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Ambassador Scobey’s Remarks
MENA Businesswomen’s Association Conference
June 9, 2009
It’s a pleasure to be with you and it’s a pleasure to see the ongoing success of this organization’s efforts to work with the women of Egypt to develop their entrepreneurial and business skills. I really thank you for the opportunity to return to the Second Annual U.S. Corporate Ambassadors Conference in Egypt to offer my own remarks on this occasion. As we have heard, the subject of this event is “Surviving and Thriving Under Turbulent Economic Times.” Given the real challenges of businesses worldwide, I know that we are all eager for the insights and lessons learned that we can gather from the speakers here and the opportunity to network and share ideas, so I am also going to keep my remarks brief.
I think we can all agree that economic growth without women’s participation is not sustainable. As we face shared challenges and the threat to prosperity posed by the recent economic crisis, we must now redouble our efforts to develop women’s skills, and maximize their contributions to our economies which are critical to ensuring their sustainable success and growth.
Last Thursday at Cairo University, in what I consider a very historic speech, President Obama acknowledged that the “face of globalization is contradictory.” It brings “wealth and opportunity,” but it also brings “disruption,” and it also brings “change.” He called for resolve in the face of those challenges and reminded us that “human progress cannot be denied.”
The President also reminded us that in spite of the challenges we face in this volatile global economy, sustainable growth and our “common prosperity” require us to continue to extend more economic opportunity to young women and girls.
He said: “ I am convinced that our daughters can contribute just as much to society as our sons, and our common prosperity will be advanced by allowing all humanity -- men and women -- to reach their full potential.”
The President also spoke of the need for a development strategy that focuses on education and innovation, calling it the currency of the 21st century. Sustainable economic growth, therefore, also requires that we nurture our entrepreneurs, and create a culture that supports innovative thinking. That innovation and ability to “think outside the box” becomes even more critical as the economic environment becomes more challenging.
Successful entrepreneurs in any economy thrive through networks built on trust. Networks in which they are supported by groups of stakeholders who help them build their businesses. Networks like this one.
In fact, the goal of this conference is to support and develop exchanges between successful corporate leaders in the U.S. with those here in Egypt. Partnerships created through the Middle East North Africa Businesswomen’s Network. This Network is a partnership between local businesswomen's organizations across the Arab world, Vital Voices Global Partnership, and the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), which is an activity of the U.S. Department of State.
I’d also like to stop here and recognize the conference organizers, the Association of Women’s Total Advancement and Development (AWTAD) for their continued leadership and ongoing efforts to encourage Egyptian businesswomen to become leaders and mentors for others. They continue to exemplify the efforts of the MENA Businesswomen’s Network to leverage the collective energy of businesswomen's organizations to shape the role of women in business and leadership positions. And I see we have members of the American Chamber of Commerce, one of the leading elements of the business network in Cairo with very distinguished senior women’s participation in this.
So, today, we look for ways to “thrive” and not just to “survive” the current crisis, and we need to focus not just on creating networks but also on finding ways to finance innovation and entrepreneurship. In fact, one of the key topics for discussion today is the role of “Angel Investors,” as we just heard about, which can provide non-bank sources of “seed money” for ventures which may be too small or young to qualify for traditional bank financing.
This new kind of investor might be particularly important in the Egyptian context. We all know that the role of the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in stimulating continued domestic economic activity and cannot deny its importance in Egypt and elsewhere. Women-owned small and medium enterprises, particularly in the informal sector, account for a large part of those businesses. They hold the key to strengthening the Egyptian economy and they are critical to job creation. Credit facilities and financial services help women start or expand their businesses; but traditional sources of credit can sometimes be hard to access.
The American people, through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), are proud to partner with foundations and banks in Egypt to expand financial services for small businesses that may lack the collateral needed to get traditional bank loans. In fact, USAID/Egypt has been the largest financier of microfinance initiatives in Egypt. More than 65 percent of microfinance borrowers are women, female heads of household.
USAID began offering low interest microfinance-loans to these small businesses in the late 1980s and has issued more than 1.3 million loans, worth a total of $600 million to more than 240,000 borrowers – again mostly women. Less than 3 percent have defaulted. This is a remarkable success rate, and one often repeated worldwide. We still believe that the access to this credit in Egypt is way too low. There is a vast numbers of women and other small entrepreneurs that to date do not yet have access to this kind of credit facility.
Last Thursday, President Obama also said, “innovation is the currency of the 21st century.” I think everyone in this room knows that taking advantage of the technological revolution to facilitate innovation in business is also critical. This afternoon you will discuss how to exploit new business opportunities through “E-Commerce” strategies which harness the power of the internet and global communications. It is a fact that modern electronic commerce will use the web, including email, at least at some point in the transaction lifecycle to reach consumers, conclude new transactions, or cement new business-to-business relationships. Those new relationships may be critical to ensuring a businesses’ continued success or even its expansion.
We expect that the U.S.-Egyptian economic partnership will continue to expand. In fact the President outlined in his speech the creation of a visionary development strategy based on a partnership between the United States and the Muslim world that calls for a new corps of U.S. business volunteers to partner with counterparts in Muslim-majority countries. He himself will host a summit on entrepreneurship this year to identify how we can deepen ties between business leaders, foundations and social entrepreneurs in the U.S. and Muslim communities around the world.
The summit will follow in the footsteps of groups like the Middle East North Africa Businesswomen’s Network, and will highlight existing efforts to connect people with one another, as well as to identify new opportunities to network and increase efforts to help those with good ideas gain the tools to bring them to fruition. This focus on entrepreneurship will include a science and technology component: the launch of a new fund to support technological development in Muslim-majority countries. It will help transfer ideas to the marketplace to create more jobs. The fund will help create centers of scientific excellence to stimulate and sustain collaboration on programs that develop new technologies of benefit to us all, including new sources of energy and the creation of “green jobs.”
No one strategy can ensure economic success in a rapidly changing economic environment. Therefore, events like this one that bring Americans and Egyptians together to share their insights and experience are critical. Expanding on the networks already created is vital to maintaining the value of those businesses and expanding the number of women in business.
I want to thank AWTAD for hosting this event and commend them on their ability to bring together the key Egyptian business leaders. I also want to thank the Corporate Ambassadors of Vital Voices: Catherine Mott, Isisara Bey, Saskia Strick and Julie Fasone Holder, for their participation in this program. Your collective knowledge is invaluable and I know it will only be enriched by the contributions of the Egyptian panelists.
Finally, I want to thank everyone in attendance. I am confident that you will all leave this event with new contacts and ideas that will strengthen your companies, businesses and communities, and I hope that you continue your involvement in this organization and in the MENA Businesswomen’s Network. Thank you very much for asking me to join you today.
