National Women’s Business Agenda

A consultative workshop to develop a women-focused business agenda aimed at helping women entrepreneurs was scheduled in Karachi today. That workshop has now been postponed for no fault of its organisers, CIPE-Pakistan and the USAID. The precarious situation in the country demands such precautionary measures. But the incident is a reminder that the professional prospects of women employees and women entrepreneurs are invariably hurt more than that of men’s, whenever violence erupts in the country. This is no country for women, and violence forces more women to stay home than men!

The list of draft policy recommendations prepared through the country-wide consultations so far include the following four key measures. That the SME policy document should have a framework for women entrepreneurs. That the TDAP should draft a policy specific for women-owned export businesses. That the trade policy should expand the list of gender focused sectors beyond jewellery. And that the credit guarantee scheme for trade facilitation should include the 24 key districts where women businesses are concentrated.

BR Research doesn’t have access to the details behind these proposed measures yet. More on that later perhaps. But in the meanwhile, this column would like to stress on the following.

The national women business agenda mustn’t begin without first having a national anti-harassment policy that is implemented not merely by law but also by social norms and general levels of societal awareness. This should not merely include anti-harassment policy in the offices or shops where women work, but also on the roads, in and during commute, or visiting someone else’s office.

That’s because a woman’s mental bandwidth is choked by the very necessity to walk, dress and indeed breathe as what is labelled as ‘proper’, or how to avoid the penetrating gazes. In such an environment, how can she be employed formally or informally, let alone do business? Not every form of harassment is easy to be codified in law, which is why societal awareness is paramount. As for legal aspects, there should be a well-regulated harassment-offenders portal maintained by HR bureau ala the credit bureau. But such a portal must not fall prey to politics or personal vendettas.

Second, women chambers and associations must be reformed. There is a need to change the current status-quo where a clique holds power for generations, and does precious little for the cause. Women chamber and associations should not be a tea party club. General trade bodies—dominated by men—are no different; they are also private clubs that do nothing except smoke cigars and lobby for SROs. But the need for strong and vibrant chambers and associations for women is much higher than that for men.

Third, formal businesses requires formal business education, which is why the commercial society has the likes of diplomas for finance for non-finance mangers, or other short courses on operational management, communication, HR, etc. Hold on to that thought, and weigh on the fact that women entrepreneurs have a variety of backgrounds.

Some never studied beyond higher school (HSC). Some leave halfway through their bachelors programme to get married, and later start working after many years. Some finished their studies, may be even joined the workforce but had children, raised them until they were school going and are now joining the work force again after a gap of ten years. Each have different types of knowledge gaps; each have different needs for transferable and non-transferable skills. The business agenda ought to include a mechanism to engage the diploma providing universities and nudge them to cater the programmes for women as per their desired time schedules, and location.

Fourth, considering that social change is a complex and sticky process, one cannot expect women versions of Steve Jobs to mushroom overnight in Pakistan. In the first wave of awareness, most women would be doing businesses that are considered womanly, whether some of us like it or not. That means universities should build start-up eco systems for those kinds of businesses to support these women; surely it is not written in stone that all entrepreneurship or start-up hubs at universities must be tech oriented.

Fifth pertains to the geeky stuff – research and advocacy. It took more than sixty years for this country to arrive at a widely agreed upon definition for the SMEs. The definition problem should be sorted out pronto, if any of the policy measures supported by CIPE-USAID’s consultative moot are to work without abusing the system. The last thing you want that men have their wives or sisters as the owners of the business, getting subsidised loans, and then punting it in the stock market.

Meanwhile, corporate reporting requirement should be strengthened. It is encouraging to note that the SECP’s recently rolled out corporate governance framework pushes corporates to have women on the board. What is also needed is that public listed firms report the number and percentage of women employed across tiers of management and blue-collar workforce in their audited annual reports.

While improved corporate reporting will help track the state of women employment in at least the public listed sector, the stakeholders still need the data pertaining to ownership, growth, employment, etc. Which is why this column proposes that information basis pertaining to various aspects of women employment and entrepreneurship in various integrated surveys by federal and provincial bodies should be improved. This could perhaps be achieved by making it a part of Labour Force Survey or the now-forgotten Census of Economic Establishments or the Household Integrated Economic Survey conducted by the federal statistics body.

Lastly, develop relevant case studies and tutorials digestible by TV audience and harness the power of morning shows and fix e-commerce lacunas – such as payment gateways - to advance the cause of women entrepreneurship.