‘Women struggle for everything in life’

To celebrate International Women's Day, the Aman Center for Entrepreneurial Development (CED) at IBA Karachi organized an "Unlocking the Power of Women Entrepreneurs" summit, in collaboration with the Click Sindh Investment Department on March 15 in Karachi. The summit aimed to address challenges and constraints faced by the women-owned businesses, particularly in Karachi.

Federal Minister for Poverty Alleviation, Social Safety and Chairperson Benazir Income Support Programme Shazia Marri graced the event as the Chief Guest. The panelists included, Tara Uzra Dawood, CEO of Ladies Fund, Nadia Patel Gangjee, Founder Sheops and Founder and CEO Femprow, Saeeda Mandiwala, CEO Toni & Guy and CEO Spa Ceylon and lastly, Misbah Naqvi, Kauffman fellow and Co-founder i2i Ventures. The event was hosted by Aman CED IBA Director Dr Lalarukh Ejaz and moderated by IBA QEC head Dr Saima Husain.

IBA Karachi Executive Director Dr S Akbar Zaidi, with his powerful opening speech, began the event. He reiterated the importance of women participation in the workforce. He explained the reasons of gender gap in workforce by stating the women were kept devoid of opportunities and thus they fall behind men in labour participation. "Empowering women is giving them opportunities they have been denied, giving them access to finance, access to training."

Shazia Marri began her speech by stating how women have overcome prevailing challenges and struggles to prove their potential. "We have been able to make ourselves recognized," she said. She lauded the efforts of women that have led to abridge the gender gap in workforce but emphasized that there is still a long way to go in order to progress economically that can be done by "strategizing our population".

Women face different and more difficult obstacles than men do hence, they have to resort to hard ways to claim their rights. "Women are compelled to protest and raise slogans to demand their rights." Shazia Marri defended women protests.

Women entrepreneurs from different fields shared their life experiences, their struggles and challenges, and what enabled them to become change-makers. Nadia Patel Gangjee explained the plethora of problems women entreprenuers and working women face in a developing country for instance, wage gaps, unawareness of tech, accessible means of finance and social norms.

Special Assistant to CM on Investment and Public Private Projects Syed Qasim Naveed Qamar gave the concluding remarks by emphasizing on the key role women play in the workforce and maximizing their participation by countering the threats. "The idea is to identify all those issues and addressing those issues."

Aman CED IBA Director Dr Lalarukh Ejaz delivered the vote of thanks. She appreciated the chief guest for taking out the time to fly in from Islamabad to attend the summit and enriching the audience with her excellent speech. She also thanked the distinguished panellists and said that they were much-needed role models for women in Pakistan. She also spoke on how IBA had changed over the years and that several of its centres and departments were now led by women.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 17^th, 2023.