BRICS WBA Seeks to Advance Women Entrepreneurs into Leadership

In its quest to empower women entrepreneurs, the BRICS Women’s Business Alliance is endeavouring to elevate women entrepreneurs from participation to leadership in investment, technology and policy development, with competitiveness becoming one of the important considerations.

Lebogang Zulu, National Chairperson of the BRICS WBA-South Africa said that markets evaluate businesses on their products, delivery capabilities, quality, scale and pricing rather than on the gender of their founders. She highlighted the need for greater emphasis on economic equity and competitiveness in developing leadership among women.

Key Highlights:

• BRICS WBA seeks to move women entrepreneurs from participation to leadership
• Greater access to finance and markets can help women-led businesses scale
• Creative industries and agriculture offer India-South Africa opportunities

The purpose of BRICS WBA is to create an environment which helps to link women entrepreneurs to the buyers and investors such as venture capital, high net worth individuals and social impact investors. This can allow women-led enterprises to become part of the innovation ecosystem and participate in decision-making about investments and businesses within BRICS countries.

While Lebogang differentiated women empowerment from female economic equity, she stressed that business woman leaders have to constantly upgrade themselves and improve their skills. She emphasized the need to develop more pathways through which female entrepreneurs can have better access to funding sources, buyers, and markets.

Improving the availability of financial services would appear to be a more realistic approach towards assisting women entrepreneurs in BRICS countries than the establishment of a procurement system as it varies from one member country to another, reflecting the sovereign environment in each member state.

“Success happens when opportunity meets preparation. Women prepare; we create the opportunity,” Lebogang said.

Lebogang suggested that there should be an enabling investment platform in order for venture capitalists and others to find bankable pipelines for investment into companies run by women. She further stressed on the importance of governments supporting the BRICS Women Advancement Fund and the role of the New Development Bank in this regard. Since women have a large presence in MSMEs, it is important for BRICS to build an institutional and financing framework that enables them to grow economically.

Indian and South African businesses can tap into more bilateral trade possibilities through exploring areas matching the strengths and markets of these two nations. Lebogang pointed out that creative industry and agriculture were among two sectors with huge opportunities for cooperation.

In her statements, a creative economy provides opportunities for women entrepreneurs in terms of commercialization of their talents, marketable products and services, as well as international markets. She mentioned that the US demonstrates perfectly how creative industries can be commercialized internationally and become economically valuable due to commercialization of films, actors and culture.

According to her, the agriculture sector is another key area, especially in terms of processing, value addition, technology and markets and not just primary production. She noted that India and South Africa should find commercially viable ways where women-led companies could collaborate with advanced access to markets, funding and international business partners.