Investing in entrepreneurs will help make the food system more sustainable. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Fabíola Ortiz
WASHINGTON, Apr 24 2016 (IPS)

Investing in new entrepreneurs who bring a holistic approach to food sustainability is one way that the food movement can overcome mounting global challenges from environmental degradation to food waste.

“I grow food, I feed people, body and minds. We must look at the food system at large,” Washington told IPS during the recent Food Tank Summit.

Karen Washington, is a 62 year old community activist who co-foundered the movement Black Urban Growers. After decades of working as a physical therapist in the Bronx, New York City, she decided to become a food entrepreneur advocating low-income communities to have inclusive access of to fresh, healthy food and a fair market.

“I am active, it is not about talk, it is easy for people to talk, you can look at my hands, I also talk but I farm as well.”

Washington is a member of a community garden in the Bronx and also grows collectively in a three acre piece of land in Chester, New York. She grows vegetables and flowers selling to local markets and restaurants.

As a health care professional Washington saw her patients having problems with their diet and, ultimately, with their health.

“They were developing diet related diseases like type two diabetes, hypertension and obesity. And all of this had to do with the food they were eating. I looked at my patients holistically and saw they were eating the wrong thing”.

An holistic approach to food systems must also address the racial divide in the production and consumption of food.

The face of agriculture in the United States is a white male farmer. As a matter of comparison, New York state has 55,000 white farmers but only 150 are black. “If you look at some states there are no black farmers, so we felt that this was something we had to bring out and expose, racism that continues to persist in the food system,” said Washington.

“We needed to have our own stories and seek for a black leadership on agriculture. There was no place like it, where black young people could see black leadership in action or have a conversation that affected black neighbourhoods, and also to find out we could get together and look at solutions,” she said.

Activists, entrepreneurs and food experts agree there is an urgent need to reinvent the cycle of food, empowering local based solutions and intersecting with economics, education, health, environment and, of course, “the four letter word ‘race’ that no one talks about”, said Washington. “We have to look to those intersections and move the full system in the right direction”.

Supporting entrepreneurs like Washington is one way that the food system can become more sustainable, experts at the two-day summit agreed.

“We have to create a new alliance of people wanting to ensure sustainability for the present generation and also guarantee the future generations can meet their demands and needs,” Alexander Muller, leader of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) hosted project TEEB for Agriculture & Food (TEEBAgriFood), told IPS during the summit.

“If we look at the whole cycle, we see we cannot guarantee that the future generations can feed themselves and, therefore, we have to act,” said Muller.

Around one billion people suffer from hunger worldwide, and more than two billion have food related health problems like diabetes and obesity. The global food system also relies on increasingly fragile resources. The world is losing 24 billion tons of fertile soils a year because of erosion and the food system is currently losing about 70 percent of all water withdrawn from natural cycles.

“Waiting would only increase the problems. We already see that major agriculture production systems are at risk. We need to know the true price of our food and have clear signals on the markets that sustainable food in the long-run is cheaper than unsustainable food,” said Müller.

The summit featured more than 75 speakers from the food and agriculture fields – such as researchers, farmers, chefs, policymakers, government officials, and students – that came together to discuss on topics including food waste, urban agriculture, family farmers, and farm workers.

They agreed that supporting sustainable agriculture is a a matter of urgency. The food movement is at the beginning of transforming a complex system with multiple actors, the time is now, warned Danielle Nieremberg Founder and President of Food Tank, a research organization dedicated to cultivating individuals and organizations to push for a better food system.

“A lot of innovations that farmers are using in the fields cover a great potential to be scaled up,” Nieremberg told IPS. “We have things like climate change conflicts, and we really need to move forward if we are going to make changes and leave this planet in good enough conditions for future generations,” she said.

For Jason Clay, the senior vice president of Food & Markets at WWF, there is a need to increase efficiency and change the way we value food.

“If we can reduce and eliminate waste, that would be half of the new food we need to produce by 2050. We have to double food production by that year. It also means 10 percent of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and more than 20 percent of water used to produce food that is going to be wasted,” Clay told IPS.

Clay said that bringing efficiency, conscious consumption and infrastructure to food distribution, especially in developing countries, are relevant strategies to help enhance the food cycle.

“Governments should also be investing in rehabilitating land rather than subsidising business as usual. This is an opportunity to do better,” said Clay.

For Clay and also for Muller, it is important to ensure that the positive signals from the food movements are growing faster than the negative signals of destroying the environment.

The attention on food and linking the act of eating to sustainability are the key issues. Without changing the food systems this planet will not become sustainable and the way society produces food cuts across the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agreed September 2015 at UN headquarters.

