Is It What You Know ... or Who You Know? Womenable's latest blog post ruminates on the relative importance of knowledge versus networks: "Perhaps we can all agree that knowledge is a key that unlocks many doors, but we've also heard that "It's not what you know, but who you know." Certainly entrepreneurship research can be said to agree with both sides of the argument, as both human capital (what we know) and social capital (who we know) are found to be strongly related to entrepreneurial success..." (read on) | |
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"I just told the world the truth. And if my truth becomes political, I can't do anything about that."
~ Miriam Makeba (1932 - 2008), South African singer who came to be known as Mama Afrika. Exiled for her activism against apartheid, she won the Dag Hammarskjöld Peace Prize in 1986.
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E3nabling News
It is our goal, in this quarterly 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.
Our subscribers come from all walks of life - businesses large and small, NGOs and MLOs, associations, the public sector and educational institutions - yet all share a common interest in supporting women's enterprise development in their communities and around the world. We hope you find this information of interest. In this issue: - comparing and contrasting who's ahead of whom in women's economic empowerment,
- increasing understanding and empowerment through music, and
- what's news around the world in women's enterprise.
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Who's the Leader of the Pack?
Quantifying the factors that enable women's enterprise
 David Letterman does it, and the World Bank does, too - announce and/or publish rankings. Perhaps it's human nature, but we all want to know how things "stack up" and who's the leader of the pack. And so it is, too, with women's enterprise development. Womenable has previously reported to you on the World Economic Forum's Gender Gap Index, which ranks countries according to their gender parity in health, politics, education and economic participation. We also report regularly on the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor's annual reports on Women and Entrepreneurship, which compare entrepreneurship rates among women and men in over 40 countries.
Now we'd like to highlight two new initiatives focused on quantifying women's economic empowerment that we know you'll want to learn more about:
- The World Bank's gender program will soon be announcing a Women's Opportunity Index, which will rank countries according to their relative performance in six key ares: general business environment, social customs and attitudes, tax laws, education and training, credit/finance/property, labor rights and legislation. Stay tuned to this web site for that upcoming announcement. Another product of the Bank's 4-year Gender Action Plan (launched in 2007) is a new Gender Law Library, which documents laws in 181 different economies that have a differential impact on the economic status of women.
- The International Finance Corporation (part of the World Bank Group) is partnering with Pax World and KLD Research to build a Gender Investment Index, with an eye toward quantifying the impact that investing in women's empowerment within a corporation can have on their bottom line. Click here to read more about this initiative, which has a broad international focus.
These ratings are all very helpful in providing a quick-to-understand comparison of where the environment for women's enterprise development is more or less welcoming; where the soil is the most fertile and where more tilling might be required. But what factors do some of these ratings systems miss? Policy and program leadership, the importance of voice, the capacity of women's business associations, and the existence and reach of specific women-focused policies and programs.
A new effort is underway to develop a more comprehensive set of gender indicators that can be used in detailed country-specific investigations of the business enabling environment with a gender perspective. Womenable is working with Booz | Allen | Hamilton on behalf of the US Agency for International Development on this initiative. Stay tuned!
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Womenabling Music
Uniting cultures, empowering women through song
 Music frequently serves as a bridge linking different cultures, and is often a medium for political expression, protest, and social commentary. Those of us of a certain age can remember singing along to "all we are saying, is give peace a chance." And we womenablers also love to shout out such women's empowerment refrains as "I am woman, hear me roar" and "R-E-S-P-E-C-T, find out what it means to me" (both of which date your humble author as a certified Baby Boomer).
Womenable recently came across a very interesting National Public Radio story about a "Playing for Change" video project, which splices together a variety of musicians around the world singing and playing the Ben E. King song "Stand By Me." While it features only a few women, it is nonetheless worth a look.
In addition, and to make sure we balance this video with some women-powered content, here are some interesting "you go, girl" songs and music-related items from around the world. Peace out, sisters:
- Blessing events with song: Your author participated in several workshops in South Africa back in 2005 and 2006 during the course of writing a strategic framework for women's enterprise in that country. At every event, women would break out into song. I learned that "malibongwe" (when sung by women) means, essentially, "you go, girl." This article notes that women broke into song recently in Tiruchi, India as a new Women's Empowerment Resource Centre was opened. What better way to celebrate?
- Soowanikwe: The University of Michigan (M Go Blue!) recently reported in its alumni newsletter about a project to document, preserve and teach the native Ojibwe language, Anishinaabemowin. As a part of that effort, they have recorded and posted a song entitled "Soowanikwe (The Power of Women)." Click here to listen.
- Music competition in Ghana: The Centre for Gender Studies and Advocacy in Ghana recently announced a songwriting competition for women's empowerment songs. Check out the information in this blog post.
- Chick power lists from the blogosphere: There are a number of blog posts and top ten lists referring to affirming "you go, girl" focused songs. Here are a few:
- Some of Womenable's favorite "empowered women" songs:
- Suddenly I See - KT Tunstall
- You Can Have Everything You Need But Me - Nanci Griffith
- With Luck in My Eyes - kd lang
- RESPECT - Aretha Franklin (of course!!)
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Womenabling News Updates
 Lastly, here are some brief news items of interest to womenablers everywhere: a new journal focused on women's entrepreneur- ship, new WBCs being launched in Pakistan, and a new twist on foreign direct investment:
- IJGE launches: The inaugural issue of the International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship has been published by Emerald Group Publishing. While focused primarily on reviewed academic articles, there is also a section of practitioner articles. Womenable scored a spot in this section in the debut issue, summarizing its work for the IFC in the Middle East and North Africa. Click here for more information on how to subscribe to the journal.
- New women's business centers in Pakistan: A provincial head of Pakistan's Small and Medium Enterprise Development Authority (SMEDA), recently announced plans to open 14 women's business centers
across the country to help more women start and grow businesses. Click here for additional information.
- FDI one business at a time: The latest issue of Enterprising Women magazine contains a Womenable-authored article focused on a new trend in foreign direct investment: technology-enabled person-to-person investing in micro/small business development. Click here to read more and to download a copy of the article.
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We encourage your feedback and comments, as well as your help in spreading our "womenabling" news. Feel free to click below to forward this e-mail to others you feel would be interested in any or all of the articles above. And let us know if there are any aspects of women's enterprise development that you feel we should investigate and share more broadly.
Sincerely,
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