KUWAIT: The Kuwait Economic Society (KES) hosted the Women's Leadership and Entrepreneurship Program for the year 2010 and 2011 at the Palms Hotel on Monday. The event was held in collaboration with the Business and Professional Women Club - Kuwait and was sponsored by the MEPI program. The program's goal was to create a suitable environment to allow women the opportunity to develop their investment and commerce abilities. The program also hoped to increase the level of awareness regarding the importance of women in the private sector and small businesses.

Deborah Jones, the US Ambassador to Kuwait started the event by acknowledging how much of an honor it was to launch the KES Women's Leadership and Entrepreneurship program. "KES has been such a leader in supporting business women and empowering them," Jones said. "They can create opportunities to help women achieve their goals and help the Kuwait of the future. Since 2002, MEPI has invested more than half of its funding advancement toward women participating in the political process, providing access to educational opportunities and increasing the role and profile of women in the private sector and public offices.

Jones added that the government should not be the driving force. "Productive employment needs to come from the private sector," she said. While delivering a speech at the event, chairwoman of KES, MP Dr Rola Dashti said "our goal is to promote small business enterprises. As we focus on women, we believe that women need to become part of the economic decision making process, which we feel is lacking in our society.

We can achieve this in three parts," she said. "First; empower and encourage women to engage in business, to take the risk and to network and move forward. Second is to build this capacity through the use of training. The third step is to create a network of shared experiences that will encourage and help women move forward.

Maha Al-Baghli, the Chairwoman of Business and Professional Women Club - Kuwait said, "the Kuwait Economic Society is always involved in women's empowerment projects, seeking to create a more enabling trade, investment, and business environment for women and youth.

Now KES has the advantage of a BPW branch in Kuwait under its umbrella to help it carry out such programs. "This program will support women engaged in small sized, medium sized and home based businesses by providing them opportunities for business growth, training, networking and experience sharing," Maha added. - Kuwait Times