A member of the Vivero Alamar Cooperative carrying ornamental plants at a nursery in a suburb of Havana. Access to employment is a problem for women in rural areas. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

By Patricia Grogg
HAVANA, Sep 30 2014 (IPS)

Leonor Pedroso’s sewing machine has dressed children in the Cuban town of Florida for 30 years. But it was only a few months ago that the seamstress was able to become formally self-employed.

“My husband, a small farmer, didn’t let me work outside the home,” Pedroso, 63, told IPS. “I could only sew things for neighbours or close friends, for free or really cheap. According to him, jobs weren’t for women.”

She is now one of the beneficiaries of a project funded by international development aid that helps women entrepreneurs with the aim of closing the gender gap, as part of the economic reforms underway in this socialist Caribbean island nation.

Pedroso, whose main activities were running the household and raising the couple’s four children, did not have a stable enough flow of income or the knowledge to capitalise on her skills until she took courses in business plan development and management and gender along with other female entrepreneurs.

“I stood up to my husband, to do what I like to do, and now I am setting up a business in my home, to sell what I make and to teach young girls to sew and embroider,” she said with satisfaction, while waiting for the delivery of new sewing machines for her business.“I moved to where I could find work because I couldn’t let my 12-year-old daughter go hungry. Then I learned how to sell my harvest and invest the money I earn.” -- Neysi Fernández

She is now a new member of the local Producción Animal 25 Aniversario Cooperative.

The project, carried out by ACSUR Las Segovias, a non-governmental organisation from Spain, and the local Asociación Nacional de Agricultores Pequeños (ANAP – National Association of Small Farmers), with financing from the European Union, provides training and inputs to 24 women, including farmers, craftmakers and rural leaders.

The project, whose formal title is “incorporation of rural female entrepreneurs into local socioeconomic development from a gender perspective”, has helped women who have traditionally been homemakers to generate an income. It is to be completed at the end of the year.

The women involved are in Artemisa, a province near Havana; Camagüey, a province in east-central Cuba, where Florida is located; and the eastern province of Granma.

“In the past, men were seen as the breadwinners and the owners of the land, but women have started to understand what they themselves contribute to the family economy,” Lorena Rodríguez, who works in the area of projects with ACSUR Las Segovia, told IPS.

She said “machismo” and sexism continue to stand in the way of the incorporation of rural women in the labour market.

One of the women involved in the project is Neysi Fernández who, seeking a way to make a living, moved from her hometown of Yateras in the eastern province of Guantánamo to Guanajay in the province of Artemisa, where a family member offered her a piece of land to work.

On the four hectares of land she is planting cassava, malanga (a tuber resembling a sweet potato), beans, maize and plantains.

“I moved to where I could find work because I couldn’t let my 12-year-old daughter go hungry,” the 42-year-old small farmer, who married a manual labourer four years ago, told IPS. “Then I learned how to sell my harvest and invest the money I earn.”

According to social researchers, the problem of access to remunerated work is one of the worst forms of inequality in rural areas in Cuba. Women represent 47 percent of the more than 2.8 million rural inhabitants in this country of 11.2 million people.

The work carried out by the wives and daughters of small farmers – raising livestock, tending family gardens, taking care of the home and raising children – is not recognised or remunerated, speakers said at the third review meeting of the National Action Plan held in 2013 to follow up on the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing.

Only 65,993 women belong to ANAP, and they represent just 17 percent of the association’s total membership, according to figures published this year by Cuba’s daily newspaper, Granma.

Women make up 142,300 of the 1.838 million people who work in agriculture, livestock, forestry and fishing in Cuba, according to 2013 data from the national statistics office, ONEI.

The economic reforms undertaken by President Raúl Castro since 2008, with the aim of reviving the country’s flagging economy, have included the distribution of idle land under decree laws 259 of 2008, and 300 of 2012.

The objective is to boost food production in a country where 40 percent of the farmland is now in private hands, according to ONEI’s 2013 statistical yearbook.

But it is still mainly men who have the land, credits and farm machinery, and they remain a majority when it comes to decision-making in rural areas.

Given the lack of affirmative action by the state to boost female participation in rural areas, several civil society organisations and international aid agencies have been working to foster local development with a gender perspective.

With backing from the international relief and development organisation Oxfam, more than 15 women’s collective business enterprises will be operating in 10 municipalities in eastern Cuba by the end of the year. They include a flower shop, beauty salon, laundry, cheese shop, and several tire repair businesses.

