Day celebration in Cape Town, Hout Bay Parliamentary constituency office
9 August 2007
Programme Director,
Members of Parliament,
Officials from Municipality, government departments and private sector,
South African Women Entrepreneurs' Network (Sawen) members,
Businesswomen,
Ladies and gentlemen
A very good morning to all of you. Being invited to address this particular
forum does make me a special person thus indeed honoured and privileged as a
South African man. I am humbled by the gesture, more so by entrusting me with
the responsibility of sharing with you the Department of Trade and Industry's
(dti's) mandate in empowering women. Fortunately, being part of the leadership
of such a department, I took up this challenge positively being motivated by
the efforts that my department has invested in empowering women. These today
have landed us in a position where we now have a solid programme on women
empowerment that is fully integrated into the broad mandate of the dti.
Chairperson, ladies and gentlemen, my name is Rob Davies, one of the two
Deputy Ministers of Trade and Industry. I also wish to congratulate the
organisers for putting together such a forum. We as government are seeking all
kinds of partnerships in assisting us to be accessible to all South Africans,
in particular those in marginalised communities. As much as Cape Town is deemed
as the first world international city, the reality of the situation is that
many of our local women need government intervention to be encouraged to get
into business. For this reason, I wish to encourage you and many who are not
here today, to consider entrepreneurship as an alternative to formal
employment. Let us not forget that poverty is a greatest form of oppression
which tends to be accompanied by both misery and death in server cases and this
we strive to eradicate. In order to achieve this, we need all your efforts.
Ladies and gentlemen, this month we as a country are celebrating the 51
Anniversary of the National Women's March. Part of these celebrations has a lot
do with what was once said by our State President Thabo Mbeki in 2004 when he
delivered his annual State of Nation Address. President Mbeki started by
referring to the words of our proudly South African leader, Nelson Mandela. As
he was highlighting what he termed the 'real story' of progress, he reflected
on the strides made towards creating a politically stable and economic nation
fundamental to the 'people-centred society'. There is no way that these strides
could exclude interventions that have specifically empowered women, for it is
only by empowering women that a society like ours can be said to be
people-centred.
The people-centred society of South Africa is where women have been provided
with various opportunities, some accompanied with resources for defining and
determining their role in the economy. Since 1994, women have been afforded
with great opportunities, starting from being able to cast an independent vote
as equal partners to their male counterparts as well as having economic rights
of becoming economically active through formal employment or through wealth
creation. This included entering the field of entrepreneurship, where they have
defined their role as creators of employment as well as role players in growing
the South African economy. It is in this arena where we as the dti have played
a major role in empowering women as critical role players in the economy. All
of these and more, have given true meaning to women�s month, hence the
celebrations are so well deserved.
Ladies and gentlemen, the dti established the Gender and Women's Empowerment
Unit in late 1998. Since then, several initiatives have been introduced to
mainstream women's issues within the broader mandate of the dti. Part of this
included designing and implementing exclusive women's programmes. These
programmes have emanated from policies located within our major areas (both at
a local and international level), focusing on Trade and Investment, Business
Development Support, Entrepreneurship and Economic Empowerment. Most of our
work is done through workshops, conferences and business consultancy. So far,
we deliver most of these services directly or in-directly where we use our very
own agencies or provincial and local government as well as private sector
partners.
Ladies and gentlemen, the dti as part of facilitating the establishment, the
growth and the profitability of women's enterprises, two major support
programmes have been introduced.
The first one is the Technology for Women in Business � commonly known to
many of you as TWIB. Now in its 10th years of existence, TWIB has attracted,
engaged and empowered thousands of women from all nine provinces to be able to
understand and apply technology to support and grow their businesses thus
realizing the hidden potential of either individual or group enterprises. As
TWIB moves beyond 2007, its focus will now be to assist women to innovate and
invent new products and services as part of growing the South African (SA)
economy.
Contrary to what is often perceived, technology and technological innovation
are not only about computers and new ways of communicating and managing
information. It is much broader. Technological innovation is the application of
knowledge to develop new products or processes with commercial potential that
can be applied to the benefit of society. These, I believe our women can
achieve through the support of TWIB and many other related support programmes
availed by government. Also, new scientific knowledge and the development of
technological capability create potential for industrial growth. But unless
this capability results in new products and processes through innovation, this
potential will not be realised. Therefore, the cutting edge of success with
technology is to enter new markets or increase market share with new or
improved products and processes. Enabling women to achieving this is our target
for TWIB.
Secondly, as we continued to strengthen our relationship with women
entrepreneurs, the dti had to respond to a long-standing outcry of SA women
entrepreneurs. These women continue to face a wide array of obstacles in
starting, growing and sustaining their own enterprises. In 2002, this led to
the official establishment of the South African Women Entrepreneur's Network
(SAWEN) as many of us refer to it today. Together with women entrepreneurs
through SAWEN, we have brought cohesiveness amongst women business structures
where they speak in 'One Voice'. As a network, Sawen provides formal business
networking forums where women can now take advantage of business opportunities
and share information on these. Sawen has ultimately brought an end of business
isolation for women, particularly black women, who can start groupings to take
advantage of the Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) opportunities.
