The Global Entrepreneurship Summit – Entrepreneurial Ventures of Arabia (GES-EVA) held at the Dubai World Trade Centre put the spotlight on promoting women entrepreneurship in the SME sector regionally. The experts said that it is imperative to continue to create the foundation for promoting women entrepreneurship to enable them to excel and develop their businesses by learning from the experiences of the successful Arab women entrepreneurs.

Read more at tradeandexportme.com

Also, read: 60% of companies globally now have women representation on their Boards of Directors at ameeinfo.com

In the wake of recent developments during the Arab Spring and its intense media coverage, a deceivingly straightforward question arose; Where are the women?  Although women actually played a pivotal role in every country during its transition period, they were still widely portrayed as “victims” or “sexual objects”, leaving to men the role of the “leader”, the “hero” or the “expert”. 

EMHRN’s gender media guide’s ambitious aim is to correct this misconception by bringing to light a more gender balanced media coverage of women in transition countries.

Read more and download the guide at euromedrights.org

Women stood at the forefront of the Arab Spring, taking to the streets shoulder to shoulder with men in an effort to overturn oppressive old orders. But while their efforts have seen dictators ousted and reforms introduced, the greater rights for women many hoped would emerge from the upheaval have not materialized.

Read more at cnn.com

A feminist scholar at Harvard University has earned the 2013 Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Religion for explaining why a growing number of Muslim women in the United States are wearing veils.
Read more at grawemeyer.org

Amid worries that the Arab Spring may give way to political Islam and set back the cause of women’s rights, Queen Noor of Jordan said Tuesday that it was too soon to give up hope that revolutions in the region would ultimately yield social progress.

Read more at nytimes.com

The Arab Spring has failed to deliver greater political power to women in the region or to offer them better protection from sexual harassment, but may yet yield female-friendly reform, a conference on women’s rights heard on Tuesday.

Read more at stuff.co

With the 2012 Doha Tribeca Film Festival underway, this annual event of the Doha Film Institute, one of the Middle East's largest film festivals, is showcasing some of the best work in new Arab and world cinema from the past twelve months. Rafea: Solar Mamas by Jehane Noujeim andMona Eldaief and Embers by Tamara Stepanyan, are two women-directed documentaries in the Festival’s “Arab Feature Film Competition” category. Women, in fact, are leaders in the film industry across the Middle East.

Read more at commongroundnews.org

Diversity in boardrooms through a greater presence of women is essential for improving the quality of corporate governance in the region, and women need to be empowered and their contributions recognised in family-owned, public as well as corporate enterprises in order for the next generation to take their rightful places on boards across the region, panelists agreed over three panel discussions at the third Arab Women Leadership Forum, organised by the Dubai Women Establishment.

Read more at .khaleejtimes.com

Christina Nielsen hopes she can pave the way for more women to break into motor racing in the Middle East when she becomes the first female driver to race in Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Middle East this weekend.
Read more at thenational.ae