With funds from the European Union, the Basque Agency for Development Cooperation and the Japanese Embassy in Cuba, the small businesses have been furnished with equipment and vehicles for transportation. In addition, the participants have taken part in workshops on self-esteem, leadership and personal growth.

According to sociologist Yohanka Valdés, the value of these projects lies in the strengthening of women’s capacity through empowerment and recognition of their rights.

“If an opportunity emerges, men are in a better position to take advantage of it because they don’t have to take care of the family,” the researcher told IPS.

Economist Dayma Echevarría says the female half of the population is at a disadvantage when it comes to the diversification of non-state activities in Cuba.

She says gender stereotypes in Cuba keep women in their role as homemakers and primary caretakers.

In one of the chapters of the book on the Cuban economy, “Miradas a la economía cubana” (Editorial Caminos, 2013), Echevarría says the lack of support services for caretakers is one of the reasons for rural women’s vulnerability when it comes to employment.

The recent process of land distribution has not translated into opportunities for boosting gender equality because it failed to foster active female participation, according to the expert.

At the same time, there are few Cuban women with the resources to set up their own businesses within the current regulatory framework.

Echevarría said Cubans were still waiting for the implementation of regulations that would enable more equitable insertion of women under the new labour conditions while incorporating a gender focus.

Cuba is in 15th place in the Global Gender Gap Report 2013, but in the subindex on economic participation and opportunity it ranks 66th out of the 153 countries studied.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

Products made from collected garbage provide a new source of livelihood for many in the “gur districts” (urban outskirts) of Mongolia’s capital city, Ulaanbaatar. Credit: Jonathan Rozen/IPS

By Jonathan Rozen
ULAANBAATAR, Sep 22 2014 (IPS)

Ulziikhutag Jigjid, 49, is a member of a 10-person group in the Khan-Uul district on the outskirts of Mongolia’s capital Ulaanbaatar, which is producing brooms, chairs, containers, and other handmade products from discarded soda and juice containers.

“In the early morning we collect raw materials from the street, and then we spend the morning making products,” Jigjid told IPS. At four o’clock in the evening, she heads off to her regular job at a meat company.

The creation of her group’s business, and others like it, are part of an initiative called Turning Garbage Into Gold (TG2G), developed and supported by Tehnoj, an Ulaanbaatar-based non-governmental organisation.

“Ulaanbaatar produces about 1,100 tons of solid waste every day…This poses health risks to the population of the city and causes environmental damages." -- Thomas Eriksson, UNDP’s deputy resident representative in Mongolia
Founded in 2007, this organisation supports the creation of small businesses based on the sale of handcrafted products.

Defining itself as a “business incubator centre” for small and medium-sized businesses, Tehnoj estimates that it has organised trainings for approximately 30,000 people across Mongolia, through various projects.

The TG2G project is currently operational in three of Ulaanbaatar’s outer districts: Khan-Uul, Chingeltei and Songino Khairkhan, and includes 20 production groups of around five to six people each.

“The goal of this project is to recycle products and reduce unemployment,” Galindev Galaariidii, director of Tehnoj, told IPS.

The NGO receives its funding from the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP)’s Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific Innovation Fund, a new U.N. initiative to support innovative programmes that “provide the creative space and discretionary resources to prototype innovative solutions and experiment with new ways of working to tackle complex development challenges outside the traditional business cycle,” Thomas Eriksson, UNDP’s deputy resident representative in Mongolia, explained to IPS.

The Innovation Fund is currently supporting the creation of programmes in 32 countries and helps promote environmental sustainability and inclusive economic and social development, key components of the U.N.’s post-2015 development agenda.

Waste management and pollution are major problems in Mongolia, especially in the urban outskirts. With extremely limited infrastructure and a general lack of governmental resources, Galaariidii explains that 90 percent of garbage from these areas ends up on the street.

“Ulaanbaatar produces about 1,100 tons of solid waste every day… This poses health risks to the population of the city and causes environmental damages,” said Eriksson.

According to UNDP, over 10,000 households move to Ulaanbaatar every year. “Unfortunately, the migrant population [find it difficult to gain employment] and obtain access to already strained social services,” Eriksson continued.

The TG2G programme aims to mitigate the waste management issues while also tackling social inequalities by empowering the less fortunate members of some of Mongolia’s poorest communities.

According to World Bank data for 2012-2013, Mongolia’s poverty rate stood at 27.4 percent of its population of 2.9 million people.

