5th Regional Steering Committee Meeting and Consultation Workshop of the project “Promoting Women Empowerment for Inclusive and Sustainable Industrial Development in the MENA Region”

3 and 4 May 2018, Barcelona. Since February 2015, UNIDO is implementing a UfM labelled flagship project in the MENA region with the objective to enhance women’s economic inclusion and thus to create the conditions for a sustainable and inclusive growth by harnessing the great potential of women entrepreneurs in the MENA region. The project “Promoting Women Empowerment (PWE) for Inclusive and Sustainable Industrial Development in the MENA Region” (phase I), is funded by the Italian Government.

The project approach is holistic and encompasses three levels of intervention:

1) Nurturing, facilitating and accompanying the policy dialogue between key stakeholders with the objective to produce a set of recommendations and actions points endorsed by all parties to promote women entrepreneurship in the region,

2) Strengthening the capacities of national business women’s associations in providing better quality and demand-driven services to women entrepreneurs to create and grow their businesses and

3) Promoting promising women-led investments in the target countries through training, coaching, identification and facilitation of business partnerships opportunities and access to finance.

The project’s first phase was initially set to end in July 2016 but was extended until May 2018, in order to strengthen and scale up the activities and integrate Algeria in the project’s country coverage.

During these 2 days in Barcelona, the Regional Steering Committee of the project, which was established to advise on the overall implementation of the project, draw conclusions and presented the lessons learned from Phase I. The report of the implementation of the first phase of the project was as well presented during the meeting.

The Steering Committee also formulated recommendations for scaling up the project, which were presented in a Consultation Workshop that took place in the 4 May. This Workshop had the objective of presenting the project’s second phase, and to discuss and consolidate additional recommendations from national partners.