‘Women in business need funding’
THERE is a need to unlock more funding and decentralisation of critical services to benefit women entrepreneurs and increase their contribution to the country’s economy in line with the National Development Strategy (NDS 1).
Stakeholders said this in Bulawayo yesterday during a consultative workshop on the alignment of the Broad-Based Women Economic Empowerment Framework.
The initiative was established in 2012 to harness the potential of youth and women by addressing their capacity gaps and enabling the environment to stimulate value addition and beneficiation along target value chains in order to improve decent job creation for skilled and semi-skilled youth and women.
This has seen the Government through the Ministry of Women Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprises Development in partnership with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and US Women rolling out engagements on the alignment of the framework to the national blueprint towards and connecting to Vision 2030.
In presentations made after group discussions, women said they need financial assistance to establish sustainable businesses and boost production. They said interest rates and requirements from financial services providers should be minimal to incentivise their growth.
Other issues raised include the need to decentralise services and establishment of one-stop-shop centres to curb the adverse impact of distance and multiplicity of compliance bottlenecks.
Lack of knowledge and poor information accessibility has also been raised with women saying some services were there but few know about them and how they can access them.
Speaking on behalf of participants, Ms Adelaide Muchetu, said there is a need to review collateral requirements as many women do not own properties, which can be presented as collateral. She also said financial literacy must be enhanced as many women do not try to access funding from any platform as they lack confidence and knowledge.
“For women to fully participate towards the national vision under NDS1, we need financial assistance. There are many requirements needed for women to access funding from banks and that becomes a challenge as some of us do not have properties to present as collateral,” she said.
“We also need skills development on different issues, which include financial literacy, business management and other things, which are relevant for sustainable business.
“Also, for women to have formalised businesses it needs easy access of services, as we all know that women are caregivers at home and taking much time to access services will discourage them, so having a one stop shop will assist.”
In an interview, Bulawayo Chamber of SMEs co-ordinator, Mr Nketa Mangoye Dlamini said the presentations from women have shown the need for financial assistance.
He said the money might be available but there are issues affecting them to access the funding.
“Women want to go into business and they also want to grow their businesses but the challenges are hindering their progress,” he said.
“What is coming out is the challenge to do with financial access. Do women have access to finance from micro-finance or banks? The general answer is no. When we say yes, then comes the challenge of collateral issues, yes, we can access the money but it’s not cheap money.”
Mr Dlamini also said there is a need to assist women in business for them to access markets. —chroncile
