WASHINGTON and DOHA, Qatar, April 16,
2014 /PRNewswire/ -- H.E. Sheikh Abdullah Bin Mohammed Bin Saud Al Thani,
Chairman of Ooredoo Group, participated in Gender & the
Economy, an event hosted by World Bank Group's International
Finance Corporation on Monday, 14 April in Washington, D.C.
His Excellency delivered a speech on the changing role of women
in the supply chain. As part of his keynote, he highlighted some of
the work being done in emerging markets to address gender
inequality in the business sphere and encouraged businesses to
engage women as both customers and key partners in their
success.
H.E. Sheikh Abdullah Bin Mohammed Bin
Saud Al Thani, Chairman, Ooredoo Group, said: "Achieving
women's participation in the private sector has been an essential
aspect of Ooredoo's business, and I believe it is also a critical
driver of growth in economies and societies. From Ooredoo's recent
research among more than 10,500 young adults in 17 countries across
the Middle East and North Africa, we know that 72% of men and 77%
of women agree that women should be given equal business
opportunities. While this hopefully signifies a generational shift
in attitudes about women's economic empowerment tomorrow, I am
calling for every business to engage women as both customers and
key partners in success today."
Ooredoo Group's Chairman also participated in a panel discussion
with Cherie Blair, Founder of the
Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, and Beth
Comstock, Senior Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer at
GE. The panel, which was moderated by Benjamin Skinner, Co-Founder and Senior Vice
President of Tau Investment Management, addressed the importance of
men's involvement in the effort to include women in the private
sector and necessary changes for reaching full gender equality in
the private sector.
Sheikh Abdullah was recently appointed to the World Bank Group
Advisory Council on Gender and Development, a major global body
dedicated to promoting gender equality around the world. As the
first for a private sector representative from the Middle East, the Chairman's appointment
reflects Ooredoo's ongoing engagement in women's empowerment
initiatives across its footprint, and also His Excellency's
personal commitment with these issues.
Ooredoo supports the development of human growth in all its
aspects, with a particular focus on the empowerment of women. This
includes a range of initiatives to ensure women can deploy mobile
technology to enhance their daily lives because employment can
bring gains for women, their families, businesses, and the wider
community. The company has seen strong success for business
initiatives, programmes and life-enhancing mobile services focusing
on women in the Middle East,
North Africa, and South-East Asia.
In Iraq, Asiacell, which is
part of Ooredoo, researched women's needs extensively and designed
a breakthrough service offering called Almas ('diamond') line with
features matching the needs of Iraqi women for mobile services.
Since the launch of Almas line in April
2011, more than two million female customers have been
connected to friends and family, becoming more socially and
financially independent, thanks to their access to mobile
technology. The proportion of female customers in Asiacell's
customer base has grown from 20 percent to 40 percent.
In Qatar, Ooredoo has recently
signed a three-year partnership with "How Women Work", a national
community of practitioners that aims to provide information and
networking opportunities to empower women, with a particular focus
on female entrepreneurs, executives, employees and jobseekers.
Ooredoo's company Indosat runs a series of women-focused
initiatives in Indonesia, all with
the intention of improving the quality of women's lives through
ICT. With women comprising nearly two-thirds of the country's
entrepreneurs in Indonesia, the
company's Inspera (or Inspirasi Perempuan Indonesia) initiative
focuses on 'womenpreneurs' and offers functional training through
the use of mobile technology while providing guidance for how to
become more independent and resourceful. The company's
award-winning mobile money service, Dompetku, provides working
capital to more than 800,000 female micro-entrepreneurs who have
limited access to affordable resources. In 2013, Indosat initiated
Indonesia Womenpreneur Competition along with the Ministry of Women
Empowerment and Fimela Magz, an Indonesian lifestyle magazine, as a
challenge to 'start-up womenpreneurs' to run their business and
optimize the use of ICT. Working with social enterprise Ruma
Pulsa, the company has also enabled 'womenpreneurs' to become sales
agents for Indosat products, which empowers women living in rural
areas by enabling them to become more financially independent .
Following its success in winning a commercial licence in
Myanmar, Ooredoo is set to launch
a leading 3G network later in 2014, and the company recently
received a GSMA Foundation grant to launch a mobile maternal health
service in Myanmar. Ooredoo and
the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women also announced their
commitment to supporting women's entrepreneurship in Myanmar at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI)
Annual Meeting in September 2013. The
two organisations are developing a franchisee model to enable
30,000 women by 2016 in Myanmar to
become entrepreneurs by selling prepaid Ooredoo airtime to their
communities. This initiative aims to not only enable women to
support their families economically, but also make a distinct
contribution to Myanmar's economic
development.
The IFC's Gender & the Economy event focused on engaging IFC
clients and corporations in advancing the role of women as
consumers, entrepreneurs, leaders and employees and building
consciousness of how businesses benefit from hiring, promoting, and
purchasing from women and men. The audience included senior
representatives from for-profit and non-profit organizations,
bilateral and multilateral agencies, and senior leadership of the
World Bank Group (WBG). The event archive is available at World
Bank Live: live.worldbank.org.
About Ooredoo
Ooredoo is a leading international communications company
delivering mobile, fixed, broadband internet and corporate East
managed services tailored to the needs of consumers and businesses
across markets in the Middle, North
Africa and Southeast Asia.
As a community-focused company, Ooredoo is guided by its vision of
enriching people's lives and its belief that it can stimulate human
growth by leveraging communications to help people achieve their
full potential. Ooredoo has a presence in markets such as
Qatar, Kuwait, Oman,
Algeria, Tunisia, Iraq, Palestine, the Maldives, Myanmar and Indonesia. The company was named "Best Mobile
Operator of the Year" at the World Communication Awards 2013.
The company reported revenues of US$9.3
billion in 2013 and had a consolidated global customer base
of more than 95 million people as of 31
December 2013. Ooredoo's shares are listed on the Qatar
Exchange and the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange.
Twitter: @Ooredoo
Facebook: facebook.com/ooredoogroup
LinkedIn:
http://www.linkedin.com/company/ooredoo
YouTube: www.youtube.com/ooredoogroup
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SOURCE Ooredoo