E Thabethe: Limpopo Workshop on Gender and Women's Economic Empowerment
Strategy

30 January 2006

ADVANCING WOMEN’S ECONOMY EMPOWERMENT THROUGH ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Mr Collins Chabane, MEC for Economic Development, Environment and
Tourism
Mr Roney Chingage, HOD for Economic Development
Ms Sarah Masunga, Chairperson of SAWEN Limpopo
Women Entrepreneurs from all the regions of Limpopo
Members of SAWEN from Limpopo
Official from all spheres of government
Community and Business Leaders
Ladies and Gentlemen

Welcome

Thobela Bommakgwebo ba Limpopo. I would like to thank the MEC Chabane for
allowing us as the dti to host this workshop in your province. Many thanks, to
the department of Economic Development and in particular Ms Carol Nkambule for
all the support. Your financial and human resources contribution are clear
indications of how women’s economic empowerment is important to you. To you and
South African Women Entrepreneurs Network (SAWEN) under the leadership of Ms
Masunga, and in particular Ms Lindiwe Ngcobo for assisting my office and the
dti Gender and Women’s Empowerment (GWE) Unit in organising this workshop, we
shall be forever grateful for all your support. To all of you, thank you for
taking the time to be here. As it is the beginning of a new year, 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.

To all of you, your continued support is highly appreciated. We will also
continue to bank on all your valued support as we begin to implement our
strategy. This is our seventh consultation forum, after consulting with women
from the Northern Cape, the Free State, Western Cape, the North West and the
Eastern Cape, Mpumalanga and last week with KwaZulu-Natal. 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 matters as well as 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.

I have brought with me Mr Martin Lebea and Ms Unati Motau, both Project
Assistants of the Gender and Women’s Empowerment (GWE) Unit in the dti. Ms
Mmabatho Matiwane who heads the Unit was unable to join us today due to other
work demands. Both my team and I are delighted to be here.

Partnerships

It is so encouraging to see our policy makers, policy implementers and the
direct beneficiaries of policies congregated at this forum to discuss ideas and
strategies on how to improve service delivery. Such gatherings are of critical
importance to us in government, because they visibly demonstrate and cement the
partnership between you and ourselves to improve the living standards of all
South Africans.

Our forum today is dedicated to 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.

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.

Inception of strategic framework

Since its establishment, the GWE Unit has played a key role in successfully
transforming the employment profile of the dti to reflect gender equity. As a
result, the organizational culture of the department now also caters for the
needs of its female employees.

Externally, the dti has also successfully managed to change public
perceptions about the role of women in the economy. To this end, we have
encouraged and supported women in their entrepreneurial efforts through
initiatives such as Technology for Women in Business (TWIB) and SAWEN, amongst
others. However, despite all these efforts we have to admit that our policies
and programme have not always maximised the full benefits for our women in
business and, as a result, many of the challenges that they faced a decade ago
continue to exist.

The relative success of our economy since 1994 has also opened up extensive
business opportunities for women. However, many of them are unable to exploit
these opportunities because they are still trapped in the lower echelons of the
economy. Consequently, it has become necessary for the dti to ensure that
institutional support for women in business is entrenched and that we continue
to search for new and innovative ways to support women in business. We are of
the view of growing the economy to accommodate new entrants. Our strategic
framework was born out of the realization that we have to embark on an active
measurable programme of action to ensure that women, especially those in the
second economy, can begin to establish and sustain successful enterprises.

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. Its implementation was also
simultaneously elevated to one of the department’s major projects in 2005. In
keeping with our maxim that the people must govern, we have now embarked on a
process of consulting with various stake holders 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 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.

You may ask (as many have and will continue to ask), why it is important to
have a special strategic framework on gender and women’s economic empowerment?
The president and the deputy president have partially responded to this
question when they raised their concerns around the second economy.

