The regional workshop entitled "Empowering Business Women" - Beirut

Lebanese Transparency Association has organized a regional workshop in collaboration with the World Organization for Transparency. The regional workshop was on the theme of empowerment of businesswomen in the period from January 9 to 10, 2013 at the Holiday Inn hotel in Beirut. The lawyer Nada Abdul Alsater, Lebanese Transparency Association's head, and Ms.Stefanata waij , Middle East and North Africa programs assistant, of the world Organization of the transparency have attended the workshop with the participation of businesswomen from Egypt, Lebanon, Tunisia, Morocco, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Yemen.

At the launching ceremony, the lawyer Nada Abdul sater noted in her welcoming speech that the Association and the organization are going to focus more on women this year (2013), especially the women who have medium and small businesses.

Ms.Stephanie Twigg also welcomed the participants in the workshop and in the third welcoming speech Mr.Rashad talked about the methodology of organizing the workshop and expected results of the workshop.

At the beginning of the meeting lawyer Nada Abdel Sater talked about "Corporate Governance and its applications in the small and medium enterprises, the legal perspective, how to reinforce transparency in small and medium enterprises in the daily business management"

Her talk  can be summarized in the following points:

• - The legal framework for institutions and companies.
• - Types of companies.
• - Articles of Incorporation.
• - Partners "general assembly".
• - Board of Directors.
• - The reasons for the collapse of the companies in the third generation.

This was followed by the division of participants to working groups. They were supposed to work for the proposals for three questions .

First question: What are the obstacles related to the laws that businesswomen face?

Second question: What are the concerns associated with the establishment of a business or with existing company in legal terms?

Third question: What are the recommendations and laws wanted to be viewed?

Each group has offered some proposals to solve problems by answering the questions, which will be used as recommendations at the end of the program.

The theme of the second session: "Strategic Thinking, How to Turn Ideas into a Successful Business”

The points that were listed by Mrs.Hala are:

• - Create the idea.
• - Find private markets for your project.
• - Survey for competitors.
• - Write a business plan.
• - The content of the plan.
• - Financial Plan.
• - Financial resources options.
• - Review and rate.

On the second day January 10 in the morning was the first session that was held under the theme "marketing and brands" and the spokeswoman was the representative of the Aobernit company ,a company engaged in the field of advertising .She talked about two main points

• - Building sale networks
• - Brand building and promoting

In the second session, a success story titled "Learning by an example of a successful businesswoman". Mrs. Annette Maalouf ,the owner of Kasper, Jambeyiz and Termlon Companies, talked about her experience how she started her work with very simple job, the obstacles and difficulties that she faced and how she dealt with problems until she has now branches in seven countries.

Then the participants was divided to working groups to put forward a proposal and recommendations to:

• Resolve the obstacles and challenges faced by businesswomen when they manage their businesses as a lady in society.
• Find solutions on a practical level and public policy level.

After that all the Arabian businesswomen talked about their projects, how they started, what are the challenges and the difficulties encountered and how they were solved.

The third session entitled "special initiatives to enable businesswomen" .The spokesman was Mr.Elie Simon and he talked about the success of the "Vrencepennek".

In the last session, "Ghassan Hspaini" talked about the use of information and communication technology in small and medium enterprises. He focused on social media such as "Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn" in the business.

At the end of the workshop, each woman thanked those who were in charge of the workshop for their efforts, then the concluding speech for each of the speakers lawyer Nada Abdalsatr and Ms.Stefanemsaad and the distribution of certificates to the participants.