Members of the Coalition of Balkan Women Business Associations Meet in Bucharest- March 26, 2007

Bucharest; March 26, 2007 - Eighteen women business associations from Albania, Bosnia Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia and Turkey will meet in Bucharest on March 30 and 31 for the second edition of the Conference of Balkan Women Associations, organized by Center for International Private Enterprise Romania (CIPE Romania). The purpose of the conference is two-folded: electing a structure that will ensure the functioning of the Coalition and an efficient communication among its members, and setting up a medium-term working plan.

The Coalition of Balkan Women Business Associations is an informal entity set up with CIPE Romania's support as part of a project funded by National Endowment for Democracy. The goal of the project is to create a cooperation network among Balkan women business associations capable of promoting legislative initiatives that will improve the business environment and the status of women entrepreneurs, both in the countries involved in the project as well as in the whole region.

The women business associations present in Bucharest this week will appoint the Board of the Coalition (where every country will have a representative) and will elect the country and the association that will hold the Presidency and the Secretariat of the Coalition for one year. Another topic on the conference agenda is organizing the working committees and agreeing on their responsibilities and future projects.

"The most important aspect of this project was to identify the major players in the region and to get them together. In December 2005, CIPE Romania organized the first regional conference in Istanbul, providing the opportunity for the most representative Balkan women business associations to meet and present their projects. In 2006, CIPE Romania held two advocacy workshops in Sofia and Belgrade in order to equip the associations involved in this project with the necessary tools for the future projects of the Coalition regarding the public policies that impact the business environment." Camelia Bulat, CIPE Romania Program Director, says.

The associations that will participate in the Conference of Balkan Women Business Associations are:

The conference's sponsors are: Porsche Bank, Carpatina SA and Kasta Metal.

Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) is an American non-for-profit organization founded in 1983 in the belief that economic freedom and political freedom are intertwined. Over the last 20 years, CIPE has supported more than 800 local initiatives in more than 95 developing countries to organize business associations and involve businesspeople in policy advocacy, institutional reform, and responsible governance.

Center for International Private Enterprise Romania (CIPE Romania) promotes democratic values and economic growth by providing support to business associations, employers' associations and chambers of commerce.

CIPE Romania started its activity in 2000 with a project funded by USAID with the aim to support business association development in the information technology, manufacturing, and tourism sectors. CIPE Romania also worked with multi-sector and women's associations, as they had members in each of the target sectors. Under this three-year program CIPE Romania was responsible for a number of activities including technical assistance for institutional development, support for public policy advocacy initiatives, information for targeted associations through forums, think tanks, and conferences, grants, creation of investment opportunities, and a volunteer experts program.

Between 2003 and 2004, with financial support from National Endowment for Democracy, CIPE Romania implemented a program dedicated to the creation and the development of the Coalition of Women Business Associations in Romania (CAFA), an entity that provides more visibility to women entrepreneurs in the public-private dialogue. In 2005 CIPE Romania started another NED funded project aiming to create a network of women business groups in the Balkan region that can actively promote a legislative agenda in order to improve both the status of women entrepreneurs and the overall business environment. The most recent CIPE Romania project is the Institute for Organization Management Romania which provides training for the leaders and executives of business associations and chambers of commerce.

For more information on CIPE activities, please visit the website www.ciperomania.org.

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