SADDIA MAZHAR,
From my teenage I had the opportunity to see firsthand the challenges women were facing both in urban and rural areas of Pakistan. This lead me to setting up my first social enterprise in 2003 in England to support women from deprived backgrounds through adult education, skills development, employment and entrepreneurship. After coming back to Pakistan in 2013 I travelled extensively in Pakistan. I realized that not much had changed. Women were uneducated, living under extreme poverty and were not even given the basic right of decision making. They also suffered abuse and were forced in to early marriages. Fajar, an award winning social entrepreneur devoted herself whole heartedly for girls’ education expressed her thoughts.
Education in Pakistan shows a bleak picture. Pakistan is among those countries where literacy rate of female is 45% against male which is 69%. Pakistan, with more than two hundred millions populace is equivalent to 2.65 percent of the total world’s population which makes it world’s fifth most populated country and the second largest in South Asia. Women with 49.2 percent are half of the total population of Pakistan.
The thickly populated country is passing through the different economic challenges like mounting debt, rising imports, declining exports, low savings, consumption oriented society and shrinking share in world trade.
To face different challenges, to compete with other countries, to win the battle of trade, a globally used term is “women Empowerment”.
Why we talk about women empowerment only and not men empowerment? Women make almost 50% of the total population of the world. Then why this substantial section of the society needs empowerment? They are not in minority so as to require special treatment. Biologically speaking also, it is a proven fact that female race is superior to male. Then the question arises that why we are debating the topic ‘Women Empowerment’.
Need for empowerment arose due to centuries of domination and discrimination done by men over women; women are suppressed lot. They are the target of varied types of violence and discriminatory practices done by men all over the world including Pakistan.
Woman constitutes 49% of Pakistani population but only 22% women participate in economic activities as compared 68% of men and only 1% women and women entrepreneurs as 28% of men. As a result Pakistani women stand at 143 out of 144 countries. This simply reflects that relentless efforts are to be made to improve the rating for woman economic opportunities.
In Pakistan, we need women owned enterprise to participate in the national economy. Women’s are almost 50% of our population. If they are motivated and encourage in decision making and management side, they can avail the targets and lead from small to large enterprise. In contrast to urban areas, rural areas are the almost unrepresented part for the nation economy from the women owned entrepreneurship.
For the past few years, there is some awareness for the women empowerment. Different organization especially Ngo’s and Go’s sector are increasingly involve to empower them. They provide micro financing and micro credit schemes for the betterment to run their own business. National Rural Support Program (NRSP’s), First Women Bank, Bank of Khyber, Khushali Bank has also contributed to support women’s enterprise. The NGO Sectors help to support of poverty reduction and in women education. They provide a platform such as skills training and opportunity identification. women entrepreneurs can overcome the gaps related to economy.
Un fortunatlly still Pakistani women faces many challenges and difficulties in starting up their small business.A study conducted by Ministry of Planning and Development in 2018 about the problems faced by SMEs in Pakistan, according to this study ,”SMEs have been facing difficulties in gaining access to resources since a very long time and have received little support which could drive their engine of growth. Aside from bottlenecks such as little technical support, low human resource, lack of skills and limited knowledge of employers, the biggest predicament faced by the sector is financial constraints.
SMEs find it difficult to access loans from the banks as they maintain weak financial records and don’t have security required for collateral at banks. Ultimately, SMEs rely on personal finances and have small scale credit opportunities which further aggravate their weak financial position.
Furthermore, SMEs also face hurdles in the form of high corruption, less tax concessions, limited regulatory support and high interest rates.
Amazingly Singapore,the small island in asia is home to 5.6 million residents, 39% of whom are foreign nationals and labour force participation rate of women in Singapore has raised from 48 per cent in 1990 to 60 per cent in 2018. According to Ministry of Manpower (Singapore) figures, the gender wage gap stands at 9 per cent as of 2017.
The startups & SMEs are the powerhouses of Singapore. They employ almost two-thirds of the Singaporean workforce but here question arise why people feel comfortable in starting their business or startup in Singapore..!
During three month stay in Singapore as a fellow of asian journalism fellowship program by Lee kuan yew school of public policy funded by Themasek foundation ,these amazing facts and figures are find out .
The ease of doing business in Singapore, country has a score of 87.34, compared to 82.15 for the United States. On average, entrepreneurs in Singapore need only 2 1/2 days to set up a company.
Why women entrepreneurs are working more energetically and confidently in Singapore?
