Crescent Enterprises Extends Partnership with Cherie Blair Foundation for Women to Boost Female Entrepreneurship Across the Middle East

• MENA female participation rates in the workplace stand at 25% compared to 50% globally. 
• Group of Crescent Enterprises employees will offer mentorship to women entrepreneurs across a broad range of business skillsets for minimum of one year.

Sharjah, United Arab Emirates; June 1, 2015: UAE-based conglomerate Crescent Enterprises has extended its partnership with the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women to empower and support more female entrepreneurs across the Middle East for a second year.

In a continuation of its relationship established last year, a new group of seven female and male Crescent Enterprises employees will provide an extended range of professional expertise and guidance across the areas of finance, communication and marketing, business development, law, and digital literacy, through the Foundation’s unique online Mentoring Women in Business Programme.

Female unemployment rates amongst youth are particularly high in the Middle East and North Africa. Up to 39.4 percent of young women are unemployed in the Middle East and 34.1 percent in North Africa, according to a report by the United Nations.  Female participation in the workplace also remains low at 25 percent in the MENA Region compared to 50 percent globally, according to the World Bank. In view of these statistics, Crescent Enterprises is seeking to contribute to addressing these issues plaguing the region including through its work with the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women by providing guidance and sustainable solutions to the challenges female entrepreneurs face. 

“The high female unemployment and attrition rates in the Arab Region represents a significant loss of highly educated talent. In extending our partnership with the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women we hope to be able to continue to encourage and support more women develop their business acumen as they embark on their own entrepreneurial journeys. In turn these women will also play a very significant role in addressing the most pressing community needs, spurring sustainable growth by creating job opportunities for others as they witness their own professional success,” said Ola al Haj Hussin, Crescent Enterprises Corporate Citizenship Manager.

The Cherie Blair Foundation for Women was established in 2008 to ensure that women entrepreneurs in developing and emerging markets are not held back by lack of access to business skills, technology, networks and finance. Through its Mentoring Women in Business Programme, the Foundation has pioneered a new way of supporting women entrepreneurs to achieve key business goals by combining mentoring with technology, offering cross-border support worldwide.

Alongside its mentoring work, which has supported over 1,500 entrepreneurs globally to date, the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women also runs programmes that deliver tailored business training, assist with business registration and enhance access to capital and markets on a global scale. To date the Foundation has reached over 180,000 women entrepreneurs in more than 80 countries.