Policies must consider gender differences: Kuugongelwa-Amadhila

WINDHOEK, 01 AUG – To ensure that women are included in trade and business, policies must take into account the gender differences and the structural and institutional barriers to female participation, Prime Minister, Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila has said.
This, she said, was because trade is an important tool for inclusive growth and for poverty eradication for women who are estimated to account for around 70 per cent of the informal cross-border traders in the Southern African Development Community (SADC).
In a speech read on her behalf by Special Advisor, Nangula Mbako at the Third Industrialisation Week here on Tuesday, Kuugongelwa-Amadhila said work in Southern Africa was segregated along gender lines in certain sectors where women concentrated in lower skill, lower paid and more precarious positions.
Speaking on women’s economic empowerment towards a new trade policy and governance, she said women who were producing goods for sale found themselves subjected to import competition which could force them out of the market.
Meanwhile, women trading in imported goods benefitted as those goods became cheaper and available.
She indicated that women made up two-thirds of the agricultural labour force and produced most of the food on the African continent, thus it was important to consider how changes in the economy can be brought about by trade changes.
“The impact of changing tariffs and shifting trading patterns needs to be very carefully monitored – reduced tariffs and improved trade facilitation might increase access to new markets for some women farmers, but increased competition, may also have a more severe impact on lower yielding women farmers and push them out of business,” she stated.
Kuugongelwa-Amadhila added that significance had to be placed on cross border traders as the informal cross-border trade contributes about 30 to 40 per cent of total intra-regional trade in Sadc.
The Prime Minister indicated that the Namibian government has assisted women-led businesses through equipment aid to assist small and medium enterprises to procure productive machinery and equipment.
“This is intended to help budding small entrepreneurs to improve and increase their productive capacities and product quality as well as to enhance business prospects, survival and growth in general,” she said.
The three-day Industrialisation week, being held in the capital, ends on Wednesday.
(NAMPA)