Because Singapore is a Comfortably diverse country with religious harmony. Their Tax system gives more security and ease in starting up new business . most importantly this island is providing a Safe living environment especially for women as crime rate is zero,Cutting-edge business community and offers a Relaxed, stable and secure lifestyle.
Supports for local and international fairs are the magical effort Singapore is doing to promote their goods and attract investors to come and invest in Singapore. Pakistan has the large population and represents many cultures, government should help in holding these fairs and seminars to promote women entrepeurs work, to build the relationship with international market.
Because of the economic crises, international organizations are reluctant to invest in Pakistan. Government should arrange some funded market trips for foreign buyers to visit fairs, producers’ groups etc.
support for relevant business associations, to build the confidence in working community especially the entrappers and SMEs .organizational support like in Singapore really build a trust to the international buyer ,investor and most important to the person who is doing any business.
In ease-of-doing-business ranking Pakistan is at 108 out of 190 countries , explains some of the issues facing start-ups. These are problems that other countries especially Singapore have solved and Pakistan can benefit from adopting tried and tested solutions.
Improving policies and investing in infrastructure. When it comes to creating a nurturing environment for start-ups, the first step is to simplify business registration and taxes; establishing “one-stop shops” is one way to create transparency, simplify procedures, and help new start-ups save time and money. More than 80 economies worldwide have adopted this model and, in each of them, business registration has become at least twice as fast as in economies without such services.
The second step is to invest in infrastructure. This could range from creating digital-payment gateways to modernizing government organizations, such as the Pakistan Post.
There is a need of comprehensive framework to pave way for a complete Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Pakistan. Pakistan is located in South Asia region and has population exceeding 200 million. Pakistan is among developing nations whose economy followed by different business sectors, both in terms of its share in GDP and labor force employment. Due to the importance of trade and commerce, government of Pakistan has established a body to promote SMEs which is known as “Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority” (SMEDA). The main responsibility of SMEDA is the formulation of policies to promote and facilitate SMEs. Further, it helps in provision of training and education to entrepreneurs . As per Pakistan economic statistics, per capita income during 2017-18 is ($1641) based on provisional figures of population census 2017 held in March 2017 (Ministry of Finance Pakistan, 2018). In continuation, it is stated that agriculture, industrial and services are three major contributing sectors of Pakistan economy. (International journal of entrepreneur 2018).
Public policy is essential in supplying technical training and help through courses and training for staff members and management of SMEs geared to raising technical knowledge and instilling the need to raise efficiency of small firms.
Singapore is a global model in this. Singapore agency SPRING works closely with the Monetary Authority of Singapore. With insurance, financial institutions lending to SMEs will be protected against loan defaults.
Pakistan should also give benefits of loan and insurance to women entrepreneurs especially who have less finance. SAMEDA define SMEs as firms having up to 250 employees and paid up capital up to Rs. 25 Million and annual sales up to Rs. 250 Million .so it is quite difficult for a person who want to start their business with five or six employs .
It has been observed that generally female entrepreneurs are not aware of financial schemes and products for SME’s offered by financial institutions especially rural women. Female entrepreneurs thus need to adopt a more proactive approach to learning about business financing and government should try to reach them by all means.
Unpleasant bank experiences should not become reason for avoiding banks finances .Singapore people have full trust on banks and even the proces of loan is not that much lengthy and complicated, need of some reforms in digitalization and customer trust building.
There is a urgent need for government organizations i.e SAMEDA,TDFP to devote time and resources to maintaining proper books of accounts of female entrepreneurs. They should be encouraged either to develop their own accounting skills by relevant short courses or to consider using the services and advice of professional accounts.
Empowering women entrepreneurs is crucial for achieving the goals of sustainable development and the bottlenecks hindering their growth must be reduced to enable full participation in the business. Apart from training programs Newsletters, mentoring, trade fairs and exhibitions also can be a source for entrepreneurial development. Education, Vocational Training, Interest free Loan on easy installments is need of the day to bring women in the economic main stream. As a result, the desired outcomes of the business are quickly achieved and more of remunerative business opportunities are found. Therefore promoting entrepreneurship among Pakistani women is certainly a short-cut to rapid economic growth and development. Let us try to eradicate all kinds of gender bias and thus allow ‘women’ to be a great entrepreneur at par with men.
But most importantly encouragement and will is Must as we have seen in the case of Singapore. It is a living example for the whole world in general and for Pakistan in Specific.
