The Chambers of Commerce award Rosa Cañadas, President of the Tanja Foundation, the Mediterranean Medal
The Association of Mediterranean Chambers of Commerce and Industry recognises the contribution of Tanja's founder to the tolerance and prosperity of the Mediterranean region
Rosa Cañadas, founder and president of the Tanja Foundation, has received the Mediterranean Medal, an annual award granted by the Committee of Advisors of the Association of Chambers of Commerce and Industry of the Mediterranean (ASCAME).
Commitment to development
An award that this organisation, founded in 1982 on the initiative of the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, grants to personalities, companies or institutions that make an outstanding contribution to transforming the Mediterranean region into an area of unity, tolerance and prosperity.
In this case, the Committee of Advisors has underlined the Tanja Foundation's commitment to the economic development of the Mediterranean region, through the creation of links between countries, to break stereotypes and misperceptions.
ASCAME particularly values the efforts of the Foundation directed by Rosa Cañadas in promoting the role of women as an engine of economic growth and their contribution to creating a more inclusive and equitable future.
The Tanja Foundation
Rosa Cañadas, an entrepreneur born in Tangier, created Tanja in 2007, with the aim of fostering relations between Morocco and Spain and creating complicities that favour commercial, cultural and knowledge exchanges.
Cañadas' activity at the head of the Tanja Foundation seeks to raise awareness among Spanish economic agents and project the image of Africa as a source of opportunities for Spanish companies.
As Rosa Cañadas herself pointed out in an interview with Atalayar last July, "it took us a long time to begin to see Morocco as a partner and now we are its leading trading partner and, in fact, we will be the leading investor this year, overtaking France. But things are moving slowly: there is still a great lack of knowledge about everything that is happening in Africa, and I think there are some very erroneous perceptions that we have to work on, and this takes time.
Promoting female entrepreneurship
One of the current priorities of the Tanja Foundation is to promote the presence of Spanish businesswomen in Morocco, for which they have launched the NETME programme, together with the Association of Women Entrepreneurs of Morocco (AFEM).
This programme has three lines of action: NETME Mentoring, an international exchange and learning programme aimed at new entrepreneurs; NETME Exchange, an exchange programme for experienced entrepreneurs; and NETME Networking, which puts Moroccan and Spanish entrepreneurs in contact with each other, consolidating a support network of female entrepreneurs at an international level.
In this regard, Cañadas told Atalayar in the aforementioned interview that ‘we want Spanish businesswomen to lose their fear of setting up in Morocco, because they think that culture or religion may limit what they can do. And that is not true, because Morocco is supporting women a lot and giving them a lot of visibility’.
ASCAME
The Association of Chambers of Commerce and Industry of the Mediterranean (ASCAME), which has awarded the Medal of the Mediterranean to the President of the Tanja Foundation, is an international non-profit organisation representing the private sector in the Mediterranean. It brings together more than 300 chambers from the 23 countries that make up the Mediterranean region, looking after the interests of millions of entrepreneurs.
Precisely in these days, 29th and 30th October, ASCAME has celebrated the 18th edition of the Mediterranean Week of Economic Leaders, MedaWeek Barcelona 2024. The aim of this event is to explore new avenues of cooperation and dialogue between companies in the region, in order to seek joint solutions to the new challenges arising from the current geopolitical context.
The latest edition of MedaWeek, which was held in the historic building of La Lonja in Barcelona, brought together representatives of more than 40 organisations from both the Mediterranean region and internationally, and businesspeople and professionals from more than 45 countries.
Among the issues addressed at the conference were current challenges such as climate change (tragically topical due to the floods in the Valencian Community), sustainable and responsible tourism, the new economy and the consequences of the crisis in the Middle East.
