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In the new environment the ideas, energies and power of women are having increasing impact. This has been particularly evident at the United Nations. Women's Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) in great numbers have been advocating for policies that empower women socially, politically and economically at UN conferences on the environment, human rights, population, social concerns, the human habitat and women. They have also been among the voices calling for multinational corporations to be accountable to international standards, and for the reform of the international Monetary Fund and the World Bank. They have understood that the global economy has moved problems up to the international level, and that they need to be working at that level. They have successfully pressured to be "out of the hallway" and "around the table".
Women entrepreneurs like others will have to be concerned about protecting the privacy of digital records and communications and about knowing who they are delaing with.
Women business owners will need to consider their responsibility in creating infrastructures of collaboration in their own communities. Strong and inspired leadership is required. Women entrepreneurs, actinf separately and together, using networked intelligence to make the job manageable, could take the load and make a difference -but they will need help.
The global economy's impact on the different sizes and kinds of women's businesses will need much thought. The larger women's businesses with paid employees clearly have the potential to profit from the expansion of markets and the new suppliers of goods and services the global market-place can provide. In the US, these businesses make up only 20% of women's businesses but they account for 94% of the dramatic growth in their receipts. They will need help with export/import procedures and with building new contacts and alliances, but they should be able to compete if they decide to do so. The other 80%, which comprise the very small businesses in the US in 1992 accounted for most of the huge growth in the number of women-owned businesses.
There have been many success stories showing that, with their help, their low-income and poor clients, a majority of whom tend to be women, can build income and assets through enterprise. This has led slowly to greater recoginition and support for these programmes from both the public and private sectors.
Access to credit, the diminishing costs of computers and networking, support from non-profit business development programmes and favorable tax policy may be enough to handle the problem, but that remains to be seen.
Since women are heavily in middleman businesses as retailers, wholesalers, distributors, real estate agents, insurance brokers, travel agents, and the like- they will have to shift their businesses to add value of another kind. They will need to move from being in the transaction or information exchange business to providing new combinations of information or services not available on-line.