News

​The founder of SheFighter, a company that trains women in Jordan in self-defence techniques, Lina Jalil Khalifeh, has won the first place in UNCTAD’s Empretec Women in Business Awards. The awards honour businesswomen from developing countries who have founded successful firms, created jobs and become role models in their communities.

The UNCTAD Empretec Women in Business Awards are given every two years and celebrate exceptional women entrepreneurs who have benefited from the UNCTAD' Empretec training programme. A maximum of three nominations are received from each of the 36 national Empretec centres across the world.

Young entrepreneurs can unlock development potential, high-level panel tells UNCTAD Commission; ten finalists of Women in Business Awards also announced.​

A 34th national centre is to be established for an UNCTAD-administered programme that has proved to be highly successful in training and supporting entrepreneurs in developing countries.

Awards will be given to two women entrepreneurs - the creator of a business featuring recyclable products for infants and the founder of a Ugandan real-estate firm - at the 19th Directors Meeting of Empretec, the entrepreneurship programme in developing countries and economies in transition supported by the Division on Investment and Enterprise of UNCTAD.

The first official meeting of the EMPRETEC Latin America Forum was hosted by EMPRETEC Panama in Panama City last week, following a regional training workshop that brought together EMPRETEC directors and trainers from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Panama, Peru and Venezuela to share experiences and discuss new developments.

Melissa De León, founder of Panama Gourmet,a company which produces gluten-free foods, was the winner of the 2012 EMPRETEC Women in Business Award presented at the UNCTAD XIII Conference in Doha, Qatar in April this year. Since then, she has become a celebrity in her own country and a much sought-after participant at international events elsewhere.

Instructors and directors of EMPRETEC Centres across Latin America will be gathering in Panama during the second week of September for an exciting regional EMPRETEC event.

At the request of a number of African countries, the Commonwealth Secretariat has agreed in principle to support EMPRETEC centres in African Commonwealth countries with the aim of strengthening business development services offered by these centres.

The 10 women entrepreneurs have developed innovative business ideas for sustainable development, created jobs and increased income in their communities. The winner of the Award will be announced on 23 April in Doha, Qatar, during UNCTAD XIII.