adminTHE International Trade Centre (ITC) is keen to work with governments interested in exploring opportunities to better integrate women-owned companies into their supply chain.
ITC Executive Director Arancha González said the institution would launch a guide “empowering women through public procurement.”
She said the full talents of women entrepreneurs would be unlocked, adding that this could be achieved together, through targeted actions and policies that could contribute much to achieving inclusive, sustainable development.
González said there would be a need for governments to do their utmost to foster the growth and success of small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
The director was speaking during the 5th roundtable of the global platform on sourcing from women vendors held in Kigali, Rwanda this week.
“Government procurement affords governments the avenue to ‘be the change they want to see’. That is, to structure procurement to enable entry points from SMEs, in particular those owned by women. Procurement is about the transparent use of public funds and value for money- but this can be married with sustainable use of public funds too,” she said.
González said there was so much focus on SMEs important, and in particular, on women-owned enterprises considering the fact that there was a global job crisis.
She said close to 500 million jobs would be needed globally for new entrants to the labour market between now and 2030.
González said global unemployment increased from 170 million in 2007 to nearly 202 million in 2012, of which a large number about 75 million were young women and men.
She said SMEs provided two-thirds of all formal jobs in Africa, Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean and 80 percent in low income countries, mainly in Sub-Saharan Africa.
González said in the US, women-owned companies employed more people than the largest 500 companies combined and this was without considering the informal sector.
She said research showed that women invested up to 90 percent of earnings in their family and community, for example, in the health, nutrition and education of children compared to approximately 40 percent by men.
González said fully exploiting the economic potential of women and women owned SMEs could, therefore, lead to a transformational economic story.
“But for SMEs and in particular for women entrepreneurs, the lack of access to knowledge and information, access to tools to improve competitiveness, access to finance and access to markets pose a hindrance.
“The solutions involve broad based partnerships that include a wide range of actors including the private sector, national governments, industry associations, international organisations and civil society,” she said. – Swaziobserver.com.
Online Reporter