Finding jobs in the landlocked country, comprised of some 1.6 million square km, of which only 0.8 percent is arable land, is no easy task. While the mining sector has led rapid economic growth over the last decade, with growth touching 16 percent in the first quarter of 2012, not everyone has benefitted. In fact, the unemployment rate in 2012 was roughly 11 percent.

“We target Ulaanbaatar’s poorest areas with high unemployment,” Galaariidii explained to IPS. “We focus on two main groups: women [often mothers of disabled children], and the unemployed.”

The programme currently focuses on training groups in the creation of six main products: brooms, chairs, foot covers (often used for walking in temples or schools), picnic mats, waterproof ger (yurt) insulation sheets and containers of all sizes.

But new product designs are constantly being created. Oven mitts, bags, hats and aprons are just a few of the new forms of merchandise being developed.

“Our technology design is improving day by day,” said Galaariidii. For example, where zippers once secured the fabric covers of chairs, now elastic rings are used.

Presently, city cleaning teams are testing products with the potential for a government contract, and soda-bottle-broom orders are already coming in from hairdressers in Ulaanbaatar.

Communities involved in the TG2G programme seem to have a fresh sense optimism about the future.

Unrolling a large hand-drawn poster, Jigjid and two other group members – Baguraa Adiyabazar, 54, and Baasanjav Jamsranjav, 37 – explained how they plan to use the funds they earn from selling their products.

They want to build a kindergarten school, achieve full employment in their area, build a chicken farm, expand their ability to grow their own food and increase the availability of cars. There are even plans to allot a certain amount of the money towards a savings account, which can then be used to make small loans within the community.

“We plan to have more registration for the projects and more training programmes,” Jigjid explained. “[Eventually] we want to replace products that are imported from other countries.”

Beyond the material level, the programme is also having a positive impact on the mentality of the community.

“We have a mission to become more creative,” Jigjid continued. “Now as a group we have a goal.”

Next year Jigjid will retire from her job with the meat company and focus on building their product development into a successful business.

“I will have something to do,” she said happily. “I can see my future is secure.”

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

Chairwoman of the local community fund, Mairam Dukenbaeva, in IssykKul, Kyrgyzstan. Photo: UN Women/MalgorzataWoch

By UN Women
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 3 2014 (IPS)

In the small rural village of Svetlaya Polyana, not far from the city of Karakol in Issyk Kul Province, north-eastern Kyrgyzstan, there is no sewage system and 70 percent of households lack access to hot water.

But still, gardening efforts are underway. In the houses of the women members of the community fund you can see seedlings of cucumbers, tomatoes, pepper and even some flowers being prepared for planting in the soil.

There are currently 29.9 million migrants in Southeastern Europe, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, the majority of which are women. -- International Organisation for Migration (IOM)
These women are taking part in one of several agricultural trainings to learn how to plan vegetable gardens, prepare the soil, find good-quality seeds, plant and care for vegetables, as well as gardening tips, recipes and more.

“We all have learned a lot. Now I know what to do to get a good harvest,” said one beneficiary. “Now I have a beautiful and eco-friendly garden, I have healthy vegetables for my family that I know how to plant myself and I do not have to buy anything more at the bazaar.”

Through collective vegetable cultivation, their harvest in 2013 garnered a profit of 48,000 Kyrgyz SOM (about 930 dollars), which was put back into community projects and to buy high-quality seeds.

The small businesses established through the programme are now generating employment in this rural area, increasing independence and boosting household income not only in summer but also during the harsh winter months, when preserved vegetables and fruit jams are sold.

“The […] project is highly important for the development of our community,” says Jylkychy Mamytkanov, head of the municipality of Svetlaya Polyana. “Programme participants have managed to build solidarity and mutual assistance among themselves. … Moreover, the income that we have already received from selling our vegetables will allow our community to make new investments in the future, such as construction of greenhouses.”

Across Central Asia, many families and individuals living in poverty migrate in order to find work. According to the IOM, there are currently 29.9 million migrants in Southeastern Europe, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, the majority of which are women. Migration provides a vital source of income, but those left behind often feel dependent and have a hard time making ends meet.

To tackle such challenges, the Central Asia Regional Migration Programme (CARMP) was created in 2010, with the second phase currently underway, until March 2015.

Jointly implemented by UN Women, the World Bank and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), with financial support from the UK Government, the programme focuses on reducing poverty by improving the livelihoods of migrant workers and their families, protecting their rights and enhancing their social and economic benefits.

The regional migration programme focuses on families from the region’s top two migrant-sending countries – Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. In 2011-2013 more than 5,324 labour migrants’ families in both countries received training, access to resources and micro-credits and became self-reliant entrepreneurs through the programme.

