Author Archives: Hammad Siddiqui

Women’s Business Associations Moving Forward in South Asia

Posted on 13 May, 2013 | Leave a comment

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“The sessions in Dhaka and Kathmandu helped develop structure and set direction and proper governance guidance to our business associations, which usually tend to be run according to individual chairperson’s goals. Setting vision and mission based on a membership needs assessment is such a simple idea that we learned…so basic but yet hardly used as we tend to overlook membership requirements in our day to day chamber activities and operations” – Rezani Aziz, Sri Lanka

Despite severe challenges, women’s business associations are playing effective roles in promoting interests of their members. However, CIPE has observed that most women’s business associations in South Asia are struggling to perform optimally.

CIPE took this challenge as an opportunity to work with a selected group of eleven business associations in the South Asia region, aiming at strengthening institutional capacity to help them become stronger advocates for their members. In the first phase of this project, CIPE organized a two-day session for the group in Dhaka in January 2013.

The second workshop for the same group was held in Kathmandu, Nepal on 22 and 23 April. After the Dhaka session, the Peshawar Women Chamber of Commerce & Industry embarked upon an advocacy project to identify barriers to women’s entrepreneurship in the terror-affected Khyber Pakhtoon Khawa region, while the Lahore Chamber of Commerce & Industry conducted a survey focusing on their 600 women members. These two case studies from Pakistan were presented to participants in Kathmandu.

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Pakistan’s Changing Media Landscape

Posted on 6 May, 2013 | Leave a comment

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“Social media has no reins. I believe soon deprived people will learn how to express their feelings effectively through social media” – Shabbir H Kazmi, Senior Business Journalist 

According to the Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index, Pakistan stands at 159th position among 179 countries. After independence from British India in 1947, media in Pakistan was fully controlled by the government. Successive dictatorships and also democratic governments used censorship and other means to gag media in the country.

In 2002, after the formation of the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority, broadcast media flourished, with large numbers of FM radio stations and TV channels starting to operate throughout the country.

In the past five years of democratic government, the media has become more liberal and vibrant. However, A 2012 report by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan expressed the rising incidences of violence against the news media.

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New Rules for State-Owned Enterprises in Pakistan

Posted on 21 March, 2013 | Comments Off
Pakistan Steel Mills (Photo: The Express Tribune)

Pakistan Steel Mills (Photo: The Express Tribune)

Public sector companies in Pakistan are now losing nearly $4 billion per year — a significant drain on government resources and the overall economy.

Exactly a year ago, CIPE Pakistan Country Director Moin Fudda quoted the Ministry of Finance in a blog post as saying “Inefficient public sector enterprises are draining fiscal resources and choking the economy.” CIPE had been working closely with two key regulators, the Ministry of Finance and Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan, to help Pakistan develop a corporate governance framework for state owned enterprises that could help stop the profuse bleeding of government resources.

A presentation made by former State Bank Governor Salim Raza at The Institute of Chartered Accountants Pakistan suggests some key landmarks for Pakistan’s sinking economy. The presentation suggests that by 2017, Pakistan needs to grow at a sustainable rate of 7 percent a year, the tax to GDP ratio needs to be increased by 15 percent annually, the peak energy gap needs to be reduced significantly, and public sector debt must be shrunk by reducing losses by state-owned enterprises (SOEs).

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Celebrating Women’s Empowerment in Pakistan

Posted on 7 March, 2013 | Comments Off
Chamber professional development attendees at a session in Lahore in 2011. (Photo: CIPE)

Chamber professional development attendees at a session in Lahore in 2011. (Photo: CIPE)

2013 is a year to remember in the history of Pakistan. For the first time a democratically elected government is completing its five-year term. Although the country suffered from issues such as terrorism, corruption, and weak governance, the participation of women in the democratic process and economy has shown some improvement. For example, in general elections in 1990-91, less than 1 percent of candidates elected to the national assembly were women, a proportion which increased to 22.2 percent in the 2008 election.

Also in the last five years, women’s business associations got a voice in the country. Until December 2006, women in Pakistan were not allowed to form women-focused business associations. CIPE worked closely with the Ministry of Commerce to enact a new Trade Organization Ordinance with provisions for the formation of women’s chambers. The election of two women members on boards of city chambers was also made mandatory.

Now there are eight registered women’s chambers in Pakistan with an approximate membership of over 2,000 women entrepreneurs and business owners. As part of CIPE capacity building program, several workshops and consultative sessions have been conducted to help board members learn tools to ensure sustainability, increase membership, and conduct effective policy advocacy.

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South Asian Women Entrepreneurs Come Together in Bangladesh

Posted on 18 December, 2012 | 2 Comments

“Studies show that investing in women is a high yield investment as gender equality in access to education, healthcare, political participation, and economic participation is key to a country’s competitiveness and prosperity. It is a fact that women-run small and medium-sized enterprises (SME’s) drive economic growth and create jobs. This is true in my country and it is true around the world.” – Melanne S Verveer and Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asia.

