At the United Nations’ 2024 World Entrepreneurship Investment Forum, which was held in Bahrain’s capital of Manama several weeks ago, a spotlight was given to a woman entrepreneur from each of the following countries: Sudan, Afghanistan, Gaza, and Iraq. This consortium took place during a panel called ‘Women, Peace and Security,” and projected the stories and voices of the featured businesswomen to raise awareness and highlight their accomplishments amidst catastrophic struggles. UN News summarized the accounts of Alaa Hamadto, Malalai Helmandi, Tahani Abu Daqqa, and Basima Abdulrahman in this article, and each inspiring woman “stressed the importance of investing in their activities as a means of building peace, security, and stability in their communities.” The global stage of the UN is an empowering and vital opportunity to bring attention and resources to these women entrepreneurs’ home countries.

Alaa Hamadto, “a Sudanese mother of three daughters, [and] CEO/founder of Solar Food, a clean tech startup and a pioneer in the dried foods industry in Sudan,” experienced her factory being destroyed due to the ruination. Her business had worldwide momentum prior to the destruction, as Hamadto says, “We used to export our products to seven countries, including the UK, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, and Qatar. My business was located at the factory premises in Sudan.” The economic casualty of Solar Food is just one example of the countless hardships that Hamadto and her community have faced. As she states, “Sudanese lives matter. Sudanese dreams matter. We have faced horrible things. Sudanese people lost everything.”

In Afghanistan, “Malalai Helmandi, Chief Operations Officer of the solar energy-producing organization Helmandi Solar…is implementing projects to empower women in the Asian nation. Over the past two and a half years, their company has been setting up greenhouses for women affected by conflict and crises, she explained and added that 47 years of war in Afghanistan have weakened the role of mothers as the backbone of the household.” Being the hero and pillar of strength and advocacy for the neglected and forgotten women that the world at large has ignored is an awe-inspiring way Helmandi has taken matters into her own hands.

“The first Palestinian woman to work in Gaza to create job opportunities for women such as clothing and biscuit factories, so that they could…remain in Gaza because many Gazans were going to work outside the Strip,” is how Tahani Abu Daqqa described herself at the forum. Her efforts have been completely hampered since the most recent escalations of violence, as she states, “Suddenly I became displaced in an area near the sea. I could have rented a small place to stay but the women and children were staying on the streets in the rain because they had been displaced and I had to do something to help them. We had nothing, no banks, no money.” Abu Daqqa’s revolutionary movements are now stalled and setback for the foreseeable future.

Basima Abdulrahman, “Founder and CEO of the KESK company, which seeks Greentech energy solutions through technology,” trailblazed her organization in the face of insurmountable outside obstacles:

“’I decided to build a sustainable business because I loved sustainability, [but] I didn’t know that it would end up a climate action business,’ Ms. Abdulrahman told UN News. Ms. Abdulrahman believes that for Iraq, the transition to renewable energy is not just a strategic plan or a luxury but a necessity. There is a 50 per cent shortage of electricity in the country, and this gap is currently being filled by generators that pollute the environment and which do not actually close the gap. Above all, they are expensive.”

The women entrepreneurs highlighted at the WEIF serve as painstaking examples of how women in business are stifled and impeded because of violence and toxic conditions surrounding them. Global empowerment for Alaa, Malalai, Tahani, and Basima, and their peers is long overdue.

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Lucy Brooks, DMT.NEWS, DMT BeautySpot,