Document: Women’s Entrepreneurship Development and Gender Equality South Africa

The Overall objective of the project is to:

• The overall objective of the project is to create an enabling national environment for the promotion of women’s entrepreneurship development and gender equality to support poverty reduction and job creation initiatives in South Africa.

Specifically the outcomes of the project are:

• Develop an improved enabling environment for women entrepreneurship development (WED) in South Africa
• Improve the capacity of business development service (BDS) providers to deliver services to women entrepreneurs
• Improving women entrepreneurs income-generating capacity, productivity and competitiveness

The project approach is twofold: It seeks to redress existing gender imbalances in enterprise development through approaches and activities aimed specifically at women, and to ensure that all ILO’s small enterprise initiatives are gender sensitive. The project will strengthen the national institutional capacity of the Government of South Africa to redress existing gender imbalances in enterprise development through approaches and activities aimed specifically at women and small enterprise initiatives that are gender sensitive. These interventions are expected to assist in achieving the goals set in the Small Business Development Strategy (ISBDS) in South Africa and the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (AsgiSA) where the needs of women and persons with disabilities in SMME development are highlighted. The WEDGE project is further supported by the South African National Policy for Women Empowerment and Gender Equality; the Draft Strategic Framework on Gender and Women’s Economic Empowerment, and the ILOs Strategy on Women’s Entrepreneurship Development. The strategy seeks to reduce the vulnerability of women’s enterprises (including barriers faced by women with disabilities and women living with HIV) relating to working conditions; safety and health at work; social protection; lack of organization, representation and voice; access to appropriate financial services; and all forms of gender-based  discrimination. In line with the ILO’s women’s entrepreneurship development strategy document, it is intended to place a particular emphasis on women entrepreneurs whose businesses have growth potential as a more strategic way to create sustainable jobs and decent work. Enabling more women to pursue enterprise growth through a more favourable support environment generates employment, empowers women and brings social and economic benefits to women and to society at large.