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Déjà vu All Over Again

By Néfer Muñoz

The mainly female participants at The Women's Entrepreneurs' Forum must have felt a sense of déjà vu. They were in the middle of an animated discussion and information sharing session yesterday when the translators packed up their things and left.

It must have seemed like the story of their lives. Though eager and ready to enter the business world, women entrepreneurs from the LDCs have found themselves hampered by inadequate access to information on new technologies or on the opportunities available.

The forum was slated to conclude at 6:00 pm local time, but when the hour arrived there was still a great deal left to accomplish on the agenda, as well as drawing up the meeting's conclusions.

But in deference to punctuality - and apparently to bureaucracy as well - the forum's simultaneous interpreters (for English, French and Spanish) withdrew from the meeting at 6:00 pm on the dot, leaving the headphones worn by nearly everyone in the auditorium with dead air.

Despite the inconvenience, the participants pushed ahead with the debate.

''These women from the LDCs are round-the-clock workers,'' Honduran representative Rina de Villeda pointed out in a conversation with TERRAVIVA.

''Women are prepared to fight for their future, but they lack information about the available opportunities, technologies and financial institutions,'' Chitra Radhakishun, UNCTAD representative, said.

Given this situation, a special strategy is needed that connects businesswomen from the LDCs to the necessary information from industrialised countries, Radhakishun pointed out.

In a crowded auditorium at the European Parliament, a diverse group that included men, but mostly consisting of women from Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America discussed the common problems they are facing in their efforts to carve out a space in the world of business.

''We have to distance ourselves from our historic economic models and transform ourselves like Singapore has done, progressing from being poor to developed in just a few years,'' said one forum participant.

The meeting involved three parts: in the first, the women discussed the opportunities they have within the global market, then came debate on access to the latest technology, and, lastly, they talked about financing opportunities.

''One of the main challenges facing women entrepreneurs from LDCs is how to link their business skills to market access,'' explained ambassador Vijay Makhan, Deputy Secretary-General of the Organisation for African Unity.

During the forum, De Villeda presented a project she is promoting in her country to create a ''People's Bank,'' a financial institution that is to facilitate loans for to women entrepreneurs.

The participants in the discussion resolved that it is essential to continue exchanging information in the international sphere and to ensure that promises for cooperation are not mere words.