Picture: (Minister Lindiwe Zulu)
BY REGINALD KANYANE
Minister of Small Business Development Lindiwe Zulu will host women in small businesses as part of the Women’s Month programme on Friday.
The department spokesperson, Cornelius Monama said the event is a business and knowledge sharing engagement.
“We seek to address challenges female entrepreneurs faced with. We also want to inspire and bring key institutions of government, and private sector closer to female entrepreneurs.
Monama said minister Zulu will also launch the publication.
“Exploring the finance pipeline for women-owned SMMEs in South Africa. The publication contains a report of a study commissioned by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in 2012 in partnership with Small Business Development department.
“The purpose of the study was to look at the financing pipeline for women-owned SMMEs and to investigate problems underlying access to finance despite there being an array of financial institutions and funding vehicles in South Africa,” he said.
Monama added that the study was also aimed at assessing current financial mechanisms in order to provide recommendations for an alternative approach to financing women owned SMME South Africa. He said the event will be held at DTI CAMPUS, INTERNAL STREET at 8:30am.
“The department believes that Friday’s event will provide an opportunity for women in business to gain knowledge, share insights and lobby for extended market access. We also hope to use this event to celebrate women achievers in business and to highlight progress on women economic empowerment in the last twenty-two years,” he said.
The Guardian 