The RMP programme also promotes policy development, provides technical assistance and fosters regional dialogue on migration and the needs of migrant workers across Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and the Russian Federation. In those four countries, more than 520,000 migrant workers and their families have benefitted from a wide range of services, including legal assistance and education.

Dreams and designs in Tajikistan

Born in the remote district of Gonchi, northern Tajikistan, Farangis Azamova had a dream of becoming a designer, but with no means to finance university studies, the young rural woman had to find another means to realize her dreams.

With assistance from the Association of Women and Society, a long-time partner of UN Women and beneficiary of the regional migration programme, Farangis and five like-minded women established a community-based “self-help group” to sew curtains.

They took part in various seminars, learning how to set up, plan and manage a business. They rented a small place and established an atelier.

At first they sold curtains to neighbours, but with time their clientele grew. In June of 2014, her group took part in the annual traditional ‘Silk&Spices’ festival in Bukhara, eastern Uzbekistan, which brings together handicrafts from the entire Ferghana Valley.

It was an exciting opportunity for young women entrepreneurs to exchange experiences, learn to become more competitive in the labour market, take craft-master classes as well as present their handicrafts and find new buyers.

(END)

                                 This article is published under an agreement with UN Women. For more information, visit the Beijing+20 campaign website. 

Nasro Elmi at her material store in the main Bakara Market in the Somali capital Mogadishu. She is one of a growing number of women in this traditionally conservative Muslim country who are going into business. Credit: Abdurrahman Warsameh/IPS

By Abdurrahman Warsameh
MOGADISHU, Apr 22 2013 (IPS)

In the Hamarweyne market, Mogadishu’s largest, 24-year-old Maryama Yunis is finding success with her tiny cosmetic store. The young Somali entrepreneur has been in business for two years, selling everything from soaps and shampoos to lipsticks and eyeliners, and now she’s turning a decent profit.

“As more and more young women in Somalia grow increasingly aware of their looks and like to take care of themselves, the cosmetics business has naturally grown and I took the plunge to meet that demand,” Yunis told IPS in Mogadishu.

Yunis is one of a growing number of women in this traditionally conservative Muslim country who are going into business because of the opportunity to attain financial independence and upward mobility.

Even educated women in this Horn of Africa nation are expected to focus on raising families, but attitudes are shifting alongside women’s role in society, says Hawa Dahir, a social activist in Mogadishu.

“Times are changing in Somalia and people are now more aware of the entrepreneurial potential of women and are more accepting of the role women can play in the economy of the family and the country as a whole,” Dahir told IPS in Mogadishu.

Yunis herself is a university graduate. She studied nursing but opted to pursue her dream of becoming an entrepreneur instead.

“With my mother’s help, I managed to convince my father to allow me to follow my dream and start the store. With the money I am earning, I am becoming more independent by the day and I’ve become an inspiration for many young women,” Yunis said.

But for many women, entering the world of business is not a choice but a necessity forced on them by the death or unemployment of their husbands, according to Dahir, who studies women in business.

Faduma Maow has a shop in the Bakara market in Mogadishu, where she has been working as a clothes trader since the death of her husband three years ago.

The mother of four told IPS that she takes her children, aged between seven and 15 years, to school before heading to the market.

“It is tough being a working parent, but it can also be rewarding. I am financially independent and pleased to say I am making progress towards my goal of raising a family and building a stable future for myself and my children,” Maow said.

Dahir said that while there are no reliable statistics on Somali women entrepreneurs, their presence in the country’s small business scene is “palpable”.

“Many women have started businesses here in Sinai and other markets in Mogadishu,” Rahmo Yarey, owner of a teashop in this busy market, told IPS. “I also hear that the same thing is happening in markets in the regions. Women are becoming breadwinners for many families in our country.”

Women are involved in a range of small businesses, selling clothes, cosmetics, fruit and vegetables, or khat – the leaves of the Catha edulis shrub, chewed as a stimulant in Somalia.

Women can also be found selling fuel in open-air markets and on street corners in Mogadishu.

And they are doing it all with very little assistance.

Somali businesswomen say working as an entrepreneur has its challenges. Firstly, it is nearly impossible to raise capital to start a business.

Local and international financial institutions closed down following the collapse of the central government in 1991 that marked the beginning of two decades of civil war.

A couple of local banks have now been established but one handles only savings and remittances from Somalis in the diaspora. The other does offer loans, but only to those who can put up collateral, which few women have.

“It is not possible to get money to start up a business – even more so if you are a woman,” Aisha Guled, a khat trader in Mogadishu, told IPS.

