Women Entrepreneurs and Professionals Working Group Convened for the Second Time to Discuss Ways Forward in 2017

For the second time, members of the Women Entrepreneurs and Professionals Working Group met in Bandung to discuss possible actions for the remaining year of 2017, which aim to raise the awareness on compliance and strengthen integrity amongst women entrepreneurs and professionals in Bandung and the nearby region. The meeting was facilitated by Faiza Hasan and Barliana Amin from the Alliance for Integrity. The participants came up with a list of proposed activities which included peer-to-peer exchanges within the Working Group members and the possibility to organise another “Dari Usaha ke Usaha – DUKU” compliance training for women entrepreneurs in this region within this year.

They also discussed concrete problems regarding compliance and integrity in their daily life, which cover issues like facilitation payments during the process for obtaining various business licenses or during the process of product registrations and made suggestions on how the Alliance for Integrity could assist to find potential solutions. The participants also used the meeting to initiate the discussion on the idea to develop a simple handbook for SMEs, which could contain practical guidance on how to develop internal compliance regulations ruling common business practices which are categorised as grey areas, such as entertainment, gifts or hospitality.