(Jakarta, 22 November) — Following our commitment in promoting women empowerment and fostering agents of sustainability, United Nations (UN) Women and ANGIN were pleased to hold Indonesia’s Women Leaders in Investing and Enterprises Workshop. The workshop was developed by UN Women and ANGIN as a part of WeEmpower Asia Programme, with the aim to promote and develop key leaders in Women Empowerment, especially in efforts to accelerate and achieve gender equality and economic growth. We invited influential and committed women leaders to further thrive on their respective fields as an agent of social change.
The event was opened by a panel discussion on Women’s Economic Empowerment: Barriers, Tools, Opportunities with Jamshed Kazi (UN Women Country Representative), Julie Sutrisno (Chairwoman of the National Craft Council East Nusa Tenggara), Shinta Kamdani (ANGIN Co-Founder, Member of APEC Business Advisory Council), and Virginia Tan (Founding Partner of Teja Ventures) as panelists and Saskia Tjokro (Head of ANGIN Impact) as the moderator.
Julie Sutrisno said that the main challenges were the lack of capital and market access. She added that giving trainings was not enough, the government also had to open the market access so there would be economic turnaround. Support from both private and public sectors would be a huge help for women’s economic empowerment. Shinta Kamdani added, “The financing aspect is a big part of supporting women and gender lens investing, and we have to find various ways to create more funds to support women’s enterprises. Government’s presence also needs improving, because we need policies and regulations to support this as well.”
Virginia Tan pointed out that technology is not just a tool, it’s an instrument for scale. Most investors think of social as only social, and commercial as only commercial, but there’s a commercial potential in social that can be unlocked. She talked about how technology could be suited around women’s situations, like Sehat Kahani (a telehealth platform from Pakistan that provides underserved patients with access to quality healthcare by connecting them to home-based women doctors) and VIPKID (a Chinese platform connecting children with native English speakers for one-to-one online language lessons).
Jamshed Kazi cited a research report by McKinsey Global Institute, estimating that if women in every country were to play an identical role to men in markets, as much as $28 trillion would be added to the global economy by 2025. He highlighted how much we’re losing because women are not given the chance to fulfill their potential. Another barrier that needed to be addressed, he added, was how sometimes men didn’t want to share the burden at home, like cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the kids and it would continue to hold back women from the amazing things that they had already been doing.
After the panel, the workshop participants worked in small groups to create action plans according to their role, whether as an entrepreneur, investor, or a growth enabler. Here are some of the action plans from the workshop: 1) Women leadership training, because mentorship is also needed to run a successful enterprise. 2) More spaces for women entrepreneurs to connect and share. 3) Social training for entrepreneurs. 3) Go beyond the big cities and reach for less-saturated cities. The workshop ended with a pledge to take action for women’s economic development, read by Halida Hatta.
