E Thabethe: Gender Empowerment Workshop

17 March 2006

ADVANCING WOMEN’S ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT THROUGH ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Executive Director – Ms Karuna Mohan
Business People
Ekurhuleni Business People;
Government Representatives:
Community and Business Leaders;
Ladies and gentlemen

Welcome

Good morning to all of you. I would like to thank the Ms Mohan for welcoming
us. Special thanks to Ekurhuleni Metropolitan for all the hard work, financial
support and the contribution. The support offered to the Department of Trade
and Industry (the dti), my office through the Gender and Women’s Empowerment
(GWE) Unit is highly appreciated. To Mr Mbongeni Ndlela, Ms Sina Ngobese and Ms
Sweeren Govender, the dti is grateful for all your support. Also, to all of you
gathered here, thank you for taking the time to be here to hear what we have to
say and offer us you views on the strategy. Since it’s the first time I make an
appearance in this area in 2006, best wishes to all of you and may all business
endeavours grow and strengthen. Our resolution for 2006 is to make this year a
very successful one for all South African women in business and to realise this
we will need all your support.

This is our ninth consultation forum, after consulting with women from the
Northern Cape and Free State, Western Cape, the North West, Eastern Cape,
Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal, Polokwane, Soweto, Sebokeng and now Benoni. The
support received from all women entrepreneurs has been overwhelming and
encouraging to us.

Introduction

I would also like to introduce myself to you as well as my foot soldiers. To
those of you whom I have not met, I am Elizabeth Thabethe, one of the two
Deputy Ministers of Trade and Industry. My overall responsibilities include
dealing with consumer and corporate regulatory maters as well and mainstream
the issues of the second economy as we facilitate the growth of the South
African economy. The theme of this conference was carefully selected to reflect
our strategic position on this matter. Women are the backbone of the Second
Economy and our first woman Deputy President, Ms Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka,
supports this view wholeheartedly.

Together with me, I have brought with Mr Martin Lebea, Ms Refilwe Motau, our
two new recruits Ms Granny Balepile and Jessicca Sibuyi and Ms Mmabatho
Matiwane - all from the Gender and Women’s Empowerment Unit, working hard to
ensure that all your views inform our strategy.

Partnerships

Our forum today is dedicated towards ensure that we open and sustain an
ongoing dialogue with you on how we can accelerate the improvement of your
standard of living. The dti is the key driver of economic growth and has
committed itself to champion this very objective. It is also our first
initiative of taking the dti to the people as part of educating our people
about the work of the dti.

Outline

Although my input is entitled, “advancing women’s economic empowerment
through entrepreneurship”, I want to share with you how the strategic framework
on gender and women’s economic empowerment came about.

I would also like to reflect on the importance of this framework and
entrepreneurship in growing our economy and reducing the inequalities that we
have inherited, as well as how we intend to facilitate further
consultations.

Strategic framework on gender and women’s economic empowerment

Ladies and gentlemen, earlier last year, the Executive Board of the dti
approved the further development of the draft Strategic Framework on Gender and
Women’s Economic Empowerment for 2005. In keeping with our maximum that the
people must govern, we have now embarked on a process of consulting with
various stakeholders on how best to fast track and maximise our interventions
for women entrepreneurs.

In doing so, we want to ensure that the voices of our women are heard and
influence this strategic framework. As we consult with you, we also want to
educate you and our partners about the programmes of the Department that cater
specifically for the needs of this country’s women and how these operate. We
also want to use these consultative forums to get your advice on how other
programmes in the Department can incorporate and cater for the specific needs
of women. We believe that this will be the best way to service you.

The need for such a strategic framework is central and critical, to
strategies needed to urgently address the challenges of the Second Economy.
While black people comprise the majority of people in the Second Economy, women
are majority of those affected because they face the double jeopardy of racial
and gender discrimination. Hence we need measures that address their specific
challenges in the second economy. Their additional family and community
responsibilities also make them more vulnerable thus deserve special and or
targeted interventions that our strategic framework proposes. Ms Mmabatho
Matiwane will present these interventions later in the programme and your
inputs are very critical.

Role of small business

Ladies and gentlemen, as recently indicated by Minister Mpahlwa,
entrepreneurship is the core to building a vibrant and a sustainable small,
medium and micro-enterprise (SMME) sector. The SMME sector is critical to
achieve the key national development objectives of economic growth, employment
creation and equity.

The informal employment in this area is estimated at 10 and 20%, with
agriculture and mining making a small contribution to production. Manufacturing
ha been identified to be making a significant contribution to output and
employment. It is therefore in these areas that entrepreneurs like all of you
can look for economic opportunities. From just these types of economic
activities, SMMEs and in particular those that can be owned and managed by
women and our youth stand to benefit.

Opportunities

Today ladies and gentlemen I would like to encourage and challenge you to
use the possible opportunity that has been presented by all of these sectors.
Instead of looking for employment, let us create employment opportunities and
grow our economy. Also, please bear in mind that these are just a fraction of
some of the opportunities we can take advantage of.

Last year November I launched a report titled “South African Women
Entrepreneurs – A burgeoning force in our economy”. This report indicates that
women comprise 83% of the informal economy, of which 61% of are African women.
This category may also be divided into survivalist and informal entrepreneurs.
This poses a huge challenge to all women to stand up and seek for business
opportunities. Opportunities do exist for women in the hair and beauty,
tourism, retail through formulations of consortiums, services (car cleaning,
catering etc). Opportunities are there, waiting for women to take advantage of
them. The team that I had brought with me represented through our agencies and
Units, will guide you as to how you can begin to do engage with all of
these.

As part of implementing our resolution of 2006, on 12 January this year, the
dti hosted an urgent consultative workshop on Engendering Accelerated Shared
Growth Initiative of South Africa (AsgiSA). Through this workshop, we have
successfully managed to identify critical areas of intervention critical as
part of fast tracking women’s economic empowerment. Like the Deputy President
Mlambo-Ngcuka, we as the dti are of the opinion that the success of AsgiSA will
mainly be determined by its positive impact on the Second Economy. We also
believe that if AsgiSA works for women, it will work for the rest of South
Africa as women are of those to benefit. Women have to be afforded with the
opportunity of actively participating in AsgiSA as part of empowering them in
growing our economy towards achieving the 6% target growth by 2014.

Women in this township are therefore invited to participate in this process.
Last week we released an advert calling for all women entrepreneurs to apply to
be captured in a women’s directory that will be used as a major reference book
for procurement purposes. Together with this we have also released another
advert calling for all interested women to participate in the capacity
development placement projects. All of you are therefore invited to participate
in these exciting opportunities.

To conclude, as we proceed, we will be consulting with stakeholders like you
in all provinces. It is also important to us that social entrepreneurship is
also catered for which we consider a critical economic intervention for
alleviating poverty and addressing women’s strategic gender needs which can
hinder the success of women entrepreneurship in this country. Such challenges
can seriously impede women’s entrepreneurship in this country. After that we
will engage various parliamentary structures and eventually with Cabinet for
final approval of the strategy. To ensure synergies with provinces, we have
already established an inter-governmental task group on women’s economic
empowerment, where the various government departments engage on a monthly
basis. We look forward in partnering with all of you in making this particular
intervention a success.

Malibongwe!

Issued by: Ministry of Trade and Industry
17 March 2006