Date: 30/09/2003
Source: Deputy Ministry of Trade and Industry
Title: Hendricks: Launch of SAWEN's Gauteng branch
SPEECH BY THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF TRADE AND INDUSTRY, LINDIWE HENDRICKS, AT THE LAUNCH OF THE SAWEN GAUTENG BRANCH, 30 September 2003
Dignitaries
Programme Director
Ladies and gentlemen
I would like to welcome you to the launch of the Gauteng Branch of the South African Women Entrepreneurs Network - SAWEN. While many of you will have already heard or participated in the activities of SAWEN, I feel that it is important, as the patron and founder member of SAWEN, to provide an overview of what SAWEN is about. This is necessary so that there is a clear understanding of where SAWEN comes from, the potential that this organisation holds for the development of South African women in business, and I also wish to provide clarity on the future role of the dti in this programme.
The concept of the SAWEN originated in the dti in the year 2000. The concept was a combination of several ideas that had been proposed over a number of years of researching the best way to support women in business. The aim was to create an organised body of women entrepreneurs that could provide support to one another and assist women in business to become successful. In addition such a network was seen by the dti as a vehicle that could channel dti support and resources to women entrepreneurs.
Given the disparate nature of women's support organisations that exist, the problems faced by the dti in identifying and supporting suitable women's owned businesses as well as recommendations from women entrepreneurs, it was necessary for a new organisation to be established that would bring together South African women entrepreneurs, both as individual entrepreneurs and as organised groupings. Working with and incorporating organised women's groups into this new organisation was identified as necessary based on our historical circumstances, the experiences in other countries and would lead to a much stronger organisation being established. Furthermore, when looking at the experiences of other countries we learned that women's business networks are best vehicles for fostering business growth whilst promoting public and private partnerships.
Based on our research, our discussions with a number of stakeholders, and experiences in the dti, we developed a concept and a framework for establishing the South African Women Entrepreneurs Network (SAWEN). It was then agreed that together with business partners in the private sector, SAWEN would be established as a network primarily aimed at strengthening women's enterprises in a coherent and co-ordinated manner and as a vehicle for channelling resources and services to women enterprises.
Considering the fragmentation and the isolation of South Africa's women business structures, SAWEN would provide South Africa women entrepreneurs with a platform to speak in a unified voice. By networking with other organisations SAWEN would have the potential to become the umbrella body mobilising women entrepreneurs from different sectors and levels of the economy to lobby for increased and better access to resources.
The work or objectives of SAWEN would therefore involve:
* Gathering and updating a database of women's enterprises and services rendered by these organisations;
* Organising networking forums with regional and international business organisations and business partners;
* Facilitating access to pertinent business information;
* Facilitating capacity building and training for members;
* Lobbying and advocating enabling and supportive policies and legislation.
SAWEN, as a networking organisation will also have the ability to provide its members with support services that could include group or joint marketing of products, group or joint buying of input materials or services, joint tendering or bidding on contracts, sharing of information on new markets and opportunities, sharing of containers when exporting, and using members of the network as suppliers or distributors, etc. There are also the benefits of being able to get advice and information from members of the network who can play a mentoring or supportive role to newer businesses. One of key benefits of a network is that it allows a small business to partner with a number of other businesses and get the benefits of looking big but retaining their independence and flexibility.
One of the critical success factors of networks in other countries is the role of government. The lesson that we have learnt is that for the initial success of the network and for it to function properly the government should support it but if the network is to be successful beyond the establishment phase then it must be private sector driven. It is clear that a public and private sector partnership is necessary for the success of SAWEN.
The role that the dti has played up to now in facilitating the launch and the establishment of SAWEN has seen us co-operate with women representatives from different provinces. We have done this because we wanted to ensure that from the beginning SAWEN is not a government programme but is a programme that is inclusive of a number of organisations representing the private sector. To ensure that SAWEN is not a government structure we have, in co-operation with our private sector partners, agreed that it will be an independent organisation operating as a section 21 company. It will however continue to be supported by us. Our support will be to ensure that SAWEN has resources to establish itself and run its activities. It is our hope that in future government resources contribute less than 50% of the total SAWEN budget.
