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9 August 2007

Programme Director,
Members of Parliament,
Officials from Municipality, government departments and private sector,
South African Women Entrepreneurs' Network (Sawen) members,
Businesswomen,
Ladies and gentlemen

A very good morning to all of you. Being invited to address this particular forum does make me a special person thus indeed honoured and privileged as a South African man. I am humbled by the gesture, more so by entrusting me with the responsibility of sharing with you the Department of Trade and Industry's (dti's) mandate in empowering women. Fortunately, being part of the leadership of such a department, I took up this challenge positively being motivated by the efforts that my department has invested in empowering women. These today have landed us in a position where we now have a solid programme on women empowerment that is fully integrated into the broad mandate of the dti.

Chairperson, ladies and gentlemen, my name is Rob Davies, one of the two Deputy Ministers of Trade and Industry. I also wish to congratulate the organisers for putting together such a forum. We as government are seeking all kinds of partnerships in assisting us to be accessible to all South Africans, in particular those in marginalised communities. As much as Cape Town is deemed as the first world international city, the reality of the situation is that many of our local women need government intervention to be encouraged to get into business. For this reason, I wish to encourage you and many who are not here today, to consider entrepreneurship as an alternative to formal employment. Let us not forget that poverty is a greatest form of oppression which tends to be accompanied by both misery and death in server cases and this we strive to eradicate. In order to achieve this, we need all your efforts.

Ladies and gentlemen, this month we as a country are celebrating the 51 Anniversary of the National Women's March. Part of these celebrations has a lot do with what was once said by our State President Thabo Mbeki in 2004 when he delivered his annual State of Nation Address. President Mbeki started by referring to the words of our proudly South African leader, Nelson Mandela. As he was highlighting what he termed the 'real story' of progress, he reflected on the strides made towards creating a politically stable and economic nation fundamental to the 'people-centred society'. There is no way that these strides could exclude interventions that have specifically empowered women, for it is only by empowering women that a society like ours can be said to be people-centred.

The people-centred society of South Africa is where women have been provided with various opportunities, some accompanied with resources for defining and determining their role in the economy. Since 1994, women have been afforded with great opportunities, starting from being able to cast an independent vote as equal partners to their male counterparts as well as having economic rights of becoming economically active through formal employment or through wealth creation. This included entering the field of entrepreneurship, where they have defined their role as creators of employment as well as role players in growing the South African economy. It is in this arena where we as the dti have played a major role in empowering women as critical role players in the economy. All of these and more, have given true meaning to women’s month, hence the celebrations are so well deserved.

Ladies and gentlemen, the dti established the Gender and Women's Empowerment Unit in late 1998. Since then, several initiatives have been introduced to mainstream women's issues within the broader mandate of the dti. Part of this included designing and implementing exclusive women's programmes. These programmes have emanated from policies located within our major areas (both at a local and international level), focusing on Trade and Investment, Business Development Support, Entrepreneurship and Economic Empowerment. Most of our work is done through workshops, conferences and business consultancy. So far, we deliver most of these services directly or in-directly where we use our very own agencies or provincial and local government as well as private sector partners.

Ladies and gentlemen, the dti as part of facilitating the establishment, the growth and the profitability of women's enterprises, two major support programmes have been introduced.

The first one is the Technology for Women in Business – commonly known to many of you as TWIB. Now in its 10th years of existence, TWIB has attracted, engaged and empowered thousands of women from all nine provinces to be able to understand and apply technology to support and grow their businesses thus realizing the hidden potential of either individual or group enterprises. As TWIB moves beyond 2007, its focus will now be to assist women to innovate and invent new products and services as part of growing the South African (SA) economy.

Contrary to what is often perceived, technology and technological innovation are not only about computers and new ways of communicating and managing information. It is much broader. Technological innovation is the application of knowledge to develop new products or processes with commercial potential that can be applied to the benefit of society. These, I believe our women can achieve through the support of TWIB and many other related support programmes availed by government. Also, new scientific knowledge and the development of technological capability create potential for industrial growth. But unless this capability results in new products and processes through innovation, this potential will not be realised. Therefore, the cutting edge of success with technology is to enter new markets or increase market share with new or improved products and processes. Enabling women to achieving this is our target for TWIB.

Secondly, as we continued to strengthen our relationship with women entrepreneurs, the dti had to respond to a long-standing outcry of SA women entrepreneurs. These women continue to face a wide array of obstacles in starting, growing and sustaining their own enterprises. In 2002, this led to the official establishment of the South African Women Entrepreneur's Network (SAWEN) as many of us refer to it today. Together with women entrepreneurs through SAWEN, we have brought cohesiveness amongst women business structures where they speak in 'One Voice'. As a network, Sawen provides formal business networking forums where women can now take advantage of business opportunities and share information on these. Sawen has ultimately brought an end of business isolation for women, particularly black women, who can start groupings to take advantage of the Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) opportunities.