Guled herself got her start only thanks to support from a relative. She said that she has been struggling to make ends meet since she started selling khat.

“Most of us have started with the little we could get and struggled up the ladder. Some don’t make it, others remain stuck in the beginning, but some are lucky enough to break even and make a profit soon and expand,” she said.

Though the Somali government says it is trying to do all it can to help businesswomen working to support their families, one official told IPS that the government cannot at this stage offer financial support to businesswomen. “The provision of a secure environment for women to operate in is a key priority in supporting women in business,” the official said on the condition of anonymity.

“Despite all the challenges that women entrepreneurs face in Somalia, the country’s womenfolk are showing that they are up to the challenge of being shrewd business operators, while maintaining their roles as mothers and wives,” Dahir said.

She called on academics to study the rise of Somali women in the business sphere as well as in politics and other fields in society.

Yunis said that as Somali society’s views and attitudes towards women’s role change, she expects more and more women to take up roles not only as entrepreneurs, but in academia and politics as they prove themselves to be equal to men in every aspect of life in Somalia.

“It is just a matter of time before we see many women join men in equal measure in rebuilding our country because our society is changing thanks, in part, to the changing times; women will be more equitable to men in every area,” said Yunis.

Verónica Morales has a small-scale flower-growing business near Mexico City which she started thanks to a loan. Credit: Emilio Godoy /IPS

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Mar 8 2013 (IPS)

The culture of entrepreneurship is weak among women in Mexico, despite the positive influence that it has on women’s development, in a world where women continue to face greater obstacles than men when it comes to setting up and running a business.

Like in other countries of Latin America, women entrepreneurs in Mexico face institutional barriers and hurdles in access to training, financing and markets, which are added to the physical, sexual and economic violence they suffer, according to international and local studies.

“The majority of women entrepreneurs are in the non-agricultural sector, because women don’t have access to land, which means most of them are in more urbanised areas,” Marcia de Castro, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) resident representative in Mexico, told IPS.

In this country, entrepreneurs represent just under five percent of the economically active population. But of that proportion, only 2.4 percent are women, according to the World Bank.

Women represent 46 percent of the country’s economically active population of 50 million people.

In Latin America, on average, only three out of 10 entrepreneurs are women, according to the multilateral lender.

According to the national statistics institute, INEGI, seven million of Mexico’s 19 million households are female-headed, in a country of nearly 117 people.

In 2010, the income of male-headed households in urban areas averaged 780 dollars a month, compared to 507 dollars for female-headed households. In rural areas, the averages were 351 and 273 dollars a month, respectively.

“Without adequate financial products, women cannot grow their businesses,” said Leticia Jáuregui, director general and founder of Crea Comunidades de Emprendedores Sociales, a non-governmental organisation that supports social entrepreneurs,

“We started out teaching women the value of what they are doing,” she told IPS. “They have all faced the same challenges, and have worked them out in different ways.

“Investing in women provides enormous social dividends,” said Jáuregui, whose organisation provides advice and training on accounting and productivity to some 1,200 rural micro-businesses set up by women.

Thanks to this, the women’s incomes have increased 50 percent on average, to between 7,800 and 15,000 dollars a year, she said. And 90 percent of the micro-enterprises that have received assistance from CREA have been successful, while 88 percent now have formal accounting systems.

Women entrepreneurs “face legal barriers and obstacles to accessing capital and markets. Financial products are inflexible, set difficult conditions, and are costly. High quality products are lacking,” said David Gough, chief investment officer of Women’s World Banking, a microfinance network of 39 financial institutions in 28 nations.

The agriculture ministry’s programme for women in agriculture provided 78 million dollars in 2012 to more than 4,000 productive projects that benefited some 30,000 women. This year, it plans to provide 57 million dollars.

In addition, since it took office in December, the government of conservative President Enrique Peña has been designing a cash transfer programme for female heads of households, and is creating a National Institute of the Entrepreneur to aid micro, small and medium-sized businesses, with a special focus on women.

Of Mexico’s women entrepreneurs, 84 percent own small companies that employ between two and five people and “are vulnerable to factors like the market and prices,” said the UNDP’s de Castro.

She also said that “26 percent work less than 35 hours a week, because they have to strike a balance with their family life. Besides, their incomes are lower than those of men.”

The 2009 time use survey conducted by INEGI found that men dedicate 53 hours a week to productive work and 12 to domestic tasks, while women dedicate between 40 and 45 hours to economic activity and over 20 to family care and household maintenance.

