DUBAI: A group of prominent women business leaders highlighted the changing landscape of women's entrepreneurship and its role in the GCC economies, calling for legal and administrative reforms for the benefit of the society, at a lecture hosted by the Dubai School of Government (DSG), a research and teaching institution focusing on public policy in the Arab world. Organized as part of DSG's Gender and Public Policy Program, the panel discussion titled ‘Growing Aspirations: Supporting Women's Entrepreneurship in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf' was co-organised with Monitor Group and Al-Sayedah Khadijah Bint Khuwailid Businesswomen Center in Saudi Arabia. The panel discussions covered a recent report titled “Businesswomen in Saudi Arabia: Characteristics, Aspirations, and Challenges in a Regional Context”. The report captures fresh perspectives on the aspirations and challenges of businesswomen in Saudi Arabia as compared to other women entrepreneurs in the Middle East and North Africa. The DSG lecture emphasized on intra-GCC relations and frameworks to address important questions for women specially related to technology integration, legal and administrative reforms as well as access to regional and international markets. The speakers and panelists included Dr May Al-Dabbagh, director of the Gender and Public Policy Program, DSG; Noura Al-Turki and Rebekah Braswell, consultants at Monitor Group. Al-Dabbagh emphasized the need for fostering supportive networks for female entrepreneurs and establishing best practices across the Gulf. She said: “The objective of our event is to have a research driven intra-regional discussion on ways to support women's leadership in business in the GCC. We need to move the discussions beyond women's micro-finance and home-based projects to match the aspirations of businesswomen in the region who are looking to play a leading role in heading small and medium-sized enterprises.” Noura Alturki emphasized the importance of utilising the policy recommendations of the recently published report she co-authored. Alturki said: “Through our discussions, we have highlighted the challenges businesswomen face in Saudi Arabia, including gender-differentiated government regulations, limited access to and use of formal capital, and the need for increased integration of sophisticated marketing and technology tools into business operations.” Dr Basmah Mosleh Omair said: “Since the founding of AlSayedah Khadijah Bint Khawilid Center in November 2004, we have been continuously working on the removal of the obstacles facing women entrepreneurs to empower them economically and therefore, socially. Working with the government sector, we are able to reform current legislations to enable policies to become more gender sensitive.”
