From October 16 to 18, 2019, the Konrad-Adenauer Foundation held its first workshop "Women Entrepreneurs: Creation of Synergies between Latin America and Francophone Africa”, which was organized by the regional program "Alliances for Democracy and Development with Latin America" ADELA of the Konrad-Adenauer Foundation in cooperation with the program for sustainable innovation, development and equality (SIDE) in Tunis.

In the Villa Collina, the former summer residence of Konrad Adenauer at Lake Como, Winfried Weck, office director of KAS Panamá and director of ADELA, and Amina Magouri, director of the SIDE program, opened the event on the first evening and welcomed the 19 businesswomen who had come from Latin America and francophone Africa. During the selection process, particular attention was paid to a high degree of heterogeneity among the participants. From logistics, furniture and textile production to agriculture, medical equipment and services, a wide variety of economic sectors were represented. The aim of the workshop was to exchange knowledge and initiate strategic alliances between women from both continents in order to promote sustainable development. This first meeting of women entrepreneurs from very different cultural backgrounds also aimed to answer the questions of how the participants see opportunities for cooperation and whether it is possible to compare problems and challenges for entrepreneurship in different regions in order to develop a roadmap for cooperation.

During the course of the following workshop days, the participants first presented their professional backgrounds, their education and their experiences in the field of entrepreneurship. Afterwards, they presented current topics on the challenges of women's entrepreneurship, international trade and sustainable management in the form of lectures, which were then debated in working groups. These included, for example, start-ups as a lever for synergies between the partner countries of the programme; social inclusion and social responsibility in relation to women's entrepreneurship; sustainable entrepreneurship as an added value for developing countries; innovation as a motor for the development of female entrepreneurship and support mechanisms for the creation of a network of female entrepreneurs between Francophone Africa and Latin America.

The participants attached great importance to the visual presentation of their activities. In this way, the first workshop provided a basis for initial cooperation between female entrepreneurs from Latin America and Africa. In addition, topics were already emerging which should be deepened in further conferences. It became clear, for example, that regional action plans should be created in the future to support businesses and that the obstacles to women's entrepreneurship in each of the regions must be identified and analysed in order to develop effective solutions to these challenges. To this end, the participants intend to continue the work in commissions. In the final discussion, the women entrepreneurs explained their proposals for the continuation of the process and praised this completely new workshop as a necessary first step to create alliances between women from two continents and as a promising approach for sustainable development. According to the unanimous opinion of the participants, a feeling of togetherness based on shared experiences, attitudes, visions and challenges had already developed after a short time together. The fear expressed in advance that possible language barriers could lead to "nepotism" within the respective language and cultural groups proved to be completely unfounded. The participants warmed up to each other from the very beginning and blended together without further ado. The discussions were partly conducted in English or with the help of two interpreters.

With the successful implementation of this measure, the first important step towards the formation of a new supraregional network has been taken. The foundations for this were already laid during the event itself by creating a network between the various participants.