Gender Dimensions of Investment Climate Reform: Operational

Perspective

Female Entrepreneurship: What do we know? How to operationalize it?April 6, 2011 - FPD Forum

Sevi SimaviWomen in Business Program, IFC

Gender Specific Challenges in Investment Climate Agenda

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Women have limited voice in public decision making

Networks

Role models

Access to information

Lobbying

Gender neutral laws can have gender-biased outcomes in practice

Expensive and lengthy

procedures impact women

more

Interference and harassment from

government officials

Legal rights may differ for men and women

Direct:Male consent required to

start a business

Indirect: Limited

inheritance rights

Business Start Up – Gender Perspective

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• Legal – Are there formal restrictions to run a business that are related to gender? (Lesotho, Cameroon, DRC)

 • Procedural –

Time consuming, expensive procedures. Need for an intermediary. Demands for bribes

• Logistical – location of the registry, ability to travel, inconvenient opening hours.

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Yemen: Business Start Up Project Findings from the diagnostics….

Only 100 formal female owned businesses (Limited Liability Companies) out of a total of

3,600 companies – less than 3%. 1. Formal Sector Responses (Barriers faces while registering businesses) • Lack of knowledge of registration process and required documents• Non transparent procedures and fees create opportunities for bribes• 80% of respondents registered themselves without an intermediary • Fear of harassment by male officials; preference to deal with another woman

2. Informal Sector Responses (Reasons for not registering) • Business women are unaware of how to register and the benefits of formalization in

general • Lack of access to finance (beyond micro finance) The cap on amount of micro finance

loans rises if a business is registered • Fear of tax rates and abuse from tax officials The bribes from the informal sector have

to pay to tax officials, are in most instances more than the official tax rate; however the women are unaware of this.

• Cultural attitudes towards business women• Lack of business skills and access to networks

Solutions to Implement……• Ministry of Industry & Trade agreed to set up a special window for

female applicants with a female staff member to avoid the cultural problems of mingling with men.

• Develop guidelines explaining the process for registering a business and associated fees.

• Design a communication plan to reach out to business women on benefits of formalization. Messages will include:

Potential to grow/expand business Avoid problems with the Tax Authority through paying official taxes Possibility to access higher amounts of micro finance loans

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Public Private Dialogue - Gender Perspective

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Process Level• Are women represented at the PPD process? • Are they at the right table? • Where are reform decisions made? • What’s the best way to get there? Policy Level• Are business women’s issues included in

PPD’s hard outputs? (i.e. legal and regulatory reform aimed at improving the investment climate)

• Has gender-focused monitoring facilitated better gender-informed target-setting?

• Are gender-specific sectoral issues, or gender issues faced by participants, addressed?

Cambodia G-PSF in brief

+ 1000 issues raised (in past 3 years), important results in some sectors. Strong coordination, with regular meetings and M&E system that track issuesStructure in place. Large participation of PS, Trusts, Gvt leadershipreceived high marks for organizational effectiveness & importance to the reform process. Private sector savings (past 5 years, sample of 9 reforms): US$104M

Established in 1999

14 Forums held

Status of an enlarged Cabinet

meeting

Chaired by the Prime Minister

$100 mil savings for the private sector

(sample of 11 reforms)

8 sectoral Working Groups, cross

cutting collaboration

World Bank review of 30 PPDs worldwide (April 09): Cambodia ranked 1st in organizational effectiveness

Cambodia G-PSF in brief

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• Less than 10% of participants are women while they make up 62% of businesses*

• All co-chairs (government and private sector) are men

• Studies found that women faced specific issues, that are not advocated for during the discussions

• G-PSF can be a useful mean for women entrepreneurs to address issues they face in Cambodia

But no women’s voice !

Provincial Business Environment Scorecard, jointly conducted by IFC and The Asia Foundation, 2009)

IFC + Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MoWA) hosted workshop for business women to

• identify and prioritize policy issues that would positively impact the growth of women’s businesses

• facilitate their implementation through private sector and government counterparts;

• mainstream gender issues in the G-PSF

 

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Cambodia Businesswomen in Action

 

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Gender Results• Identified priority action items for business women and a detailed report

forwarded to the chair of the PSD Steering Committee to be considered by the Royal Government of Cambodia. (Corruption; Strengthening women’s voice; Tax rates; Access to markets & certification of products)

•A group of business women now regularly attend the sessions of the G-PSF to represent business women’s interests. As a result of their requests, import tariffs and VAT on silk yarn from 7% and 10%, respectively were cut to zero for a period of three years affecting more than 20,000 silk weavers in the country.

•Representatives from each sectoral PPD working group engage with women’s business association to get women entrepreneurs’ issues on the G-PSF working group agenda.

•Ministry of Women's Affairs has incorporated some of the issues in its annual strategy and projects.

•A facebook page “Cambodia Women in Business” has been created, reaching 700 + women entrepreneurs, which profiles successful entrepreneurs, provides links to reports, facilitates networking.

Alternative Dispute Resolution – Gender Perspective

Objective: Equitable access to ADR both by men and women

Power imbalance, perceptions

Outreach to women as users

Women as mediators/master trainers

Equity

Should not perpetuate the existence of or create gender

inequities

Access

No systemic barriers to any individual’s

access to ADRIncome

generation

Pakistan ADR Project: Gender ResultsThe Karachi Center for Dispute Resolution opened in February 2007. Since then:

• 18 % cases referred for mediation and more than 25% of the cases successfully resolved at the center have involved women-owned businesses as litigants. 

• 25% of the program's mediators and 38 %of the master trainers are women.  • Through the master trainers, the project conducts regular training at the local

level, which has resulted in placement of female judges in 27 of 52 judicial positions.  

• Mediation week in Karachi District Courts targeting female litigants, their lawyers and judges resulted in the release of $1.4 million tied up in family business cases in 3 days on average, rather than 10 to 15 years in the commercial courts.

• The Superior Judiciary of Pakistan has taken full ownership of the project. • Partnerships with Karachi Chamber of Commerce, Women Chamber of

Commerce and Women’s Development Department and other business associations. 

• With the financial support of the Women Development Department, project will be replicated in 23 Sindh districts and Lahore province over the next two years.  

 

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Take Away Messages

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Voice Partnerships

Quick wins: Gender neutral

policies, procedures

Disaggregation

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www.ifc.org/genderIC

www.wbginvestmentclimate.org

For more information…..