1 November 2011: The Central American Bank for Economic Integration (BCIE) and UN Women have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to work together to promote gender equity and empowerment of women in Central America.

The MoU was signed in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, on 1 November 2011, for BCIE Executive Vice President Alejandro Rodríguez Zamora, and UN Women’s Regional Director for Central America, Mexico, Cuba and the Dominican Republic, Ana Güezmes García.

Güezmes hailed the agreement as an important step to encourage dialogue and action between the region’s analysts, policy makers, practitioners and innovators. She particularly stressed the need for measures to increase the number of women entrepreneurs in the region, such as greater access to financial instruments, training and consulting, and facilitating networking and information exchange.

Rodríguez stressed that the Bank has had a Gender Equity Policy since 2009 aimed at increasing the economic autonomy of women. He noted for example that the BCIE’s “Supply Chain Program,” which aims at helping small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the supply chain in BCIE member countries, now has 218 participating firms headed by women, or 22.6 percent of the 966 Program beneficiaries. [BCIE Press Release (Spanish)]