According to the World Bank, South Asia has the largest number of economically deprived and undernourished people in the world. Despite this it also has the world’s largest working age population and 25% of world’s middle-class consumers. If stabilized, the benefits of economic growth in the region would not only help alleviate policy, but would also extend to developed countries by supplying quality goods and services. On top of everything, peace in this region will also be ensured.

One of the ways to improve the economic conditions of South Asian countries is engaging women in economic development through entrepreneurial activities. To help support women interested in entrepreneurship, the U.S. State Department organized a two-day South Asia Women’s Entrepreneurship Symposium in Dhaka on 9-10 December. One hundred and twenty women entrepreneurs from eleven countries in the region, including Central Asia, participated in the event, which focused on creating cross-border linkages between women entrepreneurs and leaders in South Asia. During the symposium, participants in breakout sessions discussed the challenges and opportunities for women entrepreneurs in technology, governance, trade, and entrepreneurship.

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Unpacking Corruption in Pakistan

Posted on 12 December, 2012 | Comments Off

Pakistan is considered one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Transparency International’s recent survey ranks the country 134th on the Corruption Perception Index, with only 42 countries scoring worse. It is encouraging that Pakistanis now openly talk about corruption: according to a recent public opinion poll conducted by Gallup Pakistan asking about the most disliked thing in Pakistan, corruption topped in the list at 16 percent.

Various donor agencies have been working in Pakistan for many years on reducing the menace of corruption. Some major reform work has been done in the Federal Board of Revenue, the department that collects taxes on income, sales, and property. Under a grant from the British Government, e-filing of these taxes was introduced in 2005. That reduced the interaction between the tax officer and taxpayer and also said to have reduced the opportunity for corruption.

Having said this, many sources of potential corruption remain. For example, newspaper reports suggest that in the past four years, Pakistan’s five large public sector organizations lost Rs 393 billion ($4 billion USD).

Despite an increase in media reports on corruption, until recently the business community was reluctant to speak publicly about corruption that is rampant in other segments of Pakistani society. When CIPE started talking to the business community about its role in reducing corruption, the response of businesspeople was lukewarm. They were concerned that if they started advocating for reducing corruption, they might be penalized by the government agencies, and as a result might end up losing more money.

To help bring attention to the problem, the Young Entrepreneurs Forum (YEF), which is a part of Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry, earlier this year launched a corruption perception survey, funded by a small grant from CIPE Pakistan.

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Looking Back on Global Entrepreneurship Week in Pakistan

Posted on 4 December, 2012 | Comments Off

Our Youth is highly motivated, unaware, lacks counseling and guidance. Do not have access to information and available opportunities. Participating Entrepreneurs including some from Pakistan’s top 100 have agreed to provide mentoring, office space and training for start-ups and pool in some sort of seed fund. GEW provided an opportunity to bridge gap between aspiring entrepreneurs and other stakeholders. Now we have a roadmap to tackle the issue of low entrepreneurial activity in Pakistan.  (Kashif M. Khan / President / Global Entrepreneurship Week- Pakistan Initiative of Kauffman Foundation)

Global Entrepreneurship Week was never celebrated in Pakistan in a big way. Only last year, the Center for International Private Enterprise organized two major events in Karachi and Islamabad by engaging university students in a debate on “What it takes to be an Entrepreneur.” The Islamabad event was organized in partnership with Young Entrepreneur’s Forum at Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry.

Throughout the year, the CIPE Pakistan team continued speaking about GEW in meetings with partners and at networking events. As a result, this year there were at least 20 events were organized in the country. Most of these events were initiated by the Kaufman Foundation (supported by the U.S. Embassy) and CIPE. It is hoped that from two events to 20 in one year will create a chain reaction, and GEW 2013 will be celebrated with even more enthusiasm.

I would like to talk about CIPE events and what did we do differently. First of all, CIPE events were organized in partnership with local non-profit organizations. This resulted in improving partners’ understanding about the issues related to low entrepreneurial activity in Pakistan, as well as building their capacity to conduct such programs independently in the following years.

The next significant aspect of the CIPE activities was the design in which, rather than listening to a panel of experts, participants shared their ideas on entrepreneurial issues and possible solutions for Pakistan.

CIPE also encouraged teachers from various universities to attend and listen to what their students had to say on the improvement of teaching styles and the entrepreneurship curriculum.  One of the most interesting events, in Peshawar, was organized in partnership with the Peshawar Women Chamber of Commerce & Industry and focused on the choice of an entrepreneurial career by girls living in Northern Pakistan.

To spread the word on social media, CIPE created a unique hashtag #GEWPK. In addition to photo sharing on Facebook, CIPE events were tweeted live and in addition to coverage in local media, a number of bloggers covered the events, including:

Fahmina Arshad

Zainab Khawaja

Ali Suleman

BSO Forum

Ahsan Umar

CIPE hopes that partners will continue momentum started during GEW and that next year there will be more independent events across the country.

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