In its 2012 study “The Effect of Women’s Economic Power in Latin America and the Caribbean”, the World Bank underlined the important role played by women in reducing poverty and easing the impact of the global financial crisis that broke out in the United States in 2008 and is sweeping Europe.

The World Bank estimated the rate of growth of the female labour force in Mexico at 13 percent between 2000 and 2010, below the growth in Panama – 39 percent – and Colombia – 23 percent.

The World Bank stressed that “Female income was especially critical in reducing the strains on the poorest of the poor, along with public and private transfers,” and that “during the 2009 crisis, female participation in the labour market was crucial for compensating for the decline in male labour income.”

Since 2003, the UNDP has been carrying out a global gender equality seal programme to promote fair treatment of men and women in the workplace and supply chain and reduce barriers to women’s insertion in the labour market.

In the case of Mexico, the programme has so far certified 1,623 organisations, 1,038 of which are public, 570 private and 15 non-governmental.

“The laws are not enforced,” said de Castro. “Without a political commitment, at all levels, to reduce gender inequality, violence and exclusion, progress will not be made.”

A law on “equality between women and men” was put into effect in 2006, and in 2007 a law on “women’s access to a life free of violence” went into force. But neither law has been fully enforced, experts say.

Women “must determine what they want to do and how far they want to go,” said CREA’s Jáuregui. She said women entrepreneurs “generate quality jobs that allow their children to get an education, that generate income, and in which they are the decision-makers. If they resolve their problems of domestic violence and self-esteem, they are more productive.”

Given the lack of appropriate financial services for women, Women World’s Banking is preparing a pilot project in the southern state of Puebla.

“We plan to develop a different kind of credit product, more suitable for women,” “There is a major niche that can be sustained with very low costs.”

The plan is to offer productive loans averaging around 780 dollars to between 100 and 200 women for eight months starting in May.

The rate of female entrepreneurship is higher in Africa than in any other region of the world. Credit: Mantoe Phakathi/IPS

By Sabine Clappaert
DEAUVILLE, France, Oct 25 2012 (IPS)

The international financial crash of the late 2000s created more than a global economic recession: it accentuated popular doubts about the paradigms on which our economies are built and prompted a closer look at two crucial drivers of economic growth: women and entrepreneurship.

At the recently concluded Women’s Forum held in France earlier this month, a pivotal point on the agenda was how to promote sustainable economic and social development in the world’s second fastest growing region: Africa.

Recent research from the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) shows that natural resources account for only about a third of Africa’s growth. The rest is the result of internal structural changes that have stimulated domestic economies: telecommunications, banking and retail are flourishing and construction is booming.

Trade between Africa and the rest of the world has increased by 200 percent since 2000 and the continent is also gaining increased access to international capital, with the annual flow of foreign direct investment (FDI) into Africa increasing from nine billion dollars in 2000 to 62 billion dollars in 2008.

With a population that is set to more than double from one to two billion by 2050, Africa’s potential is enormous – if it can create the conditions for women-led, sustainable development by opening up the formal economy to female entrepreneurs.

Turning the spotlight on human capital and innovation

Members of the 40-strong African delegation attending the meeting agreed on one thing: Africa must learn to take better advantage of its human potential to boost the kind of economic development that benefits a broader expanse of society.

In particular, attitudes toward entrepreneurship need to undergo a radical change.

“Many Africans today still aspire to become doctors or lawyers, but entrepreneurs only if they can’t find jobs. There has to be a rapid change in this mind-set. Young people don’t know what it means to become entrepreneurial. We need to show that it is a real option,” according to Anne Amuzu, a businesswoman from Ghana.

Inspirational role models of successful African entrepreneurs are important.

Women such as Bethlehem Tilahun – founder of SoleRebels, one of Africa’s best-known shoe brands – who was counted among the top ‘100 women to watch in 2012’ by Forbes magazine, are examples of the impact women can make in the global landscape.

African women also represent a vast pool of potential that could drive broad, sustainable growth in Africa.

An estimated two-thirds of African women participate in the labour force and, according to the World Bank, the rate of female entrepreneurship is higher in Africa than in any other region of the world.

Many of these women are active entrepreneurs in their countries’ informal economies.

The message that women can make a real difference to the continent’s future has made its way beyond Africa’s shores.

“Women in the private sector represent a powerful source of economic growth and opportunity,” said Marcelo Giugale, the World Bank’s director for poverty reduction and economic management for Africa.

The European Commission too has recognised that women are powerful drivers of sustainable development.