Programme director, ladies, we believe that in supporting SAWEN we would have created a vehicle that has the potential to be a powerful force in assisting women entrepreneurs. I have already mentioned some of the areas of work for SAWEN and I believe that these objectives will be achieved by SAWEN doing the following:
Firstly, Effective Lobbying. SAWEN will be working with and representing several thousand women owned businesses and will develop an excellent understanding of the problems that are faced by these businesses. SAWEN will therefore be extremely useful in lobbying and advising government on its policies to promote and support women entrepreneurs, as well as ensuring that gender equality in economic support programmes is not excluded. A good example of this will be the recent BEE workshop hosted by SAWEN in collaboration with our Gender and Women's Empowerment Unit. The challenge will be to do this at a provincial level. Effective communication with our local structures will only assist SAWEN to establish a positive reputation and profile.
The second activity of SAWEN should be Information Sharing. Information is extremely important for any enterprise and the forums that SAWEN has with government departments will not only be useful for SAWEN to lobby and advise government but can also be used by SAWEN to obtain information on what the government is doing to promote and support businesses, and more specifically women entrepreneurship. SAWEN leadership can then take this information through to women entrepreneurs so that they can be kept informed by about what we in government offer and how to access our incentives and support programmes. Sharing information with other business partners in the private sector is also crucial and another challenge for SAWEN.
The third area of work for SAWEN is Setting the Women's Economic Agenda for SA. SAWEN has the potential to help us develop a coherent strategic intervention that will ensure that the economic agenda of this country is gender sensitive and caters for women's specific interests. Currently there is a huge gap in this area in South Africa and one might argue in Africa as a whole. Indeed whilst we acknowledge our responsibility of helping start and grow women's enterprises we do not claim to know all the needs of those enterprises or the challenges they are faced with. Through SAWEN we will be able to close this information gap.
The fourth area for SAWEN is Research and Information on Women's Enterprises. SAWEN provides us with an opportunity to start gathering reliable information on a consistent and long-term basis on women enterprises. We need to gather information on the names of women enterprises, how they are growing over time, the kind of sectors that they are in, how they are performing, etc. This information can be used to gauge the impact that women enterprises are having on our economy, as well as developing a useful database of women enterprises, which can be shared amongst the membership. Gathering of information could be done in partnership with research units or academic institutions. However, we might also find that there are companies in the service sector that have an interest in the information that we will be able to gather and could provide sponsorship to cover the costs of such research.
The fifth area of work for SAWEN is Promoting Competitiveness of Women Owned Enterprises. Women owned enterprises need to look at where the economy both globally and locally is moving and should assess where their company fits into to this picture, and become more competitive so that they are not left behind. SAWEN has an important role in assessing what is happening in different sectors in the global economy, gather this information and share it with their membership. SAWEN will also be able to assist women by informing them how they can tap into existing government initiatives that assist businesses with becoming more competitive.
The sixth and last area of work is for SAWEN to Facilitate Access to International and Domestic Markets for their members. Accessing both domestic and international markets still presents itself as a challenge for South African women entrepreneurs. Despite the support that we offer in this area we are still not seeing enough women owned enterprises participating in our trade missions and exporting. Through SAWEN we hope to expose more and more women to the benefits of trade internationally and linked to my previous point of SAWEN facilitating companies to be more competitive, we hope that these companies will be export ready when we taken them into these markets. Already SAWEN has been successful in assisting the dti to find export ready women owned businesses to take with us to the Global Summit of Women that was held in Morocco earlier this year.
There are many more areas of work that SAWEN can involve itself in. As the organisation develops and matures so we will be able to identify new areas of work for SAWEN and new programmes that will support and assist women entrepreneurs.
