WHY WOMEN BUSINESSES COLLAPSE
Most female-owned businesses do not thrive because women have to battle inequalities, Gender Based Violence (GBV) and lack of money to fund businesses.
This is the observation of the Chairperson for African Women Entrepreneurship Programme for Botswana Chapter (AWEP), Craciano Maphorisa.
She believes there should be gender sensitive budgeting in all departments both in the public and private sector if women are to be successfully pulled out of poverty.
There is further need for actionable programmes geared towards women entrepreneurship and more representation of women in spaces where decisions are made.
Speaking to The Midweek Sun in an effort to sensitise women about AWEP, Maphorisa said that they are an organisation for African businesswomen in production and manufacturing, who are interested in exporting their goods internationally. AWEP was established in 2016 and they are a community that mentors and guides women towards export readiness. However, they realise that the battlefield will never be equal even though most women entrepreneurs keep pushing boundaries and are not willing to throw in the towel despite the hardships. “Firstly women do not have access to capital because they are predominantly in the informal sector, which means that they cannot enjoy benefits such as loans or grants because they do not own registered companies,” Maphorisa said. She added that women face a slew of social ills such as inequality when it comes to issues such as unpaid homecare and gender roles. She noted that majority of women are heads of households, single mothers and even vulnerable to GBV. This poses a challenge when it comes to fostering healthy businesses, as women tend to take time off attending to motherly responsibilities and it is during such periods that women businesses suffer most, some even collapse. Thus, men should be willing to help with home responsibilities for women to succeed. AWEP offers a variety of workshops for all skill levels such as marketing, building relationships with buyers and suppliers and leadership skills among others.
But most importantly, they seek opportunities for women so that they have access to international markets through export trade. “Over the past year, AWEP trained more than 30 women in export and four of these women through their businesses have been connected to the export market through the Trade Forward Southern Africa initiative,” Maphorisa said.