Addressing the symposium on promotion of women entrepreneurs, Minister for Industry Mahendra Prasad Yadav said economic prosperity can only be achieved by focusing on promotion of women entrepreneurship and making an environment for self employment opportunities for them. [break]
"Effective trade policy, proper wage allocation for women workers, providing entrepreneurship skills to rural women and involvement of women in agriculture for income generation are some of the things that we need to do for the promotion of women entrepreneurship," Minister Yadav said.
The symposium was jointly organized by Federation of Nepal Cottage and Small Industries (FNCSI) and Federation of Nepalese Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI) in coordination with Ministry of Industry (MOI) to discuss the issues related to women´s economic empowerment through entrepreneurship.
The discussions centered on identifying problems and challenges confronting women entrepreneurs across the country.
Bhawani Rana, chairperson of Women Entrepreneurs´ Development Association, said there had been a positive development of women in social, education and political sectors in recent years.
"But when it comes to economic sector, women are still lagging behind their male counterparts. Women entrepreneurs are limited to small and medium scale industries," she said, adding, "There is a need to carefully understand the major underlying problem and find out the long term solution to bring women in the mainstream."
She also said the finding of the survey conducted by them and the conclusion of the discussion would be incorporated in the Kathmandu Declaration for promotion of women entrepreneurs in Nepal to discuss it further with Ministry of Industry and other line agencies.
Most of the speakers at the program were of the view that national development policy should strongly address the issues of women entrepreneurs to bring about inclusive economic revolution in the country.
"The relationship between development of women entrepreneurs and development through women entrepreneurs should be studied carefully before drafting any industrial policy," said Pratap Kumar Pathak, secretary at the Ministry of Industry.
Pathak further stressed on the need of effective investment, production, employment and export policies for backing up women entrepreneurs and eliminating the concept of vertical society in Nepal. The ministry expects all these issues to get addressed in the upcoming budget, he added.
The speakers also discussed on the outcomes of the survey on the promotion of women entrepreneurs across the five development region. It also concluded that Nepal has a high proportion of economically active women as compared to other South Asian countries and an impressive number of women were involved in non-agricultural sector.
The survey concluded that issues like development of skills for women entrepreneurs, better investment opportunities, gender assessment, gender budgeting policy, gender responsive monetary policy are some of the essential factors necessary for the promotion of women entrepreneurs in Nepal.
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