I'm proud to also say that Sawen is now established in 8 out of the 9 provinces of SA, including this province. Its have physical offices in Cape Town, Pietermaritzburg and Johannesburg. Local members have joined me today to provide detailed information about its local activities. It now has its own website being www.sawen.org.za, hotline number being 0839139141.

The successes of Sawen have included:

* women empowered with knowledge as to how to do business in SA
* where to get available support services both (financial and non financial)
* how to behave and conduct yourself in a business world as business women
* how to network effectively and be part of joint ventures
* better understanding of government policies and legislation
* how to produce quality product whilst securing a stable business market both locally and internationally.

Due to the overwhelming demand of this programme, Sawen will now be adopted as the dti agency, providing women with daily business support services. I urge most of you to join Sawen, to learn, grow and become established profitable entrepreneurs.

Sawen has continued to be our vehicle in exposing more women to the global economy. As part of doing business with the rest of the world, we have alliances with other critical women's business organisations in Africa and Europe. Realising that South African Business Women need to be part of the international business world, we have continued to expose our women to every international business opportunity we have come across. This has mainly included various business forums. Part of this has included taking them through Trade Mission, including ones to India, Paris, Namibia, Hong-Kong, Morocco, Ghana, and Uganda amongst others. All these were exclusively for women. Ensuring that also those who are left behind benefit from these, we have hosted and co-hosted international business forums.

Ladies and gentlemen, realising that women's economic empowerment has not been fully achieved, the dti released a draft 2006 Strategic Framework on Gender and Women's Economic Empowerment. This is our plan of fast tracking women empowerment where we have identified supportive programmes for fast tracking women's economic empowerment. The strategy is currently awaiting cabinet approval.

As part of Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (AsgiSA) it is further aimed at accelerating and ensuring an equitable share of our economy between men and women. Last year January, the dti hosted an urgent consultative workshop on Engendering AsgiSA. Through this workshop, we have successfully managed to identify critical areas of intervention critical as part of fast tracking women's economic empowerment. The workshop resulted in an officially adopted strategy by cabinet known as the '2006 Strategic Framework on Engendering AsgiSA,' championed by our Deputy President.

We have already started implementing some of these recommendations, we are now compiling the 2nd SA Women's Procurement Directory for 2007. All of you are invited to be a part of this by contacting our national office. Also, through the office of the Deputy President, women are now being placed in different countries for a period of 6 months to a year to gain more business or career experiences.

Women owned co-operatives:

As past of promoting rural and peri urban enterprise development, the dti has identified the co-operatives as the main intervention. We all know the value of working in a group where there is great sharing of information, skills transfer and hand holding amongst members. Rural women have proven to work effectively under these in a form of enterprises. With sufficient support both financially and non-financially, women entrepreneurship can be unleashed.

As part of Jobs for growth, Sawen together with Meropa co-operative have formed partnerships to training women to produce quality South African made products. These will proudly promote SA culture and traditions mainly in the Clothing and Textile Industry as well as the creative industry. Also, corporate South Africa has showed some interest in procuring goods from these women.

Ladies and gentlemen, many of you would be delighted to hear that finally we have responded to the outcry of women with regards to improving their access to finance. It is my pleasure to share with you that as proposed by our strategic framework, the dti has approved the model of the long awaited Women Entrepreneurs Fund. To be launched soon, the fund will provide loans with business support to develop profitable women owned enterprises. Under the management of the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), these loans will range from 50 000 to R1 million.

The unique selling point of this fund will be to provide these enterprises with bridging finance to be able to render relevant services after being awarded tenders. Depending on the viability of the business idea, the fund will also consider loans between 10 000 and 50 000, seeing that some of the women who graduate from micro finance normally don’t have any where to go to after graduating. The fund will work very closely with other Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) thus contribute towards ensuring that women’s access to finance is easily accessed and made affordable.

In conclusion, as a source of encouragement, I wish to also alter you to local initiatives that are targeting women. These are led by MEC Marius Fransman as part of the Expanded Public Works Programme, where women have been identified as major targets. Also, under the leadership of MEC Tasneem Essop, Sawen has been working with the provincial office on further growing and supporting women's enterprises. Western Cape women stand a lot to benefit from activities related to Tourism, the Film industry and most of all the property industry.

Get involved and link up with the right people, right forums and right structures in order to benefit from the provinces overall economic vision, thus really making Western Cape Ikapa Elihlumayo. In the centre of women empowerment lies the development of both our rural and peri-urban areas, essential for us to halve and ultimately eradicate poverty. I wish all of you the best in your entrepreneurial endeavours.

Thank you for inviting me.

Issued by: Department of Trade and Industry
9 August 2007