ISLAMABAD: The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and the Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) has organized annual campaign on “Fostering Green Entrepreneurship in Pakistan”.
The UNIDO-ICCI week started with Business Clinic to build capacity of youth startups for UNIDO launched annual competition titled “Global Cleantech Innovation Programme (GCIP)”.
An advocacy campaign on “Women in Green Industry” was launched on the second day by the Federal Minister of Industries and Production to raise awareness, understand women- green industry nexus, and explore potential of initiating women led green industry startups with options to facilitate such initiatives. For enabling environment, a policy dialogue focusing on analysis of legislative and regulatory framework took place on the third day to analyze relevance of existing policies with green industry promotion and exploring opportunities for women.
The consultative session conducted a thorough review of the presented policies with proposed actions to make them more relevant and gender responsive. In this context, a mentor training session was also organized to sensitize potential mentors from ICCI and other partners to be able to extend mentorship to women led startups in future.
Training session on mainstreaming women in business was the fifth topic of this series, which helped in understanding gender specific cultural and professional norms/issues along with overcoming strategies. The training covered thematic areas such as, gender mainstreaming and green industry concepts with new opportunities for women in this non-traditional sector.
The session continued until the last day with major focus on learning through experience sharing and from women led startups globally.This focused learning for five days resulted into enhanced conceptual understanding of green industry and its potential for women, collection of new ideas for women-led startups, identification of a new set of interventions for advocacy campaign supported by vibrant partners for nationwide implementation, a productive model of industry academia linkage and a functional model/strategy of Women Business Growth Centre.
The event strengthened the commitment of ICCI and all other partners and stakeholders to establish missing ecosystem for promoting green entrepreneurship in Pakistan. At this occasion, ICCI announced a comprehensive strategy for making Women Business Growth Centre more viable and customized to the needs of women. In addition, a networking forum comprising of all relevant stakeholders from public and private sector, Academia, development practitioners was established to provide ecosystem support to green entrepreneurship in Pakistan. The event was heavily attended by the ICCI members, GCIP partners, government officials, private sector representatives, academia, media, women entrepreneurs, students and members of Women Business Growth Centre and other stakeholders.
