Bridging the Gender Gap in Entrepreneurship

Last weekend, I had the opportunity to participate in a panel discussion and round table conference at ITCN Asia. Both topics revolved around bridging the gender gap in entrepreneurship and the digital inclusion of women - something quite close to my heart. To prepare for these discussions, I not only disseminated a digital survey but talked to many relevant stakeholders, and here is a summary based on my findings:

The Challenges:

The first thing to understand is that challenges for women vary by their location, education, income group and business size.

The panel discussion was focused more on rural areas, so I will highlight that.

Major challenges can be roughly categorized as:

1. Socio-cultural challenges such as lack of family support
2. Psychological?Challenges such as stress management, work-life balance, mom guilt
3. Infrastructure challenges include the following:

• Lack of Digital Infrastructure (Electricity, Internet, Devices)
• Lack of Digital Literacy (The use of technology for business growth)
• Lack of Financial Inclusion (Lack of financial literacy, access to financial services, loans and collateral, social and cultural norms)
• Lack of Legal Literacy (Company formation, contracts etc.)

The Current Support Ecosystem:

Key Stakeholders:

1. Government
2. Civil Organizations
3. NGOs
4. International Development Partners
5. Private Organizations
6. Women Entrepreneurs
7. Male Family Members

There are various organizations (Civil, Private, and Non-Government) that are working on resolving these issues, and several initiatives have been launched by the Government as well such as institutes like Virtual University of Pakistan , National Vocational and Technical Training Commission NAVTTC , and mentorship programs such as She Leads Pakistan to encourage digital literacy. Other than this incubation centers such as National Incubation Center have been set up to provide 360-degree support to startups and SMEs. For digital infrastructure, Universal Service Fund - Pakistan has launched several projects in collaboration with GSMA, ITU, Jazz, etc. For financial inclusion, from microfinancing initiatives such as the Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund , National Rural Support Programme , other Rural Support Programmes Network , Benazir Income Support Programme to name a few to Raast Payment System, Easypaisa and JazzCash are several projects are in place and quite a few are underway.

Why do the challenges persist?

Despite substantial work being done for digital and financial literacy, challenges persist. The main reasons for this that I have been able to identify are:

More focus on training as opposed to building the infrastructure which is a pre-requisite for digital inclusion

Lack of collaboration amongst the key stakeholders - the same training by the same trainers is being repeated over and over again. There seems to be no need-identification and a feedback loop seems to be missing and everyone is working in silos.

Lack of traceability, measurement, and learning journey- the end users (entrepreneurs) and other stakeholders cannot measure the impact of the training, and the learning journeys for each entrepreneur are not defined

The stringent requirements for loan guarantees, lack of credit history, and even the ease of opening bank accounts are all challenges that need to be addressed.

Solutions?

Digital Traceability:

1. Create a national LMS for women where they can define their learning goals and track sessions, request for sessions
2. Collaborative ecosystem - bottom-up designing of training
3. Post-training follow-ups and feedback
4. Incorporating practical elements in training
5. Keeping track of companies incubated to ensure even distribution of resources

Financial Inclusion:

1. Investment in financial literacy and better-designed products can give women entrepreneurs the resources they need to grow their businesses
2. The State Bank of Pakistan should ensure consumer protection of women borrowers, advocating for transparency in gender reporting and discouraging discriminatory practices and policies.
3. Digital identity solutions can help address the issue of identification, which is a significant barrier to accessing financial services
4. Devise solutions that can help build or bypass/minimize the credit history requirements for women

This is by no means a complete document, but a mere starting point, put together in a hurry. With approximately 3.22 million women entrepreneurs out of a total population of 119 million, the Women Entrepreneurship Ratio in Pakistan is alarmingly low. I am looking towards organizations like Pakistan IT Industry Association (P@SHA) and CxO Global Forum to continue these conversations to devise a workable roadmap and then work closely with the government for the implementation.

Sources used:

Digitalisation & Women in Pakistan UNDP and National Commission on the Status of Women (NCSW) 2023

NATIONAL REPORT ON THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN PAKISTAN, 2023 A SUMMARY UN Women and National Commission on the Status of Women (NCSW) 2023