New Business Hub Opens in Jordan To Expand Economic Opportunities for Women

Jordanian businesswomen and U.S. Department of State officials are launching a new businesswomen's network hub today in Amman to empower women, boost entrepreneurship, and unleash more economic development to address the region's urgent needs.

The hub, which is located at Business and Professional Women's Association Amman, is the eighth to be supported by President Bush's Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI). Other businesswomen's network hubs are operating in Bahrain, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, the Palestinian territories, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

The hubs are responding to needs identified by women at business summits sponsored by MEPI in Tunis and Abu Dhabi. At the summits, Arab participants proposed the development of a businesswomen's network to provide skills training and mentoring and to facilitate a speaker's bureau connecting Arab women with subject-matter experts from the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. The hubs support the goals of the businesswomen's network and are run by local businesswomen's organizations to bring more opportunities to women in the Middle East and North Africa.

MEPI, which supports greater freedom and opportunity for people in the region, has devoted more than $293 million in four years to reformers so democracy can spread, education can thrive, economies can grow, and women can be empowered.

For more information, journalists may contact Chad Bettes at the U.S. Department of State, (202) 776-8572.