The World Entrepreneurs Investment Forum will open on 31 October in Bahrain

August 09, 2017

UNIDO ITPO Bahrain is organizing the World Entrepreneurs Investment Forum (WEIF) 2017 which will take place on October 31st – November 2nd this year in Manama, Bahrain under the patronage of His Royal Highness, Prince Khalifa Bin Salman Al Khalifa, the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Bahrain.

The World Entrepreneurs Investment Forum 2017 is organized with the goal of developing partnerships between entrepreneurs, and sharing international best practices and successes on entrepreneurship and innovation. The Forum will facilitate access to finance and allow developmental funds/financial institutions to get a closer understanding of linking financial to non-financial services towards development of entrepreneurs and MSMEs, furthering the prominence of Bahrain as a financial hub.

The Forum main Theme is Achieving the SDGs through Promoting Entrepreneurship & Innovation, with 3 Sub-themes:

• Maritime-Continental Silk Road (MSCR)
  Through the ITPO Bahrain role — as a secretariat to the MCSR Entrepreneurs Alliance, functioning under the umbrella of the MCSR Cities Alliance — the Forum will aim at revitalizing the economic ties of the countries of East and West of the traditional Maritime-Continental Silk Road by developing partnerships between entrepreneurs and disseminating best practices, while facilitating access to finance and allowing developmental funds/financial institutions to get a closer understanding of linking financial to non-financial services towards MSMEs.
• Global Impact Investing
  The Forum will also present the concept of „Global Impact Investing“ and its role in realizing the United Nations‘ SDGs, thereby alleviating the tremendous cost of solving the world’s most critical problems, including an estimated $2.5 trillion annual funding gap needed to achieve the SDGs in developing countries alone. The Forum will stress the importance in private capital through financial institutions, private investors and entrepreneurs towards filling this gap and address the pressing global challenges.
• Women in Industry
  The Forum will address the challenges, threats and opportunities facing women in their endeavors to be more active in the industrial arena, including: access to financial resources and new technologies, building support networks, improving technical and managerial skills and addressing social and cultural barriers. It will focus on the role of female entrepreneurs, partnerships for development, and the implications for achieving the 2030 agenda, in particular SDG 9 on industry, innovation and infrastructure.

The Forum is expected to attract around 1,000 entrepreneurs and representatives of MSME and entrepreneurship support institutions from the around the world, in addition to dignitaries and officials from the Islamic Development Bank, the African Development Bank Group, Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa, Global Entrepreneurship Week, United Nations MCSR Cities Alliance, World Business Angels Investment Forum, Saudi Fund for Development, Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development, Arab Fund Social and Economic Development and others

For further information and registration, please visit https://theweif.com/ or contact WEIF2017@unido.org.