APEC Policy Partnership on Women and the Economy The Women Entrepreneurs in APEC (WE-APEC) Network: Sharing the Foundation, Envisaging the Future

In the lead up to the 2015 APEC Women and the Economy Forum in Manila, a critical and strategic two day-long interactive working session will take place June 23 -24, 2015 in Singapore to advance women’s entrepreneurship across the 21 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) economies. This initiative is developed in collaboration with domestic and APEC-wide government ministries, public sector initiatives, and business networks. As economies work to lay the groundwork for the Women’s Entrepreneurship in APEC (WE-APEC), the aim is to help women entrepreneurs and business owners address barriers that limit their economic potential at both the domestic and regional level. This two-day working session will include a broad spectrum of participants:

1. One to two public sector representatives from the 21 APEC economies who manage women’s entrepreneurship or entrepreneurship writ large,
2. Private sector organizations who consistently invest in women’s entrepreneurship, and
3. Select representatives from women-owned business networks or associations that represent women owned business and entrepreneurs in the 21 APEC economies.

Objectives:

• Share results of a region-wide gap analysis undertaken to evaluate the major public sector services, private sector initiatives and business networks which currently exist to support women’s entrepreneurship in each of the 21 APEC economies.
• Build on the regional gap analysis, establish linkages providing capacity at the economy level where these eco-systems don’t exist and move APEC towards creating a tool that is accessible, dynamic, and viable for use throughout the region
• Lay the groundwork and provide a forum for the discussion of tangible ideas and partnerships amongst private and public sector entities in building a sustainable WE-APEC network.

Anticipated Outcomes:

• Build momentum towards creating an APEC-wide regional network (WE-APEC) that links women-owned enterprises and public and private sector institutions investing in women’s entrepreneurship.
• Champion the growth of these domestic or regional ’eco-systems’ which can best support women’s entrepreneurship and highlight best practices throughout the region.
• Identify the components of a digital platform and distill how to best provide the necessary support to this targeted network of support services and strengthen their delivery to female entrepreneurs and women-owned enterprises.

Background:

This working session is sponsored by the United States, with co-sponsorship from Australia, Canada, Japan, Papua New Guinea, The Philippines, Chinese Taipei and Viet Nam and developed and is implemented by the USAID US-APEC Technical Assistance to Advance Regional Integration (US-ATAARI) activity.

Across APEC, networks of public and private sector stakeholders play a critical role in expanding domestic and international public and private sector opportunities for women entrepreneurs and business owners that previously seemed inaccessible. Ultimately, these networks can help women both grow their enterprises and develop the contacts and skills necessary to manage their businesses successfully over the long-term. The WE-APEC initiative, developed in collaboration with existing networks within and among APEC member economies, aims at helping women entrepreneurs and business owners address barriers that limit their potential. In the context of this WE-APEC initiative , US-ATAARI undertook a gap analysis, which identified the business networks, private-sector initiatives, and government services that serve these priority areas for women-owned enterprises on both the domestic and regional level. Thus, in addition to championing the growth of these networks and support services vis-à-vis a regional entity which pulls from strengths of these economies, this analysis is also aimed at providing capacity at the economy level where these eco-systems don’t exist.

Participation:

If you are part of an organization that has been leading work in this space, your participation will be a highly valued component in establishing a sustainable WE-APEC Network, particularly as economies look to develop cross-sector partnerships and build capacity. We kindly request that confirm your attendance no later than Wednesday, June 10, 2015 to Ms. Marwa Abdou (mabdou@nathaninc.com) and Ms. Ann Katsiak (akatsiak@nathaninc.com) of US-ATAARI. Please do not hesitate to contact us should you have any questions.