains.
If more women-owned businesses are connected with corporate buyers, both the female entrepreneurs and Bangladesh as a while will benefit, Grown said.
The conference, where discussions were held on how to best diversify value chains, was attended by policymakers and business leaders. A business fair was also organised to help women build networks and access corporate procurement opportunities.
On a global scale, women-owned small and medium businesses earn less than 1 per cent of the money spent by large corporations and governments on suppliers.
Connecting women entrepreneurs with corporate buyers would help diversify value chains while delivering equitable, broad-based economic growth.
“We call on other buyers and women business owners to join the movement for supplier diversity as we work to achieve gender equality,” said Elizabeth A Vazquez, chief executive officer and Co-Founder of WEConnect.
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