The world economy is undergoing a quiet and profound revolution. The low cost of communications and the opening of markets - the essential forces of globalization - have spurred high growth in East and South Asia , as well as the emergence of some 3.3 bln cheap and hard working laborers into the world economy. This flood of workers will impact labor intensive industries, which in turn will affect the demand and job opportunities for low skilled workers, of whom the large majority are women. Female labor force participation in the formal sector, such as textiles, is likely to be affected worldwide. In the Middle East and North Africa Region, where formal female labor force participation has been lowest among all regions, these developments have the potential to affect women more disproportionately than they might in other parts of the globe. The event brings to the Bank high level women entrepreneurs from the MNA region. The participants are owners/founders of their own businesses in a variety of sectors, including investment banking, oil and gas, petrochemicals, consulting, agribusiness, automotive industries, etc. They are from Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, WBG, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, Yemen, Syria, UAE and Djibouti. In many ways, this event is a first of its kind within the Bank. In the past, women's entrepreneurship has been largely associated with micro-finance. Yet, women do increasingly count among small, medium and large scale producers, investors, and entrepreneurs and create significant number of jobs. They face the same hurdles as any entrepreneur, and some more which are likely to be gender based. The purpose of the Roundtable is to develop and agenda on how to promote women's entrepreneurship as a means to strengthen the private sector, create jobs, and above all advance women's economic rights in the MNA region. 
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