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 2nd 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 2nd economy. Their additional family and community
responsibilities also make them more vulnerable and thus deserving of the
special and or targeted interventions that our strategic framework proposes. Mr
Martin Lebea 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.

Combining formal and informal business activities, SMMEs constitute about
95% of all enterprises in the country. If we exclude all informal activities
and self-employment, SMMEs currently absorb between 50% and 60% of the formally
employed labour force and contribute at least 30% to GDP, and its contribution
is growing.

Consequently it is important that women become a strong and visible
component of the sector. In 2005 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.

The report further alerts us to the fact that the concentration of women’s
businesses are located in crafts, hawking, personal services and the retail
sector that, as we all know, are at the lower echelons of our economy. I know
this is the same in this province where rural enterprises are the majority.
These are the challenges that we have to address in the strategic framework.
Indeed, circumstances like these leave much to be desired.

Women entrepreneurship

The same report also underlines the need to promote entrepreneurship among
women, because it says that men are 1.7 times more likely than women to be
involved in entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurial activities also vary
significantly from province to province. Gauteng leads with 9.9% compare this
with 3.1% in the Northern Province and North West.

At interactions such as this forum we can apply our minds to ways of
addressing these challenges and close the gaps. Clearly, as women, we cannot be
content that during the period 2001-2002, the total entrepreneurship activity
rate for men was 8.1% compared with 4.9% for women. Here in Limpopo, for
example, let us see how we can mainstream women mainly in the Tourism, Arts and
Craft as well as in the Minerals and Energy Sector. With the strong presence of
mines in this province, we need to maximize the opportunities in beneficiation.
The time to work with government to ensure our involvement is now. These
testify to the urgent need for more government involvement in women’s
entrepreneurial development, and hence the dti has chosen entrepreneurship
development as a one of the best vehicles for fast track women’s economic
empowerment.

Input cost and export potential

Ladies and gentlemen, woman entrepreneurship is definitely part of our main
mechanism for accelerating growth in practical terms. Part of the economic
reform strategy in relation to this is to lower input costs for small
businesses and boost their export potential. For women in particular, it is our
intention to work with women through the provision of business information,
economic illiteracy, and training for better management of their enterprises as
well as capacity building for qualitative and most importantly quantitative
product development. Providing women with local markets is where we want to
start, proceeding to exposing them to international markets. Addressing the
most challenging one, currently we are working on an initiative with our
partners to avail easy and affordable access to finance to specifically suit
the needs of women’s business. We also intend to develop incentives schemes
aimed at supporting those potential growing sectors. Starting and growing
sustainable profitable women’s enterprises is what we are going to dedicate
most of our resources to for it is the only way women’s economic empowerment
can be realised in this country.

As part of implementing our resolution of 2006, on 12 January this year, the
dti hosted an urgent consultative workshop on engendering Accelerated and
Shared Growth Initiative – South Africa (ASGI-SA). Through this workshop, we
have successfully managed to identify critical areas of intervention critical
as part of fast tracking women’s economic empowerment. Like Deputy President
Mlambo-Ngcuka, we as the dti are of the opinion that the success of ASGI-SA
will mainly be determined by its positive impact on the second economy. We also
believe that if ASGI-SA 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 ASGI-SA as part of empowering them in
growing our economy towards achieving the 6% target growth by 2014. Women in
this province are therefore invited to participate in this process. Copies with
details of the proposed plan have been distributed in this workshop as part of
information sharing. I urge all of you to share it with others not here and
identify your role in it.

To conclude, as we proceed, we will be consulting with stakeholders like you
in all provinces. A special forum will be held for rural and peri-urban women
stakeholders because we want our strategy to provide for the needs of such
vulnerable groups. Relevant community-based organisations will also be
consulted. It is also important to us that social entrepreneurship is also
catered for as a critical economic intervention for alleviating poverty and
addressing women’s strategic gender needs that 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 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: Department of Trade and Industry
30 January 2006