Encouraging women entrepreneurs

The 7th lifestyle exhibition, featuring the skills of women entrepreneurs and home-based workers, was recently organised by the Women Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Lahore. More than anything else, it highlighted the fact that opportunity and freedom of choice rather than gender are important to the success or failure of what men and women can do.
Some fifty stalls showcasing a number of products from jewellery to clothes, and eatables to furniture were on display, proving the entrepreneurial prowess of women. Indeed, women are playing a more and more visible role in businesses, some for purely economic reasons and others to put their creative abilities to productive use.
It has been possible partly due to the changing social realities and partly because of a helping hand the government has been trying to extend them as part of an admirable policy to empower women. Yet the assistance has been extremely limited in scope.
Being new entrants in the highly competitive field of business, women need training programmes to learn the dos and don'ts of business development. Even more importantly, they need easy access to credit, and also assistance with marketing, especially in the case of export-oriented activity. True, the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA) as well as the First Women Bank have been offering helpful business development services.
And the SME Bank runs a special programme for women, as does the Export Promotion Bureau. But it is also true that these facilities are of small capacity and are focused mostly on urban-based women, who are comparatively better placed to pursue their personal or professional interests. At least three things need to be done to improve the situation.
One, provision of easy credit facility for women interested in small scale businesses; two, greater attention to aspiring entrepreneurs living in smaller cities and villages; and three, proper publicising of training programmes and other facilities that are already available. As a representative body of women entrepreneurs, the Women Chamber of Commerce and Industry is expected not only to advance and protect the interests of its existing members, it must also endeavour to create conditions that would encourage more women to try their entrepreneurial abilities. It must help create opportunities, for those capable to grasp them to put to good use.