Sometimes in life, when we face enormous challenges, we fail to see that the solution was right there from the start. It is easy to get stuck in old patterns of thinking, but if we use our emotional intelligence and wisdom, and make space for self-reflection and introspection, we can always find solutions to hard problems.
South Africa is facing hard problems at the moment and needs to self-reflect. One of the biggest collective challenges facing us is the unprecedented unemployment crisis. The latest employment figures from Statistics South Africa (StatsSA) show that more than a third (34.5%) of working-age people in South Africa are unemployed.
Furthermore, from more than 10 million young people aged 15-24 years, only 2.5 million are in the labour force and most of them (7.7 million or 75.1 %) are economically inactive because they feel despondent.
Every South African can feel the impact and it is easy to become despondent, but what if there was a new way to look at the problem? What if there was a brilliant solution right under our noses that we have been overlooking?
We already have a powerful economic solution within our reach.
One of the biggest overlooked fixes for our unemployment crisis is to harness the economic power of women. Through the ages and in many cultures, including many local cultures, women have been the economic driving force of their communities. For the best part of our recent history, women have been sidelined, and many women were relegated to the role of an employee at best or economic outsider at worst. However, this narrative is changing.
We are finally recognising the many fervent women entrepreneurs among us who can add enormous value to our economy. They just need equal opportunities to break into the ecosystem. They do not need handouts — just a fair chance to contribute.
Every industry in this country has supply chains where women can make their mark, bringing incredible local products and services into the market, injecting valuable skills and knowledge transfer into our local ecosystems and creating millions of good jobs.
Two recent initiatives got us thinking more deeply at the BEE Chamber about how to remove the structural barriers that hold back especially black women entrepreneurs in South Africa. The first was the government’s Women’s Economic Assembly (Wecona) conference where we joined a few sessions. The second was UN Women South Africa’s flagship programme in the Eastern Cape to stimulate equal opportunities for women entrepreneurs.
At Wecona, global research was presented that shows that global value chains account for 50% of global trade, and that in developing countries women make up 33.2% of the workforce.
President Cyril Ramaphosa in his keynote speech said that by the second quarter of 2022, 40.7% of South African women aged between 15 to 60 years were recorded as economically inactive. With men, 36% are economically inactive. Poverty is officially higher among women, and particularly among black women. That is just a shame, because we all know how formidable women can be.
Targets to right old wrongs
At Wecona, the target was set to count and record all the women-owned businesses in every industry so that they can access opportunities in all our government and private sector supply chains. To put words into action, the government set a 40% preferential procurement target from women-owned businesses.
So, now all our boss women have a chance to make use of preferential procurement in our supply chains and transform the South African economy. If we can bring a lot more women into our economic ecosystems, we can expand the scope of the economy, increase productivity and create millions of rippling economic opportunities across our society.
However, to get there, we must create the demand, incentives and skills for both the public and private sectors to meet those targets. Businesses and government departments need to grasp and think about the importance of actively sourcing from women — whether it be in tech, agriculture, the automotive industry, transport and logistics, tourism, fast-moving consumer goods, food and beverages, renewable energy, engineering or any other industry. And then they need to learn how to actually do it by educating themselves on what preferential procurement entails and how to make it happen.
It also became clear at the conference that the government’s departments cannot address all the socio-economic challenges in South Africa by themselves – they need firm partnerships with the private sector and clear pathways to meet their targets.
It is great to see so many windows of opportunity opening up — but let us get real, many women entrepreneurs are perceived not to have the skills and knowledge on how to grab preferential procurement opportunities, and those that should procure from them also often create unnecessary barriers and excuses on why they should not get opportunities.
The broad-based black economic empowerment (B-BBEE) codes of good practice provide an incentive, through points, to procure from black women-owned companies, yet most buyers do not prioritise these. They focus more on the B-BBEE level rather than on the diversification of suppliers.
There is a huge skills gap when it comes to empowerment practitioners having a clear understanding of how the B-BBEE codes should be implemented, and how to match such opportunities where they are needed. We need to address this issue head-on, without delay.
How to open a path for women entrepreneurs
How can we help women entrepreneurs to access more opportunities? We have three very practical suggestions to offer.
Firstly, we must establish, support and source from companies owned by black women with a particular focus on those from underdeveloped areas. Our 100% black South African women-owned businesses need enterprise development and supplier development support. This allows for more localisation as small businesses have an opportunity to become part of supply chains. This support must be directed to areas that are identified, through a needs analysis, as developmental gaps and need not only be in the form of training, conferences, networking opportunities, mentoring programmes or other shortcut creative endeavours.
Secondly, we need to prioritise preferential procurement as an economy and a society. Did you know that globally, one-third of businesses are owned by women but women only get about 1% of the procurement spend of large corporations? Our corporations need to step up their supplier game in a big way to create more opportunities for women suppliers.
Businesses need a strong focus on supporting small to medium size black-owned businesses, which again supports job creation, and then they need to learn how to implement this focus. Preferential procurement can have a fast and lasting impact in helping black businesses and their suppliers and customers to grow. It is a living ecosystem where everyone grows and co-creates together. B-BBEE and inclusive and responsible value chain programmes provide a platform and rationale for inclusive supply chains, especially including women-owned companies and key players.
Businesses and beneficiaries need to work together to ensure that value chains can be optimised to benefit the business. By doing so, the business becomes more productive and competitive.
The third solution we need to prioritise as a society is strategic partnerships. A few of these strategic partners were speakers at the Wecona breakaway sessions and they provided solutions to some of the challenges being faced within each of their sectors. For instance, we are currently working with the South African Tourism Services Association and women in 3D printing to implement some amazing initiatives.
We are also tremendously excited about the opportunities that are currently opening up in the automotive industry – which, we can tell you, is no longer just a man’s world. Estimated to be a R400 billion industry, black women-owned businesses have the potential to take up 30% of the shareholding. Therefore, we are excited to see how the six goals of the South African Automotive Master Plan 2035 come to life in the near future.
These are 1) to grow South African vehicle production to 1% of global production (more than 1.4 million vehicles per year), 2) to increase local content on assembled vehicles to 60%, 3) to double employment in the auto value chain, 4) to improve competitiveness to match international best practices, 5) to transform the value chain and make it more inclusive, and 6) to deepen value addition through innovation. These are strategic in including black women which can ultimately help with job creation.
An open invitation to change the status quo
To address the exclusion of women from value chains, we continue to lobby to align targets and opportunities for women. The goal is to open up opportunities for women under ownership, enterprise and supplier development and even socio-economic development.
We invite all industries to join us. Together we can create very real pathways for women across all the industries and value chains of our economy. The collaborative opportunities are endless.
We need to get very serious and very practical about creating a society and economy where we do not just pay lip service to women’s economic empowerment. We need to stop limiting procurement from women to corporate social investment initiatives or tick-box exercises.
Women are just as serious about business as men, just as good at business as men, and just as capable of delivering the world-class goods, services and jobs that our economy so desperately needs. There is no reason why we cannot crack the economy wide open for women before the turn of the decade.
Join us, then we will do it together.
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