ON SME Corner today, we look at women entrepreneurship as my colleague HELEN ZULU tackles the issue in the following article:?Entrepreneurship has a lot of benefits which can be broken down at national, society and individual levels.
In Zambia, entrepreneurship has proved to be beneficial to the three categories.
It was initially triggered by factors like retrenchments during the sale of various parastatal organisations between 1992 and 1999 as some individuals became entrepreneurs to supplement their incomes to meet needs of their families.
Women entrepreneurship represents a vast untapped source of innovation, job creation and economic growth in the developing world.?Women entrepreneurs are an emerging force in Zambia’s economy.
However, they face a number of challenges such as inadequate access to start-up capital in form of loans, inadequate policies supportive of women’s entrepreneurship development and cultural norms that are not supportive of women entrepreneurs.
Women face greater obstacles in accessing training, networks and information, as well as legal and policy constraints.
These challenges impede the full potential of women entrepreneurs in their businesses.
While some efforts have been made by policy makers, women associations, non-governmental organisations and other stakeholders to address this concern, there is still a lot that needs to be done to ensure that women entrepreneurs contribute fully to national growth.
All is not in vein as various innovative initiatives to promote women’s entrepreneurship being driven by both the private and public sectors are on the rise.
SABMiller group of companies is one such partner that is scaling up efforts to help empower women.?SABMiller is scaling up its globally recognised sustainable development programmes with a set of ambitious targets to achieve by 2020 and has increased its material and financial contribution to?women entrepreneurship development to K75, 000 from K35,000 last year.
Zambian Breweries PLC (ZB) corporate affairs director Luke Njovu says the money would go towards the training of women entrepreneurs, the hosting of the national conference for women entrepreneurs and the hosting of the 2014 Women Entrepreneurs of the Year awards dinner.
This year more women would receive business development training, mentoring and material support.
SABMiller the owner of ZB also pledges to reduce carbon footprint of the entire value-chain from grain to glass by 25 per cent per litre of beer and 50 per cent across all breweries.
Women entrepreneurs make significant contributions to economic growth and to poverty reduction around the world.
While Information and Communications Technology (ICT) is needed to function in a world where digital usage is becoming the norm and an important element of growing a business, women are less likely to afford or have access to it.
Illiteracy is another barrier to ICT usage among low-income women.
Gender and Child Development Deputy Minister Esther Banda observed that there is need for continuous education and training to promote gender equality.

•GENDER in Development Department director in the Ministry of Gender and Child Development, Bupe Kaonga (centre) and Zambia Breweries corporate affairs director Luke Njovu (right) present the Most Improved Business Entrepreneur of the Year award to Naziya Investments proprietor Winnie Wachivula during the Month of the Woman Entrepreneur awards dinner at Government complex in Lusaka recently. Picture by STEPHEN KAPAMBWE.

Ms Banda said there is need for government through her ministry to encourage skills and entrepreneurship development for women.?She encouraged women entrepreneurs to take advantage of the Multi-facility Economic Zones (MFEZs) and provincial industrial clusters being created by Government and diversify their businesses to add value to their products.
“Women have less access to education, credit, land and market information and technology in comparison to men, thus in the entrepreneurship and trade arena, women remain marginalised.?Thus there is need for continuous education and training to promote gender equality,” she said.
Ms Banda said the Government salutes the efforts being made by women entrepreneurs in improving their livelihoods and in creating decent work environments for others.
A Lusaka-based entrepreneur appealed to Government to look into the different challenges faced by women entrepreneurs.
Dorcas Chigalula said women are poor due to the absence of a strong policy framework that supported the growth of an entrepreneurial culture among Zambians especially women.
She said Government should come in and help women involved in different business ventures with finances as well as policies that would help the small scale entrepreneurs thrive in their business.
Ms Chigalula said there was need to form various women associations that would speak and advocate the empowerment of women in entrepreneurship.
“Women lag behind because they do not belong to any women entrepreneurship organization such as Zambia Federation of Associations of Women in Business (ZAFAWIB),” She added.
Ms Chigalula advised women involved in various business ventures to join entrepreneurship groups and associations based in their areas so that they could channel their views to Government.?Bank of Zambia (BoZ) deputy administration governor Tukiya Kankasa-Mabula said there was need for small and medium businesses to strengthen their business to enable them grow into conglomerates.
Dr Kankasa-Mabula said it was important for women to use their expertise in mentorship and coaching programmes to promote and support career development of young people in Zambia.
Dr Kankasa-Mabula said it was important to celebrate the increasing contribution of women to economic development and their diverse careers that they had pursued.
To enable women facilitate these changes it was important to look back into the past to learn from what other women did 50 years ago to inspire change in spite of the limited opportunities that they had.
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