As part of achieving its commitments to the Millennium Development Goals, the EU has supported the enrolment of roughly 85,000 female students in secondary education, in 10 sub-Saharan African countries over the past five years.

“(Encouraging) women entrepreneurs can fuel growth. But this will depend on having appropriate training and opportunities for young people. Education can help achieve this, but we also need to inspire with role models,” Nigest Haile of the Centre for African Women Economic Empowerment told participants at the conference.

Better access to financial markets can help bring more women entrepreneurs into the formal sector and enable them to expand their businesses.

Training and other forms of education with an emphasis on improving business and financial skills will also help spur growth.

Many leaders firmly believe entrepreneurial training should start in schools if young people are to become financially literate and seriously consider starting their own businesses as a viable option for building a solid future.

A recent report by Ernst & Young suggests that dedicated training dramatically improves student perceptions of a career as an entrepreneur.

Africa’s recent growth spurt has already made life more rewarding for many of its inhabitants. Business opportunities abound and governments are showing an increasing willingness to get out of their way.

According to the World Bank’s annual ranking of commercial practices, 36 out of 46 African governments made things easier for business in the past year.

(END)

In most developing countries, women make up 30 to 40 percent of entrepreneurs running small or medium sized businesses. Credit: Nitin Jugran Bahuguna/IPS

By Zofeen Ebrahim
TOKYO, Oct 12 2012 (IPS)

Empowering women in the business world is not only a smart political decision, but also makes good economic sense.

This sentiment was heard loud and clear inside the Tokyo International Forum, where the 2012 World Bank (WB)-International Monetary Fund (IMF) Annual Meetings are being held.

Several voices took up the refrain, insisting that the needs of women entrepreneurs be heard because their “untapped potential” could help end the cycle of poverty in many parts of the world.

“Gender equality is smart economics,” Caroline Anstey, managing director of the World Bank group, pointed out. “Under-investing in women not only limits economic and social development, but puts a brake on poverty reduction.”

The discussion on ‘Women in Private Sector: Good for Development and Business’ explored not only the barriers and challenges that women entrepreneurs faced, but examined why empowering women economically makes good business sense.

In most developing countries, women make up 30 to 40 percent of entrepreneurs running small or medium sized businesses, according to the World Bank.

For example, seeds and fertiliser, when given to women, can boost agricultural productivity. Cash in a woman’s hands can increase her child’s chances of survival 20-fold; and businesses in the hands of women can thrive.

All it would take, said Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, is “innovation, bold action and risk-taking for women’s participation to increase”. In fact, she said, the ‘women economy’ is “the new emerging market”.

She should know. The 74-year-old is not only her country’s first elected female head but also a Nobel laureate. She has served on the advisory boards of the Modern Africa Growth and Investment Company (MAGIC), the Hong Kong Bank Group, the Songhai Financial Holdings, and is ideally placed to speak about women’s entrepreneurship, both from a business and development perspective.

She emphasised the importance of women being in “key leadership roles” such as being on boards of corporations and holding key government positions to “effect change”.

Larke Riemer, director of the Women’s Markets for Australia’s Westpac Banking Corp, termed the new woman entrepreneur the “sleeping giantess” who was yawning, waking up and now “demanding to be noticed”.

Like Sirleaf, Riemer said too many banks remained oblivious to the opportunities they can give to women. According to the World Bank, women-owned businesses in emerging markets have unmet financial needs of close to 300 billion dollars every year.

Both the public and the private sectors need to exert more effort so that women can have greater capacity to scale up their businesses, Sirleaf explained. While the private sector can help train and develop the capacity of women entrepreneurs, governments need to provide a level-playing field in the form of good gender policies and legislation, she added.

According to a World Bank survey that looked at barriers to gender equality, 102 out of 141 economies had at least one “legal difference” that hindered women’s economic opportunities. According to the International Labour Organisation, nearly half or 48.4 percent of the available productive potential of women is under or unutilised compared to 22.3 percent for men.

Margaret Biggs, president of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), shared the frustrations of women entrepreneurs in the developing world, saying that many could not get loans for business expansion even if they have sound business plans and ever-growing clientele.

Riemer, who has worked with women in small and medium sized enterprises for 15 years now, stressed that facilitating access to finances provides economic benefits to the whole of society. However, she added, women entering the world of business also need information about how to be profitable, and skills like expertise in the production of business plans.

At the same discussion, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim promised that the conversations in the next few days of the Annual Meetings would veer more and more towards more economically inclusive policies for women. “This will be central to our ongoing debate. It is time for change and we can’t afford to wait.”

*This story was first published by IPS TerraViva.