This morning we participated at the Regional Conference for Women Entrepreneurs in the Western Balkans titled ‘’Women who Launch” that took place in Tirana in hybrid mode.

Marija Risteska, the Founder and Executive Director of the Center for Research and Policy Making and the Regional Director of the Gender Budget Watchdog Network, contributed to the discussions about the needs and challenges faced by women entrepreneurs in times of crisis, and how successful women can be recognized and promoted, upon which she made the following remarks:

“The watchdog work of GBWN partners showed that gender mainstreaming in crisis response around the region is needed, since in most cases was missing, especially in support to the businesses.

Considering that women owned and women led businesses are small, thus have less savings that were entirely used for covering the costs of the crises, the post COVID-19 recovery must be gendered. The ISO promoted IWA 34 on definitions for women entrepreneurship needs to be applied for comparative analysis of the impact of the support on gender equality in access to finance.

Networking is a powerful tool to advance a cause. I am saying that from the perspective of GBWN having into consideration the experience that we have on advancing gender responsive budgeting as a network in the region and beyond”