Before I conclude I would like to speak about the importance that the Gauteng branch of SAWEN will have. While all branches in SAWEN will be equal it would be na
Source: Deputy Ministry of Trade and Industry
Title: Hendricks: Launch of SAWEN's Gauteng branch
SPEECH BY THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF TRADE AND INDUSTRY, LINDIWE HENDRICKS, AT THE LAUNCH OF THE SAWEN GAUTENG BRANCH, 30 September 2003
Dignitaries
Programme Director
Ladies and gentlemen
I would like to welcome you to the launch of the Gauteng Branch of the South African Women Entrepreneurs Network - SAWEN. While many of you will have already heard or participated in the activities of SAWEN, I feel that it is important, as the patron and founder member of SAWEN, to provide an overview of what SAWEN is about. This is necessary so that there is a clear understanding of where SAWEN comes from, the potential that this organisation holds for the development of South African women in business, and I also wish to provide clarity on the future role of the dti in this programme.
The concept of the SAWEN originated in the dti in the year 2000. The concept was a combination of several ideas that had been proposed over a number of years of researching the best way to support women in business. The aim was to create an organised body of women entrepreneurs that could provide support to one another and assist women in business to become successful. In addition such a network was seen by the dti as a vehicle that could channel dti support and resources to women entrepreneurs.
Given the disparate nature of women's support organisations that exist, the problems faced by the dti in identifying and supporting suitable women's owned businesses as well as recommendations from women entrepreneurs, it was necessary for a new organisation to be established that would bring together South African women entrepreneurs, both as individual entrepreneurs and as organised groupings. Working with and incorporating organised women's groups into this new organisation was identified as necessary based on our historical circumstances, the experiences in other countries and would lead to a much stronger organisation being established. Furthermore, when looking at the experiences of other countries we learned that women's business networks are best vehicles for fostering business growth whilst promoting public and private partnerships.
Based on our research, our discussions with a number of stakeholders, and experiences in the dti, we developed a concept and a framework for establishing the South African Women Entrepreneurs Network (SAWEN). It was then agreed that together with business partners in the private sector, SAWEN would be established as a network primarily aimed at strengthening women's enterprises in a coherent and co-ordinated manner and as a vehicle for channelling resources and services to women enterprises.
Considering the fragmentation and the isolation of South Africa's women business structures, SAWEN would provide South Africa women entrepreneurs with a platform to speak in a unified voice. By networking with other organisations SAWEN would have the potential to become the umbrella body mobilising women entrepreneurs from different sectors and levels of the economy to lobby for increased and better access to resources.
The work or objectives of SAWEN would therefore involve:
* Gathering and updating a database of women's enterprises and services rendered by these organisations;
* Organising networking forums with regional and international business organisations and business partners;
* Facilitating access to pertinent business information;
* Facilitating capacity building and training for members;
* Lobbying and advocating enabling and supportive policies and legislation.
SAWEN, as a networking organisation will also have the ability to provide its members with support services that could include group or joint marketing of products, group or joint buying of input materials or services, joint tendering or bidding on contracts, sharing of information on new markets and opportunities, sharing of containers when exporting, and using members of the network as suppliers or distributors, etc. There are also the benefits of being able to get advice and information from members of the network who can play a mentoring or supportive role to newer businesses. One of key benefits of a network is that it allows a small business to partner with a number of other businesses and get the benefits of looking big but retaining their independence and flexibility.
One of the critical success factors of networks in other countries is the role of government. The lesson that we have learnt is that for the initial success of the network and for it to function properly the government should support it but if the network is to be successful beyond the establishment phase then it must be private sector driven. It is clear that a public and private sector partnership is necessary for the success of SAWEN.
The role that the dti has played up to now in facilitating the launch and the establishment of SAWEN has seen us co-operate with women representatives from different provinces. We have done this because we wanted to ensure that from the beginning SAWEN is not a government programme but is a programme that is inclusive of a number of organisations representing the private sector. To ensure that SAWEN is not a government structure we have, in co-operation with our private sector partners, agreed that it will be an independent organisation operating as a section 21 company. It will however continue to be supported by us. Our support will be to ensure that SAWEN has resources to establish itself and run its activities. It is our hope that in future government resources contribute less than 50% of the total SAWEN budget.
