Tapping women's business skills

Press, 3 December 1985, Page 16

Tapping women's business skills

A Bolivian businesswoman, Daisy Wende, believes women’s business talents and experience should be available to other women. SARAH SANDS reports.

A directory listing women who can be consulted to give expert business advice to other women may soon be established by the International Federation of Business and Professional Women.

A Bolivian woman, Daisy Wende, put forward the idea at the organisation’s bienniel conference, held in Auckland recently. 1.F.8.P.W. had achieved significant progress in making Governments aware of the importance of women’s participation in the economic growth of countries, and it was now time to make the world aware of the advisory capacity of women, she said. “Among us there are hundreds of experienced, capable, real authorities in different fields of work.”

By using women’s talents

and experience an important advisory capacity could be created that coula add to the development of countries, she said. “This would generate additional job opportunities for women and, at the same time, would help their economic growth.” Mrs Wende talked about how the directory would work, using herself as an example. “For 31 years now, I have been involved in the activity of organising family business enterprises around the production of hand-knitted alpaca apparel in my country. “I have experienced all aspects of production design, promotion, finding of markets, legal aspects, tax, insurance, monetary regulations, social implications, relations with importers, at

retail and wholesale levels, participation at trade exhibits, seminars and so on.

“Besides wanting to find additional income for my economic self-sufficiency, I would like to pass my experience and valuable knowledge in this field to someone Who needs it and who is just starting a similar activity, somewhere in the world.”

The person receiving the knowledge would have to pay for it because they have to get used to “paying for service.”

“We are not going to achieve growth if we do not spend for it.” A Finnish delegate to the conference, Tuulikki Juusela, said the scheme would work particularly well for retired women, who would probably find it much easier to travel.

“In Europe, we have a very low pension age and when you are still going strong you need something to do. Why not help women in other countries?”

Another delegate said that in many countries it would be possible to set up such a directory totally within the country.

The federation has already established an international trade directory for its members. A woman who owns, or is involved in a business, can list in this directory what she is interested in importing and exporting. The first such trade directory, given out at the conference, includes requests for everything from arts, crafts, and clothes, to parts for computers and agricultural machinery. Daisy Wende told the conference that trade and commerce transactions and opportunities never came to the business.

“If we want to sell, we must be in constant search of trade opportunities, we must be permanently exploring new rilarkets. “Increased production of goods requires new absorbing markets. The 1.F.8.P.W. Women’s Trade Directory has started a non-traditional way to reach markets. We are suddenly learning about products from sources and countries we never thought of exploiting the possibility of selling to, or buying from before.”

Trade activity between

members of the federation will start small, but could grow significantly, and help to achieve economic selfsufficiency for its members, she predicted. This would also gradually help solve under-development problems in some countries.