Access to finance and markets, formalisation of businesses, lack of business skills, non-financial support and access to information are some of the constraints that the young businesswomen identified as greatly inhibiting their attempts to participate meaningfully in the country’s economic activities.
These constraints were identified during a youth economic empowerment seminar that was hosted jointly by the Department of Trade and Industry (the dti), the Ugu District Municipality and Umzumbe Local Municipality at the Isibanini Community Hall at Umzumbe, on the South Coast of KwaZulu-Natal. The seminar was held under the theme Young Women’s Action for Economic Freedom in our Lifetime.
The objective of the seminar was to give young women entrepreneurs from the villages in the district’s six local municipalities an opportunity to speak to Deputy Minister Elizabeth Thabethe about the challenges that they encounter in their efforts to establish, grow or sustain their businesses, as well as proposals on interventions that the government should consider to assist them to overcome the barriers.
Participants at the seminar recommended the development of women-specific programmes and services to promote women’s entrepreneurship, improvement of access to business development services such as enterprise education, training, information and mentorship, and improvement of access to local, national and global markets, amongst others.
In response to the views expressed by the young businesswomen, Deputy Minister Thabethe said her department had identified a gap in its mandate pertaining to bringing the youth into the mainstream economy.
“In an effort to plug the gap, the department is establishing a youth directorate that will deal specifically with entrepreneurship issues that affect young businessmen and women, and those who aspire to be entrepreneurs. The setting up of the directorate is an outcome of a youth economic empowerment strategy that the department has developed,” said Thabethe.
She added that the vision of the department’s youth directorate was a South Africa that has a dynamic youth entrepreneurship culture and well-developed and successful youth owned enterprises.
“A variety of programmes to support youth entrepreneurship programmes are in the pipeline. These include entrepreneurship, mentorship and coaching, business incubation, assistance with access to markets, and business infrastructure support.
These programmes and interventions target specifically young women and men because the department recognises the critical role that young people can play in improving their lives and those of people around them for the better by creating job opportunities,” said Thabethe.
Enquiries:
Bongani Lukhele
Tel: 012 394 1643
Cell: 074 299 8512
E-mail: BLukhele@thedti.gov.za
Sidwell Medupe
Tel: 012 394 1650
Cell: 079 492 1774
E-mail: MSMedupe@thedti.gov.za
Source: Department of Trade and Industry
