Bettina Müller
Dr. Ralf Meier
Gebhard Weiss
Uschi Tenhagen, February 2010
Editorial
The business start-up portal of the German Federal Ministry for Economics sports a quote by the famous inventor Thomas Alva Edison: "Innovation is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration".
In business that means: Every entrepreneur needs to work hard to be successful--and female entrepreneurs especially. That's the experience not only of women in developed countries but those in developing economies in particular: While, in Germany, about one out of three businesses is run by a woman, the percentage in Egypt, for instance, is as low as 12%.
We at sequa asked ourselves the question: "What can do to support business women in developing countries on their way to economic success?" Our answer: We can help them "build" networks. And that is exactly what we have been doing in cooperation with very active female entrepreneurs in a BMZ-funded Chambers and Business Associations Partnership Programme (KVP).
Every human being needs networks in order to survive and so do entrepreneurs. Sustainable networks function according to the win-win principle: Everyone involved contributes and receives something, be it contacts, ideas, information, partners, customers, access to funds etc etc.
Our examples from Egypt, Central Asia, India and the Balkans show how networks run by female entrepreneurs work in practice.
Gebhard Weiss, Managing Director |
