It is our goal, in this quarterly e-newsletter, to provide a concise digest of news, information, and links to: 1) educate, 2) enlighten and 3) empower your work on behalf of nascent, new, established and growing women-owned enterprises around the world. Womenable was founded in August 2005 by Julie Weeks, former Executive Director of the National Women’s Business Council and Director of Research of the Center for Women’s Business Research. To learn more about Womenable, visit our web site.

In its work with the International Finance Corporation's Gender Entrepreneurship Markets initiative, Womenable partnered with the Mekong Private Sector Development Facility (MPDF) to conduct a survey among women business owners in Vietnam. Results were shared with members of the women's business community in the country, as well as with members of a special legislative committee that is drafting a new Gender Equality Law in Vietnam. The survey report is now available on the MPDF web site (download is free after name registration).

What issues are on the minds of women business owners in the United States? The rising costs of health care and energy top the list, according to a report just issued by Women Impacting Public Policy (WIPP), an advocacy organization that represents over 500,000 women business owners and their organizations. To read more about the poll results, visit their press room. And to learn more about WIPP, visit their web site.

March was Women's History Month, and it brought with it several announcements of note.

• Babson College's Center for Women's Leadership announced the publication of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor's 2005 Report on Women and Entrepreneurship.
• The Journal of Small Business and Entrepreneurship published a special issue focused on women's enterprise development issues.
• Count Me In for Women's Economic Independence, in a news conference held on International Women's Day (March 8), called for women business owners to raise their sights to the million-dollar level. Their "Make Mine a $Million" program offers mentoring, coaching and access to finance to help. CMI's goal is to see 1 million million-dollar firms by 2010.

Earlier in the year, just after the publication of our first e-newsletter, the Census Bureau published its highly anticipated quinquennial report on the state of women-owned businesses, and the United Nations published the 2005 edition of "The World's Women." More details on each of these items will be found later in this newsletter.

An article in the April 6 issue of Arab News notes that a second annual meeting of the Gulf Businesswomen’s Committee was just held in Jedda, Saudi Arabia. Participants there issued a series of 11 policy and program recommendations focused on women’s social, educational and economic empowerment. Click here to read the article. The Gulf Businesswomen’s Committee is organized under the auspices of the Federation of GCC Chambers of Commerce. (The link above may not work from this e- mail. If it does not, cut and paste this link into your Web browser: http://www.arabnews.com/? page=6§ion=0&article=80342&d=6&m=4&y=2006& pix=business.jpg&category=Business)

Also in the region, the Islamic Chamber of Commerce and Industry have held two forums for businesswomen in Islamic Countries. The first was held March 1-3, 2005 in Sharjah, UAE. Proceedings from that forum can be found at this link. (Again, if this link does not work, paste this full link into your browser: http://www.icci-oic.org/ac/4.htm) The second annual forum was held March 18-21 in Karachi, Pakistan. An agenda for this recent meeting may be found here.

Womenable is working with IFC-GEM and the Center for Arab Women Training and Research (CAWTAR) on a multi-country research and capacity- building effort in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Working with researchers and women's business organizations in Bahrain, Jordan, Lebanon, Tunisia, and the United Arab Emirates, surveys sharing a similar template will be conducted among women business owners in each country. The results will be used to increase public awareness, create programming for women's economic advancement to build organizational capacity for women's groups, and for advocacy. Stay tuned for more information as this project develops.

If you “Google” the term “missing middle” you will see references to the use of that term in the fields of:

• politics (bemoaning the disappearance of true independents),
• the environment (decrying the disappearance of wildlife corridors connecting natural areas),
• socioeconomics (pointing out increasing gaps between rich and poor), and
• in globalization (making the observation that geopolitics focuses on both well-developed, rich economies and on developing, poor economies - and largely ignores the state of affairs in developing and developed middle-income economies).

In the world of women’s enterprise development, Womenable defines the term much in the same way as the last usage noted above. We observe that there is much policy and programmatic attention being paid to the two ends of the entrepreneurial spectrum: on getting more women and men into business, and on gaining market share or equity stakes among million dollar businesses.

Largely ignored by policy makers, and underserved by entrepreneurial educators, are the vast majority of business owners – the so-called “missing middle” – those businesses that are past the start-up phase, not necessarily venture capital-bound, and not on a fast-growth trajectory. Womenable feels that a greater focus on this segment of the business population could have tremendously positive economic and social effects.

To investigate these issues in more detail, Womenable is partnering with the Center for Women’s Entrepreneurship at Chatham College and the National Association of Women Business Owners. They are collaborating on a pilot study to take a look at women business owners in the missing middle – to assess their motivations, goals, future plans, and perceived barriers to growth. The results of this effort, underway now, will be presented at the International Council of Small Business’ 51st World Conference this June in Melbourne, Australia. The findings should provide insight for educators, women’s associations, technical assistance providers, and policy makers – and will be used to plan for an even larger, national or perhaps international research effort into this important issue. Stay tuned for more news on study results and additional research.

New information is “springing up” on the growing number, increasing economic clout, and continuing disparity among women business owners in the United States and around the world.

Four new key reference documents have recently been published. All “womenablers” will want to have these at their fingertips for future reference. They are:

• “The World’s Women: 2005,” published by the United Nations every five years. This year’s report focuses more on the lack of statistics than the numbers themselves – which accompany the report only as an annex (NB: it's not included if you click to download the complete report, you need to download the annexes separately). Also of interest is the UN’s “The World’s Women: 2000,” as the statistics are presented and described in a much better fashion.
• "The Progress of the World’s Women: 2005,” published by UNIFEM.
• The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor’s 2005 Report on Women and Entrepreneurship, published in March 2006. Also of interest is the 2004 report.
• The US Census Bureau’s 2005 Economic Survey of Women-Owned Enterprises, published in January 2006. After other subgroup reports (Hispanic, Black, Asian/Pacific Islander, American Indian/Alaska Native) are published, two additional reports of great interest will be published: 1) a combined summary report merging ethnicity and gender, and 2) a characteristics of business owners report, which will include other demographic information about business owners. Look for those two reports in the fall of 2006.