Dear Empretec Directors and Coordinators,
I am very pleased to announce the 10 finalists of this year’s Empretec Women in Business Award (E-WBA). As you would be aware, the Empretec Women in Business Award, now at its seventh edition, celebrates exceptional businesswomen who have benefitted from UNCTAD’s global entrepreneurship training programme, Empretec, and have become role models due to their outstanding achievements in running micro and small businesses.
More than 30 nominations were submitted by Empretec centers from 13 countries this year. The 10 finalists were selected by a panel of experts based on the nominees’ showing innovation, leadership and impact in their communities. The finalists, and the centres which submitted their nominations, were individually contacted in the last couple of weeks with a view to collect additional details, some nice pictures for the WBA brochure and short videos, social media and in preparation to the 2020 E-WBA ceremony. The selection process is currently ongoing with a final stage of evaluation to identify the E-WBA winner. The winners will be announced during the Empretec Women in Business Awards Ceremony which due to COVID 19 restrictions most likely will be held virtually on 10 December 2020 as initially scheduled.
Besides the winner of the 2020 E-WBA, UNCTAD will also recognize three empretecas who excelled in three categories: circular economy, sustainable agriculture, and inclusive business.
We will follow up soon with the Ceremony programme which will also include involvement of Directors from those Centers, who trained and coached the winning contestants.
The 2020 E-WBA finalists (in alphabetical order, by country) are:
- Ms. Paula Itati de la Vega Sánchez (Argentina): Bioita « utensilios de caña », manufacturing of ecological products
- Ms. Agda Oliver (Brazil): Meu Mecânico, Mechanical services for vehicles
- Ms. Sandra Milena Sánchez Valenzuela (Colombia): Agencia Internacional SHARK, Digital business and marketing services
- Ms. Ana María Villavicencio Flores (Ecuador): Finca Agroturística Don Antonio, Agritourism and gastronomy
- Ms. Kayan Motashaw (India): LivRite Foods, Manufacture of honey “Beelicious”
- Ms. Afnan Kamel Ali (Jordan): Eureka Tech Academy, Education for students under 18 years old on technology, innovation, programming and engineering
- Ms. Sandra Anne Ghouse (Malaysia): 3E Training and Education Sdn Bhd – Soft skills and corporate training company
- Ms. Nicoleta Hriţcu (Romania): SC Retro Food SRL and SC Cuptorul Moldovencei SRL, Manufacturing and sale of bread, cakes and fresh pastry
- Ms. Hadija Jabiri Pheri (Tanzania): GBRI Business Solutions Company Limited, Growing, packaging and exporting vegetables and fruits
- Ms. Julia Nyamahunge Omalla (Uganda): Delight Uganda Ltd, Processing, packaging and distributing popular fruit drink “Cheers”
We wish all of them good luck for the Award and already look forward to your participation in the 2020 E-WBA ceremony next December.
Thank you once again to those who actively participated in this process and provided the applications! In this initiative we all win as we raise awareness of good practices and success stories of female entrepreneurs. For many years WBA was a great platform to empower other women, who continue being an underprivileged and vulnerable group of societies, which in COVID 19 crisis and post- resurgence becomes more important than ever.
Kind regards
Tatiana