Women & Business in South Sudan

Baba Steve Fickr June 2012 - Women & Business in South Sudan Whilst there is no shortage of women at the microentrepreneur level, these are scarce at larger business levels in South Sudan. This article considers the possible causes of this scarcity, as well as potential methods of addressing this disparity based on Peace Dividend’s experience of financing and promoting medium sized entrepreneurs in South Sudan. _____________________ Copyright © Melody Atil Based on Peace Dividend’s experience financing and promoting small and medium sized entrepreneurs in South Sudan Featured in the Financial Times, Mama Zahara is a perfect example of a successful businesswoman in South Sudan. With a niche in one of the highly lucrative sectors, this restaurant chain “feeds up to 700 customers a day, employs 60, turns a $100,000 profit a year” quite remarkable “for a woman who started out in the early 1990s cooking classic Sudanese fare outside her home as the shells hit during five decades of intermittent civil war.” Yet, other such successful medium and large businesses run by South Sudanese women in a population of eight million can be counted on the fingers of one’s hands. With an estimate of at least 1000 local medium sized entrepreneurs, women’s representation is less than 1%; far below that of women in the legislative assembly (~20%) and in the council of ministers (~12%), (Statistical Yearbook for Southern Sudan, 2009). The USA offers an interesting comparison with 29% women owned, 17% equally shared, and 52 % man owned non-farm businesses (US Census, 2007). Interestingly, this scarcity of woman entrepreneurs is not apparent at a micro level, where just as many women apply and benefit from microfinance as men (when the Continued… finance is not 1 Women & Business in South Sudan June 2012 provided exclusively to women e.g. BRAC’s programs). Yet, microfinance’s experience across the globe has hardly proven a springboard for entry into medium/ large business (david Roodman, 2012) and other factors currently dictate the ability for entrepreneurs to operate at an SME level (small and medium enterprise level). Qualitative experience researching and working with a large spectrum of SME’s in South Sudan (2009-11) suggests that the key determinants to SME size ventures include the entrepreneurs’ ability to: • • • • Build their social and business networks and connections Enforce contracts Access education and/or business guidance Access sufficient amounts of capital In this interest, South Sudanese women may be disadvantaged due to their low attendance of secondary education (Statistical Yearbook for Southern Sudan, 2009). Similarly, they may plausibly be less able to leverage their social connections for finance, advisory and enforcement support, or alternately be less keen to enter into business if they are of a certain social standing. Culture, in particular, appears to be a factor that limits their performance as entrepreneurs, both directly and indirectly. In effect, certain activities are considered inappropriate for South Sudanese woman to engage in, such as waitressing, manual jobs such as construction or truck driving; whilst office jobs such as work with international organizations or banks, cooking, cleaning, tailoring, handicraft, hairdressing and retail are preferred instead. These cultural considerations may reduce employment opportunities for women, and thus diminish their ability to gain important capital, knowledge and contacts through employment that in turn might prove an appropriate springboard to start up a small business. But, more crucially, these cultural considerations also imply that women are less likely to engage in the most profitable sectors, such as the construction sector where returns on investment are particularly high (~100% ROI per annum). Having received numerous business funding requests from women and observed the work of woman groups in South Sudan, it is quite obvious that programs and interest adhere to cultural norms and training programs in sectors 2 Women & Business in South Sudan June 2012 considered appropriate decades ago, rather than following trends of (1) profitability, and (2) current demand. In effect, this means that much effort is being wasted in positioning women in roles of meagre earnings, rather than positioning them in the growth and high profitability/ earning sectors. For instance, an employment example detailed by a 2011 CHF survey of Torit noted that there was high demand and high earnings for electricians, plumbers, machine operators, purchase/store keepers, administration, blacksmiths / welders and carpenters, but not for the traditional cooking, hairdressing, cleaning, tailoring, alcohol brewing, baking roles NGOs provide trainings for. Similarly, women groups tend to focus on soap making and tailoring rather than high profit sectors of construction, hotels, restaurants and the respective backward linkages from these. In conclusion, to truly address the scarcity of women in the medium/large business sector in South Sudan adapted programs could target two areas: (1) Training / education strategically focused to enable women to be employed in high earnings / high demand jobs (2) The identification of hard-working, talented, reliable and connected women and helping these: o Enter high profit / high demand sectors, breaking across cultural barriers if need be o Build their social and business networks and connections o Enforce contracts o Access education and business References & further info Atil, Melody, Dec 2010: “Enhancing Access to Finance for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Post Conflict Environments”. Atil, Melody, Mar 2010: “Investing in Local Content - A strategy to promote local economy in South Sudan through investment”. CHF South Sudan, 2011: Exchanges with. GEM, 2010: Women’s Report, Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Consortium IFC, Oct 2011: “Strengthening Access to Finance for Women Owned SME’s in Developing Countries”. Manson, Katrina, 3rd Feb. 2011: “South Sudan’s hunger for entrepreneurs”, Published: Financial Times. National Bureau of Statistics - Government of Southern Sudan, 2009: “Statistical Yearbook for Southern Sudan”. Roodman, David, 2012: “Due Diligence: an impertinent inquiry into microfinance”, Center For Global Development. US Census, 2007: “Survey of Business Owners - Women-Owned Firms”. 3