Entrepreneurship For Women Empowerment

The South Asia Women's Network (SWAN), in collaboration with the Trans-Himalayan Environment and Livelihood Programme (T-HELP) and International Development Institute (IDI), organised the first conference on Women's Economic Empowerment in South Asia from May 12 to 14 in Lalitpur. The conference, participated by diverse stakeholders across the region, aimed at addressing critical issues hindering women's economic empowerment. Among the multiple ambitious goals set by the conference the main goal was to identify the ways to overcome the hurdles faced by women entrepreneurs. What boils down to is that the conference had focused its attention mainly on women’s economic empowerment through entrepreneurship which seems to be a right decision.  

It is said, “Women hold up half the sky” because of the fact that half of the world’s population is women. However, the status of women is still miserable worldwide. Hence, investing in women’s capabilities and empowering them to exercise their choices is considered the surest way to contribute to economic growth and overall development. One of the effective means to raise the level of women’s economic empowerment is through raising the level of women’s entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship, by encouraging women to initiate their own business, helps women to achieve personal freedom of making choice of the work, achieve personal security and maintain their family and social economic standards and achieve personal satisfaction. 

Training centres 

As in other countries, various efforts have been made in Nepal to involve women in different economic activities. Developing women entrepreneurship is the demand of modern time. Taking this into view, the government of Nepal, with the assistance of Ford Foundation, had established ‘Women Training Centre’ in 1956 with an objective of imparting training to women workers. In 1975, four regional training centres were established to impart training that provided income-generating skills on a regional basis. The Sixth Plan the government has adopted ‘women participation in development’ as a national policy. In line with this policy, the government has been implementing regional programmes for women development besides making institutional development.

 However, overall picture is that the social and economic status of women is still low, despite the country making efforts to raise their standing. Despite various obstacles, at present Nepali women have significantly entered the industries like handicraft, tourism business, readymade garment, flower and cosmetic, among others. Along with various industries and commerce associations, some associations established by women themselves like ‘Women in Science and Technology’, ‘Federation of Women Entrepreneurs’ Association of Nepal (FWEAN), and ‘Business and Professional Women’s Club’ have been conducting women entrepreneurship development training programmes. 

Women entrepreneurs have many prospects as well as challenges in operating a business. There are prospects for them in the sense that they have been able to bring good result because of them  being women. For instance, they have excelled in beauty clinics, dance school, readymade garment industry, flower industry, etc. But there are more problems than prospects in the way of women entrepreneurship. The biggest obstacle facing the women entrepreneurs is the lack of access to finance. Most of the financial institutions do not provide credit to them. Because of the women not having the right to property for collateral the financial institutions do not regard women as creditworthy. Hence, women are unable to initiate and expand the business as desired.

Social and family pressure have also inhibited women’s opportunities. In most of the countries the main responsibility of taking care of the family and children lies with women. Due to this, women cannot work full time whole-heartedly in their business. In developing countries women’s mobility in relation to men is very much limited. This constrains women in initiating the difficult travel of entrepreneurship. In present time there is constitutional and legal provision that there will not be any sort of discrimination between male and female, but that has not happened in practice. The women as entrepreneur will have to bear the risks and uncertainties of business. However, many lack entrepreneurship capable of taking risk due to the lack of education. 

Obstacles

Due to lack of education, many women know nothing about business opportunities, technology, and marketing strategy. Hence, lack of education obstructs women in establishing and operating business. Women of developing countries have low risk-bearing ability since they have protected life. Father provides protection to them before marriage and husband after marriage. It has made them weaker to bear the risks that arise while running a business, whereas the ability to take risks is a prerequisite in becoming a successful entrepreneur.

Other main obstacle that the women entrepreneur face is the lack of networks of information. The networks provide valuable information about markets. The firms operated by women entrepreneurs should struggle to stay alive on account of the system of dominant customers, suppliers, and creditors. Due to the existence of sex difference even in the access to the networks, the customers, and the suppliers as well discriminate women by keeping them out of most of the formal and informal networks of the organisations. It is imperative to identify the obstacles to women’s economic empowerment while exploring the ways to make necessary financial and technical arrangement to this end.

(Dr. Joshi is a Professor of Business Economics.)