Women in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Ethiopia have insignificant involvements in public procurements where expenditure on public procurement in the country takes the largest share from the annual government budget with 14 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
From the country’s budget of 2021/22GC which is about 561.7 billion Birr/12.9 billion USD, it could be easily understood that the huge amount (64percent) spent is on public procurement.
According to the report of the International Trade Centre of the year 2020 entitled “Making Public Procurement Work for Women’’, public procurement accounts for almost 15 percent of GDP in developed countries, and the figure can reach as high as 40 percent in some developing countries. However, it is shocking that women-owned businesses account for a mere 1percent of this critical sector, the report said.
Lack of access to information on bids, lack of information about opportunities and requirements, complex procedures, corruptions and bias and strict financial and qualification requirements are identified as barriers for women entrepreneurs to win public tenders, as to the same source.
With the aim of improving the participation of women SMEs in Public Procurement, Center for Accelerated Women’s Economic Empowerment (CAWEE) is closely working with its partners such as Oxfam, FEMNET (African Women’s Development & Communications Network) and the EU as one of the key activities of the STITCH (Strengthened Network for Greater Impact) project in Ethiopia.
Thus, with the support secured from Oxfam, deploying local consultants, the first-ever policy influencing strategy was prepared in a participatory and highly consultative approach through the active involvements of key stakeholders of the project such as, the Public Procurement Agency at the Federal level, Public Procurement Agency of Addis Ababa City Administration and women in business groups, said Nigest Haile, Founder and Executive Director of CAWEE.
In-depth discussions were made with the representatives of such agencies and target groups and extensive desk review of relevant documents to assess the existing contexts like opportunities, challenges, possible solutions, risks and recommendations.
More specifically, ranges of consultations and discussions among stakeholders and in-depth desk reviews were used to identify current challenges and possible solutions and factors that need to change to identify people or institutions that influence and have power to change the things ought to change, and the tactics and tools that are needed to use (research, media, alliances, lobby, and mass mobilization), as to her.
The results of document reviews advised the Government to take into account the different factors which may render policies to be less effective for marginalized groups, such as women and people with disabilities.
Several written documents are indicating that boosting women’s businesses is largely believed to create jobs and inject the market with new ideas and competition and therefore, the Government is advised to Increase women-owned suppliers winning Government contracts. Moreover, the public procurement agency can also open opportunities for women by proactively seeking out and engaging women-owned businesses, as well as establishing a fair ground and redress procedures and simplify contracts to reduce preparation time for tenders.
Similarly, the government could apply affirmative action that encourages women in SMEs to easily benefit from public procurement and also plan for a gender-responsive procurement strategy that will ensure that goods and services procured take into account how they impact women, particularly the poorest and most marginalized group in society.
Recognizing the gendered aspects of corruption in the supply chain, and creating measures to both prevent and prosecute will help mitigate risks including monitoring gender-disaggregated procurement data, and it could be done to monitor competition and gaps, quality of implementation and understanding and addressing complaints of structural discrimination.
The overall goal of the policy influence is to ensure that women in SMEs secure preferred access to public procurement, thereby empowering them economically to contribute to a greater share in the economy of their families and the country due to the newly revised and enacted policies, legal frameworks and directives.
The main objectives of the Policy Influencing Strategy are also said to increase the understanding and knowledge of policy and decision-makers in Ethiopia, it would develop positive behavioral changes towards the rationales and benefits of active involvement of women entrepreneurs in public procurement as well.
The existence of low policy attention towards public procurements, lack of SMEs friendly policy, directives and legislative on public procurements, prevalence of socio-cultural and economic problems, existences of poor coordination between and among procuring entities, lack of transparency & accountability, existences of misfit of tender design & suppliers, lack of understanding of women rights and knowledge on procurement procedures particularly about complaints review were among the problems identified through advocacy strategy.
Availability of SMEs friendly policy, directives and legislatives on public procurements will lead to improved recognition of women in SMEs. Plus, the existence of gender-responsive socio-cultural and economic context will lead to secure gender-responsive public procurement, the presences of improved coordination between and among procuring entities will help to have improved access of women to finance, time, information and mobility.
On the one hand, improved public procurement transparency and accountability will also lead to oversee fast procurement evaluation and contract award processing, the improved tender design will lead to have high participation of women in public procurements and ensure improved income and the improvements in knowledge of suppliers on procurement procedures is anticipated to lead to improvements of contract performance by suppliers, according to the Director.
She also noted that solutions are proposed to alleviate the problem in involving all the concerned ones: the Government, the private sector (Chambers & associations of women in business), women in SMEs, CSOs, involving men allies (using men Ambassadors), etc.
It is expected that such kinds of awareness creation forums will be instrumental in bringing together the concerned ones, like-minded partners, to take time to discuss the challenges that women in SMEs face in accessing public procurement and to propose and recommend remedial measures.
Though women make up half of the world’s population, they are disproportionately represented among the most marginalized. Despite making significant, often unrecognized contributions to the social and economic development of their communities, they face multiple and overlapping barriers to realize their full potential in terms of access to education, information, decision-making power, earning power and many other challenges.
On the other hand, research has shown that successful efforts to promote women’s economic empowerment not only positively impact incomes but also build self-confidence, enhance women’s capacities within the household and community and contribute to improved education, health and security outcomes for families.
It has been enshrined in international conventions and declarations’, including the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and all available evidence confirms that supporting women’s entrepreneurship and women-owned businesses helps to increase the pie for all to benefit. More importantly, women’s economic empowerment is a necessity for long term sustainable development, the ultimate goal of the SDGs.
BY BETELHEM BEDLU
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD THURSDAY 19 MAY 2022
