The highlights of our Trade Events were the very successful one-day seminars: one in May 2004 and the other in November 2006. The 2004 seminar brought together over 100 professional and businesswomen. The Seminar was on Women in Trade: Accessing New Markets. It was aimed at helping women in business understand Government’s Trade and Investment policies and know how to gain access to national, regional and international markets and obtain information on the support services available to facilitate women’s access to new markets. The Minister of Trade & Industry Hon Dr. Mukhisa Kituyi gave the keynote address.

This seminar led to the inauguration of the Gender Development office at the Ministry of Trade & Industry in February 2005. The office is on 17th floor of Teleposta Towers, Room 1707. It has been very useful.

The November 2006 seminar was on Capacity Building for Women Entrepreneurs. It focused on the various impediments to women’s advancement in business. Top of the list was lack of access to business finance since women do not own property used as collateral for bank loans. Other issues tackled were the discriminative business registration procedures, taxation, etc. The Minister for Finance Hon. Amos Kimunya was the Guest of Honour. As a result of that seminar, a fund to assist women to grow their businesses is in the offing and a lot more is on the way for women in business.

OWIT-Nairobi was involved in the recently concluded COMESA Business Forum in Nairobi in May 2007 and the Chairperson chaired the Women in Business Session. The Chapter is also currently representing Kenya at the COMESA Regional FEMCOM Meetings. FEMCOM stands for Federation of National Associations of Women in Business. The Chairperson has attended two Regional FEMCOM Meetings, one in Lusaka in October 2006 and in Cairo in April 2007.

In the recent past, our chairperson led a delegation of 4 members to the OWIT International Conference in Miami, USA. Some of our members have attended a workshop on Regional Trade within the COMESA and EAC at the invitation the Ministry of Trade & Industry. Two of our members have attended international trade events such as the US-Africa Business Summit in Washington DC and the East African Summit in Atlanta, Georgia. One of our members also attended a presentation by the Chief of the International Trade Centre (ITC) at the World Trade Organization on how to use some of the ITC’s trade tools such as Trade Map and Product Map. Our members have now have access to these useful trade tools.