I'm proud to also say that Sawen is now established in 8 out of the 9
provinces of SA, including this province. Its have physical offices in Cape
Town, Pietermaritzburg and Johannesburg. Local members have joined me today to
provide detailed information about its local activities. It now has its own
website being www.sawen.org.za, hotline number being 0839139141.
The successes of Sawen have included:
* women empowered with knowledge as to how to do business in SA
* where to get available support services both (financial and non
financial)
* how to behave and conduct yourself in a business world as business
women
* how to network effectively and be part of joint ventures
* better understanding of government policies and legislation
* how to produce quality product whilst securing a stable business market both
locally and internationally.
Due to the overwhelming demand of this programme, Sawen will now be adopted
as the dti agency, providing women with daily business support services. I urge
most of you to join Sawen, to learn, grow and become established profitable
entrepreneurs.
Sawen has continued to be our vehicle in exposing more women to the global
economy. As part of doing business with the rest of the world, we have
alliances with other critical women's business organisations in Africa and
Europe. Realising that South African Business Women need to be part of the
international business world, we have continued to expose our women to every
international business opportunity we have come across. This has mainly
included various business forums. Part of this has included taking them through
Trade Mission, including ones to India, Paris, Namibia, Hong-Kong, Morocco,
Ghana, and Uganda amongst others. All these were exclusively for women.
Ensuring that also those who are left behind benefit from these, we have hosted
and co-hosted international business forums.
Ladies and gentlemen, realising that women's economic empowerment has not
been fully achieved, the dti released a draft 2006 Strategic Framework on
Gender and Women's Economic Empowerment. This is our plan of fast tracking
women empowerment where we have identified supportive programmes for fast
tracking women's economic empowerment. The strategy is currently awaiting
cabinet approval.
As part of Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa
(AsgiSA) it is further aimed at accelerating and ensuring an equitable share of
our economy between men and women. Last year January, the dti hosted an urgent
consultative workshop on Engendering AsgiSA. Through this workshop, we have
successfully managed to identify critical areas of intervention critical as
part of fast tracking women's economic empowerment. The workshop resulted in an
officially adopted strategy by cabinet known as the '2006 Strategic Framework
on Engendering AsgiSA,' championed by our Deputy President.
We have already started implementing some of these recommendations, we are
now compiling the 2nd SA Women's Procurement Directory for 2007. All of you are
invited to be a part of this by contacting our national office. Also, through
the office of the Deputy President, women are now being placed in different
countries for a period of 6 months to a year to gain more business or career
experiences.
Women owned co-operatives:
As past of promoting rural and peri urban enterprise development, the dti
has identified the co-operatives as the main intervention. We all know the
value of working in a group where there is great sharing of information, skills
transfer and hand holding amongst members. Rural women have proven to work
effectively under these in a form of enterprises. With sufficient support both
financially and non-financially, women entrepreneurship can be unleashed.
As part of Jobs for growth, Sawen together with Meropa co-operative have
formed partnerships to training women to produce quality South African made
products. These will proudly promote SA culture and traditions mainly in the
Clothing and Textile Industry as well as the creative industry. Also, corporate
South Africa has showed some interest in procuring goods from these women.
Ladies and gentlemen, many of you would be delighted to hear that finally we
have responded to the outcry of women with regards to improving their access to
finance. It is my pleasure to share with you that as proposed by our strategic
framework, the dti has approved the model of the long awaited Women
Entrepreneurs Fund. To be launched soon, the fund will provide loans with
business support to develop profitable women owned enterprises. Under the
management of the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), these loans will
range from 50 000 to R1 million.
The unique selling point of this fund will be to provide these enterprises
with bridging finance to be able to render relevant services after being
awarded tenders. Depending on the viability of the business idea, the fund will
also consider loans between 10 000 and 50 000, seeing that some of the women
who graduate from micro finance normally don�t have any where to go to after
graduating. The fund will work very closely with other Development Finance
Institutions (DFIs) thus contribute towards ensuring that women�s access to
finance is easily accessed and made affordable.
In conclusion, as a source of encouragement, I wish to also alter you to
local initiatives that are targeting women. These are led by MEC Marius
Fransman as part of the Expanded Public Works Programme, where women have been
identified as major targets. Also, under the leadership of MEC Tasneem Essop,
Sawen has been working with the provincial office on further growing and
supporting women's enterprises. Western Cape women stand a lot to benefit from
activities related to Tourism, the Film industry and most of all the property
industry.
Get involved and link up with the right people, right forums and right
structures in order to benefit from the provinces overall economic vision, thus
really making Western Cape Ikapa Elihlumayo. In the centre of women empowerment
lies the development of both our rural and peri-urban areas, essential for us
to halve and ultimately eradicate poverty. I wish all of you the best in your
entrepreneurial endeavours.
Thank you for inviting me.
Issued by: Department of Trade and Industry
9 August 2007