Programme director, ladies, we believe that in supporting SAWEN we would have created a vehicle that has the potential to be a powerful force in assisting women entrepreneurs. I have already mentioned some of the areas of work for SAWEN and I believe that these objectives will be achieved by SAWEN doing the following:
Firstly, Effective Lobbying. SAWEN will be working with and representing several thousand women owned businesses and will develop an excellent understanding of the problems that are faced by these businesses. SAWEN will therefore be extremely useful in lobbying and advising government on its policies to promote and support women entrepreneurs, as well as ensuring that gender equality in economic support programmes is not excluded. A good example of this will be the recent BEE workshop hosted by SAWEN in collaboration with our Gender and Women's Empowerment Unit. The challenge will be to do this at a provincial level. Effective communication with our local structures will only assist SAWEN to establish a positive reputation and profile.
The second activity of SAWEN should be Information Sharing. Information is extremely important for any enterprise and the forums that SAWEN has with government departments will not only be useful for SAWEN to lobby and advise government but can also be used by SAWEN to obtain information on what the government is doing to promote and support businesses, and more specifically women entrepreneurship. SAWEN leadership can then take this information through to women entrepreneurs so that they can be kept informed by about what we in government offer and how to access our incentives and support programmes. Sharing information with other business partners in the private sector is also crucial and another challenge for SAWEN.
The third area of work for SAWEN is Setting the Women's Economic Agenda for SA. SAWEN has the potential to help us develop a coherent strategic intervention that will ensure that the economic agenda of this country is gender sensitive and caters for women's specific interests. Currently there is a huge gap in this area in South Africa and one might argue in Africa as a whole. Indeed whilst we acknowledge our responsibility of helping start and grow women's enterprises we do not claim to know all the needs of those enterprises or the challenges they are faced with. Through SAWEN we will be able to close this information gap.
The fourth area for SAWEN is Research and Information on Women's Enterprises. SAWEN provides us with an opportunity to start gathering reliable information on a consistent and long-term basis on women enterprises. We need to gather information on the names of women enterprises, how they are growing over time, the kind of sectors that they are in, how they are performing, etc. This information can be used to gauge the impact that women enterprises are having on our economy, as well as developing a useful database of women enterprises, which can be shared amongst the membership. Gathering of information could be done in partnership with research units or academic institutions. However, we might also find that there are companies in the service sector that have an interest in the information that we will be able to gather and could provide sponsorship to cover the costs of such research.
The fifth area of work for SAWEN is Promoting Competitiveness of Women Owned Enterprises. Women owned enterprises need to look at where the economy both globally and locally is moving and should assess where their company fits into to this picture, and become more competitive so that they are not left behind. SAWEN has an important role in assessing what is happening in different sectors in the global economy, gather this information and share it with their membership. SAWEN will also be able to assist women by informing them how they can tap into existing government initiatives that assist businesses with becoming more competitive.
The sixth and last area of work is for SAWEN to Facilitate Access to International and Domestic Markets for their members. Accessing both domestic and international markets still presents itself as a challenge for South African women entrepreneurs. Despite the support that we offer in this area we are still not seeing enough women owned enterprises participating in our trade missions and exporting. Through SAWEN we hope to expose more and more women to the benefits of trade internationally and linked to my previous point of SAWEN facilitating companies to be more competitive, we hope that these companies will be export ready when we taken them into these markets. Already SAWEN has been successful in assisting the dti to find export ready women owned businesses to take with us to the Global Summit of Women that was held in Morocco earlier this year.
There are many more areas of work that SAWEN can involve itself in. As the organisation develops and matures so we will be able to identify new areas of work for SAWEN and new programmes that will support and assist women entrepreneurs.
Before I conclude I would like to speak about the importance that the Gauteng branch of SAWEN will have. While all branches in SAWEN will be equal it would be na
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