Aitizaz Hassan

The working and businesswomen across Pakistan have welcomed the launch of “Khadijah” – a Karachi-based women entrepreneurship program – launched by the Pakistan Single Window (PSW). The program aims to increase female participation in international trade through the PSW platform, reports WealthPK. Shamim Rajani, a well-known technologist and Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Genetech Solutions, a software solutions company, said, ”The women empowerment program by the PSW is the need of the hour to help women-owned businesses go global.”

She said training women entrepreneurs in financial inclusion, technical capacity building and social media marketing as well as to help them understand the import, export, and transit-related regulatory requirements, if executed successfully, will transform the outlook of how women perceive their own talent and capacity. Right now, the Pakistani economy needs all hands on deck to improve, and this project has a huge potential to do that.

Talking to WealthPK, Founder of Womensouthasia and a well-known communications expert Maria Shahid said programs like “Khadijah” were essential for Pakistan’s economic growth.

“Economic independence means to recognize the business options and opportunities available in the market to make a decision. Unfortunately, most educated people (men/women) in our country often do not have access to information about opportunities. It is imperative that women from all social backgrounds are included in this program to truly close the class and digital gap that currently exists,” Maria added.

The Womensouthasia founder said supporting female entrepreneurship wasn’t only an excellent method of accelerating the exports growth, but also effective in closing the overall inequality that exists, as women tend to hire other women and invest back in their communities more than men.

According to details, this program builds on the ongoing efforts by the Government of Pakistan to achieve gender equality and women economic empowerment through greater participation of women in cross-border trade by providing effective and sustained mechanisms of trading to women entrepreneurs and traders.

This program has been developed as a component of the Gender Action Plan developed by the PSW company to enhance women’s capacity in business and cross-border trade to support women’s entrepreneurship development and motivate the women joining international trade-related workforce and professions.

At the launching ceremony, CEO PSW Aftab Haider said technology was lowering the cost of doing business, helping the SMEs and women-led businesses to join the global value chains, improving the standards of living for all and resulting in the economic empowerment of women and marginalized communities everywhere. “We would like to leverage the PSW platform to encourage more women and women-led businesses to integrate with the international supply chain and play their part in the national development.”

National Project Manager Reforms and Innovation in Government UNDP Pakistan, Dr Samina Taslim Zehra congratulated the PSW for taking this initiative to empower women and said, “The PSW Khadijah Programme is designed professionally in a way that covers the whole business cycle including financial inclusion, technical capacity building, and social media marketing initiatives for uplifting women-led businesses.”

According to details, the program has targeted training and a comprehensive awareness strategy. The aim is to transfer knowledge and information to women entrepreneurs and to equip them with the requisite know-how, skills, and expertise, which enables them to upscale their existing businesses for an export market and sustain and grow them over time.

Credit : Independent News Pakistan-WealthPk