The BRICS Women’s Business Alliance session A New Starting Point was held at the SPIEF 2024.
On the first day of the SPIEF 2024, the BRICS Women's Business Alliance held a session entitled ”BRICS: A New Starting Point,“ which was attended by Senator of the Russian Federation Galina Karelova, Chair of the Eurasian Women's Forum Council (EWF). She shared her views on the prospects for the development of women's entrepreneurship in the BRICS countries and spoke about how the EWF Council is working in this respect.
According to the parliamentarian, the Council sees its task in helping women entrepreneurs to exploit their potential more effectively, including when entering new markets. The expanding BRICS space, in her opinion, opens up new prospects for women entrepreneurs in all 10 countries, which means it requires knowledge and ideas about what and how to offer each other and how prepared women's business communities are for such work. ”The Council runs a number of projects aimed at increasing women's participation in the economy and also carries out regular research, the results of which we are ready to share, and are generally willing to help organise similar work in the BRICS countries,“ she said.
According to the senator, such projects of the EWF Council as Development of Women's Entrepreneurship and Women's Cooperation in International Trade are carried out with the active involvement of the Russian public organisation of small and medium-sized businesses Opora Russia and the Russian Export Centre, which makes it possible to put women's business on a professional basis and provide it, among other things, with financial and marketing support. Business missions organised by the Council are aimed at promoting women's business and strengthening international ties.
”We have good experience of such cooperation with China and Uzbekistan, which can be successfully spread to other countries,“ the senator believes.
In addition, she said, the Council's portfolio includes a number of educational programmes which already involve women from such BRICS countries as India, Brazil, China, Egypt and others. In total, over the last three years, women from 31 countries and 78 Russian regions have participated in the EWF Council's educational programmes.
Galina Karelova underscored that thanks to support for women's entrepreneurship in Russia, the share of women in Russian businesses has increased from 32 to 41 percent over three years (from 2021 to 2024). At the same time, women's attitudes have changed — now, according to the EWF Council’s surveys, 45 percent of women would like to start their own business, while in 2006 this figure was only 3 percent. At the same time, the Women's Entrepreneurial Activity Index, studied by the Council, shows that it reached a record high of 73.7 percent in 2023.
“The EWF Council is open for cooperation. I am sure that exchange of experience and practices will be helpful not only for women, but will also be conducive in general for interaction with the BRICS countries,” Galina Karelova said.