KABUL - Afghan women entrepreneurs had the opportunity to learn firsthand from their South Asian counterparts on methods of economic empowerment through a range of business ventures linked to activities such as farming and handcraft, many of which are a source of income for Afghan women.

Members of the so-called BEES (Business, Employment and Enterprise Support for Women in South Asia) network gathered in the Afghan capital, Kabul, on 12-13 May for an annual World Bank-organized event to share their experiences and knowledge, as well as success stories related to women’s livelihoods programmes.

The experiences of economic empowerment which were shared at the gathering included examples of Bangladeshi women involved in food and seed banks; as well as women working in agriculture, food and nutrition security, and methods in accessing handcraft markets. Of particular interest to Afghan women were the experiences of Sri Lankan women overcoming the trauma of war years and starting income-generating activities.

Almost 90 per cent of Afghan women are illiterate, with most having very limited access to economic activities, and few are encouraged to venture outside their homes to find work, according to a recent United Nations Labour Organization (ILO) report.

The BEES network was established in May 2011 with the support of the World Bank. Its members hail from the regional bloc known as the ‘South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation’ (SAARC), of which Afghanistan is also a member.

A senior rural development specialist for South Asia at the World Bank, Melissa Williams, said that the general objective of the network is to provide a forum for civil society organizations and some World Bank projects in order “to share experiences, identify good practices, teach and learn from each other on their interventions for women’s economic empowerment.”

Each BEES gathering, like the one in Kabul this week, is hosted by a different organization in each country in which it is held. The Kabul meeting was hosted by the Afghanistan Rural Enterprise Development Programme (AREDP) and the National Solidarity Programme. Supporting hundreds of women throughout the country, AREDP is the main government programme that empowers women economically through entrepreneurship.

“We are looking into different thematic areas where the World Bank can support the network members whether it is agriculture, land tenure or marketing handicraft,” said the World Bank’s sector manager for rural development and livelihoods for the South Asian region, Shobha Shetty.

The founding member and the former executive director of AREDP, Ghizal Haris, said that some BEES member countries, such as India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh, have long histories of women’s livelihoods, income generation, job creation and microfinance programmes – and “Afghanistan can learn a lot from their experiences.”

The participants of the Kabul meeting earlier visited AREDP’s projects in the Afghan province of Parwan. One of those taking part, Shaheen Anam from Bangladesh, noted that although Afghanistan has a rather “conservative society and women are still very much in their homes” they can play productive roles and contribute to their families and society.

“They (Afghan women) are looking confident and they are very proud to be able to do something that is more productive which will get them more respect in the family and in the community,” said Ms. Anam.

On the sidelines of the Kabul meeting, an oral history exhibition, named ‘Her Stories,’ presented women’s voices and narratives in Sri Lanka during that country’s conflict.

“I am exhibiting these stories at the BEES’s network meeting and I am transferring my methodologies to some of the women in Afghanistan with the hope that they will capture the narratives of women in Afghanistan and create an archive,” said the exhibition’s curator, Radhika Terachi.

Outside of the meeting’s venue, Afghan women entrepreneurs from a range of Afghan provinces set up stalls displaying their products, hoping to explore potential buyers from abroad.

“The relative insecurity and the transition of power from international forces to Afghan government in Bamyan has badly affected our business,” said Haleema Rezai, a woman entrepreneur from the province of Bamyan, who was displaying her handcraft products.

She added that she was looking forward to finding better markets for her products as her business had suffered significantly due to security concerns and a reduction in the international military presence in her province.

Women entrepreneurship in Afghanistan has experienced significant growth over the past decade. Until the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, women’s movements and activities had been strictly limited. Today, Afghan women entrepreneurs are running handcraft industries, involved in food processing, software design and the supply of construction material, to name but a few of the areas they are involved in.

The coming years in Afghanistan are widely seen as crucial for the country’s future as Afghan security forces are taking over security responsibilities from their international allies, who are ending their combat mission in the country by the end of 2014. The security transition coincides with a political transition, with a presidential election slated to be held in April next year, marking an end to the second term of the incumbent, President Hamid Karzai. Also, in 2015, Afghanistan is due to hold elections for the National Assembly (‘Wolesi Jirga’).