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Women entrepreneurs from across Ukraine, who are seeking professional growth and self-employed women seeking new opportunities and collaborations with private companies, gathered during the Women’s Entrepreneurship EXPO 2024 satellite event held on 24 October in Kyiv, Ukraine.
The event served as an exclusive space to facilitate interaction and knowledge exchange, increase visibility for women-led initiatives, foster connections between companies, and forge partnerships between the private sector, government, civil society, and UN Women.
“At UN Women, we believe that entrepreneurship is not only a personal or economic endeavor but also a powerful tool for driving societal change and promoting gender equality. Supporting women entrepreneurs goes beyond assisting individuals; it uplifts families, strengthens communities, and boosts economies. However, despite the immense potential that women entrepreneurs possess, significant barriers remain. This is why forums like the EXPO are so essential. The EXPO provides a space for connection, collaboration, and learning, highlighting success stories that inspire others,” emphasized Julia Broussard, UN Women Deputy Representative in Ukraine.
To explore how the state and private sectors can benefit from supporting and engaging women entrepreneurs in their supply chains, including those affected by the full-scale war in Ukraine and women entrepreneurs from vulnerable groups, participants of the satellite event had the chance to showcase their products, services, and experience, attend masterclasses on branding, promotion, business scaling, leadership, and mental wellbeing, and engage in networking sessions to establish business connections.
“The state supports women's entrepreneurship by introducing the updated Diia.Business 2.0 portal. This platform provides women with information on various opportunities to develop their businesses in Ukraine. It includes business ideas, support and training programs, and free consulting services. We implement educational and grant programs for women in collaboration with national and international partners. This significantly impacts the development of women's entrepreneurship by providing opportunities to secure funding for business scaling,” emphasized Andrii Remizov, Director of the Entrepreneurship and Export Promotion Office of the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine.
Despite the global rise in women-owned businesses, women entrepreneurs face considerable obstacles hindering their business growth. In Ukraine, the full-scale war has affected unemployment rates across the population, with women and girls experiencing compounded forms of gender inequality and discrimination, particularly in terms of livelihoods. This is evidenced by the analysis of recent studies on the impact of Russia’s war against Ukraine on women and girls.
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Launched in 2021, the Women’s Entrepreneurship EXPO is a unique partnership platform to promote women’s entrepreneurship ecosystem building in the Europe and Central Asia region. EXPO provides an interactive space for women entrepreneurs, investors and private sector representatives for networking and collaboration, peer learning, ideas generation, capacity building and business development. EXPO 2024 is organized by UN Women Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia in partnership with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and Yıldız Holding as part of the Women’s Entrepreneurship Accelerator.
