On 25th June 2009, CIPE Pakistan organised a major Women Leadership Conference in Lahore. This is the third year since January 2007 when CIPE initiated its Women Entrepreneurship Program by organizing a roundtable that engaged over 100 women entrepreneurs from across Pakistan in policy dialogue.

Learning that one of the reasons for lack of women’s participation in the mainstream economic activities was the non-existence of gender-focused business associations, in the past three years, CIPE’s women development initiative has kept progressing by providing grants to Sarhad Chamber in North West Frontier Province and Lahore Chamber in Punjab for their specific women entrepreneurship development programs. These two initiatives brought over 600 women entrepreneurs in the network of business associations.

The Women Leadership Conference was an extension of the above mentioned program. It brought together over 150 women leaders from across Pakistan – from Karachi to Gilgit –representing businesses, public sector, community development and academia. They came together for inculcating the concept of leadership by listening to our international speakers Dr Muhammad Azam Roomi and Ms Despina Pascal.

Our Chief Guest Ms Seema Aziz, an entrepreneur and renowned community worker who is an icon for many women leaders, said that:

“Times have gone by when women were forced to stay out of economic activities. Number of women in the workforce has been increasing over the last ten years; however, a lot needs to be done to bring maximum potential of women into the mainstream economic activities.”

The event was widely covered by both print and broadcast media, including Business Recorder, Daily Times, and The News.

One of our participants, Jehan Ara, President of the Pakistan Software Houses Association, also wrote an excellent blog that covers the event in its entirety.

Themes: Pakistan, women entrepreneurship, women leadership conference

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