Africa-Press – Ghana. Women with disabilities in the Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) sector continue to face significant obstacles, despite advancements in women’s empowerment and inclusion.
They navigate a double challenge: breaking down barriers as women in a somewhat male-dominated field in access to land, work spaces, finance, and market, as well as overcoming disability-related hurdles that complicate their entrepreneurial pursuits.
Lack of access to finance is reinforced as finance agencies sometimes have doubts on their ability to work hard, generate profit and repay them.
That notwithstanding, women with disability are increasingly making their mark in the SMEs sector and contributing in varied ways to socio-economic growth.
However, to reach their potential, they require more than just determination, hard work and funding.
Capacity building initiatives, tailored to their unique needs such as financial management, operations management, business strategy, innovation and risk management, leadership and team management, use of digital tools and technology, e-commerce and online presence, market access and expansion, and sustainability are crucial in equipping them with the skills, knowledge, and confidence to succeed.
By investing in capacity building, the vast potential of women with disability can be unlocked to promote inclusive growth and create an equitable business environment.
The Ghana News Agency studied the impact of government’s “National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme (NEIP)” on women beneficiaries with disability and their businesses.
NEIP primarily focuses on providing business development services; startup incubators and funding for young businesses to enable them to grow and become successful.
As part of the NEIP support, participants learnt about the importance of saving a portion of their daily earnings and managing their finances prudently.
It also covered customer relations, teaching participants the importance of maintaining positive interactions with clients.
Participants were also advised to focus on establishing their business before making significant purchases, avoiding the temptation to spend profits prematurely.
In an interview with some females with disability who were beneficiaries of the programme, Mrs Eugenia Eva Kangni, a mother of three in the Ga South Municipality, said: “the training gave me more knowledge on entrepreneurship, especially bookkeeping which most of us were not doing.
“They enlightened us not to buy things when we start the business but wait for the business to thrive before we purchase anything for ourselves. I sell pastries and I’m able to sell a lot now and make better profit because I don’t dip my hands into the work money by heart. Now I also keep good record of my sales and support my three children in school, two of whom are in the senior high school.”
Ms Rebecca Titi, a 31-year-old woman with a lower limb disability, said: “I used to buy ingredients like flour and oil in small quantities, which limited how much I could produce but the training gave me funding and also advice on saving a portion of daily earnings to handle emergencies.
“I also learnt the importance of maintaining good customer relations even when customers are at fault.”
In the case of Madam Araba Koomson, a person with albinism and producer of detergents, she said: “Before they gave us the money and training, some of us were already doing our jobs, but it wasn’t giving us enough profit. After we got the money and in-depth training, our jobs started flourishing.
“The training helped me in managing my finances better., I learnt that you have to improve upon your business before you buy your first item. The training really helped us understand how to reinvest profits wisely,” she added.
Dr Mavis Akuffobea-Essilfie, a Senior Research Scientist, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research – Science and Technology Policy Research Institute (CSIR-STEPRI), in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, called for a mandatory auditing of the NEIP programme and other programmes for Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises to include more women entrepreneurs with disability to promote economic growth and inclusivity for all.
She also asked that an advisory council be established with women entrepreneurs with disability made an integral part of it, to enable them to feed in their input.
Dr Akuffobea-Essilfie also suggested that a participatory budget was made for women entrepreneurs with disability regarding programming, to cover their needs and for the capacity of key players like politicians and heads of government offices to be built to embrace inclusivity of the marginalized in their programming.
Speaking on the implementation of the NEIP, she noted that key insights showed that while some policies aimed to support such women, implementation gaps often hindered the progress or success of the programme.
Among the gaps were limited access to tailored funding support (support that distinguish women entrepreneurs with disability), explaining that the situation prevented them from getting access to funds as some funding agencies doubted their capacities to repay the funds.
Lack of tools like sewing and knitting machines, lack of monitoring of interventions, and lack of inclusive business training where women with disability were separated and given different attention were missing in action, she said.
Dr Akuffobea-Essilfie suggested that female entrepreneurs with disability in MSMEs got access to credit facilities with low interest and flexible payment terms and an establishment of a public private partnership to promote adaptable infrastructure and accessible working space for the women with special needs to operate and thrive.
Dr Justina Onumah, a Research Scientist, CSIR-STEPRI, called on the government and the private sector to enhance and compliment funding of Micro, Small, and Medium-sized Enterprises with enriched capacity building.
According to a research conducted by the CSIR-STEPRI, she said funding enterprises without building their capacity could yield no fruit at all.
Dr Onumah noted that per their analysis, they found out that capacity building was a catalyst to performance of the MSMEs, even if they were given cash support.
“We realised that financial performance was okay among some of them, but innovation and employment generation was poor. The innovative aspect was relegated,” she said.
Since the inception, Dr Onumah said NEIP had been a flagship initiative to accelerate job creation and enterprise growth.
Yet, she said there had been limited systematic evidence on the performance and equity outcomes of such programmes.
She reiterated the need for capacity building amid funding of MSMEs, and admonished all donor agencies, civil society organisations and financial institutions to complement funding of MSMEs with capacity building to enable beneficiaries yield the desired results.
“If you give them funding and fail to teach them how to use it, the results might disappoint you and you would have invested money in vain,” she added.
Source: Ghana News Agency
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