Ottawa, Canada –Selima Ahmad, a member of the Women’s Democracy Network (WDN) and the founder and president of the Bangladesh Women Chamber of Commerce and Industry, recently spoke at the Global Summit of Women conference in Ottawa, Canada, organized by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women). The conference was hosted by the Honorable Beverley Oda, Minister of International Cooperation and Michelle Bachelet, Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women.

The October 3-5,2011, event gathered more than 100 global experts, entrepreneurs, policy-makers and academics to share their experiences on how to break down the barriers to women’s economic empowerment and concluded with recommendations for action to advance women’s economic opportunities.

Ahmad spoke during a session entitled Investing in the Foundations for Women’s Economic Empowerment, Economic Security and Rights, which focused on regulatory policies and institutional foundations necessary for improving women’s economic empowerment, economic security and rights extending across the economy. Stressing the fact that women are vital economic players in many fields, Ahmad mentioned the importance of encouraging women entrepreneurs to run for elected office. She also used the opportunity to announce the launch of WDN’s Women’s Leadership Schools initiative which is funded by the United Nation’s Democracy Fund and will be conducted in Bangladesh, Cameroon, Georgia and Guatemala. The project garnered a lot of interest from both CIDA and UN Women representatives.