New opportunities may lie on the horizon for Guyanese women in business following the establishment in March of a regional organization named Women Entrepreneurs (WEN), a US State Depart-ment-backed organization that is concerned with identifying resources available through international organizations with which to support the growth and development of women-run enterprises in the region.
Resources including funding, training and expert support in areas such as labelling, packaging and marketing are available through grants catered for under business development programmes offered both by the United States Government and by various international organizations, though a lack of knowledge of those facilities has traditionally meant that Guyanese businesswomen have benefitted only minimally from these facilities.
If funding for the development of local women-run businesses is important there are other areas of weaknesses associated with a lack of exposure and limited access to markets on account of the few opportunities available – particularly to small businesses in hinterland and rural areas – for marketing their goods on the regional and global market.
Local events like GuyExpo and the Berbice Expo, for example, offer opportunities for women entrepreneurs to display their goods and services to a fairly sizeable local market. However, most of these businesses qualify as no more than micro-enterprises and there has been really no significant evidence of growth, in most cases, from one year to the next.
At the level of government there are no programmes that cater for the development of women-led businesses on a large scale though there have been some limited initiatives including the government-supported Women of Worth (WOW) funding programme facilitated through the Guyana Bank for Trade and Industry.
Lucia Desir-John, one of two Guyanese women who attended the Washington forum at which WEN was formed has told Stabroek Business that she is concerned that Guyana does not allow another opportunity to help local women in business expand their enterprises. Desir-John says that since their return from Washington they have had exchanges with other local businesswomen regarding the most appropriate ways of creating a WEN cell in Guyana and developing programmes through which women-led businesses can access the possibilities that the new initiative opens up.
This, incidentally, is a region-wide initiative and Desir-John makes no secret of the fact that one of her concerns is that Guyana not be left behind as the rest of the region seeks to maximize the opportunity afforded by the emergence of the Caribbean’s newest organization set up to support the advancement of women in business.
