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Soumis par Deborah Wendiro le jeu, 13/07/2017 - 15:38 Permalien
If we are to identify and probably manage women's financial needs we have to look at women as complete units. Women as farmers, food processors, health providers, sisters, mothers, aunties, community members, daughters-in-law, sisters-in law, beauticians, transporters, water collectors, cooks, household heads, household management partners without budget, first aid providers, birth attendants, friends, to mention but a few.
Each of these offices have financial specific needs.
Many banking agencies look at them as economic units who need money to enhance their businesses. when a woman gets a loan she may write the reason as to buy an input, before she reaches home she is informed that her brother is ill, wants to get married, or just needs money! She will take off that money and decide to operate at low scale. That is outrageous is it?
I wish to highlight within the business realm the financial needs of women.
I specifically paint the picture of Janet who started a business of making herbal tea which is medicinal. She needed money to acquire a dryer for the herbs so that she can meet the products standards. There are many such products on the market but they are expensive and inappropriate for her circumstances. Because she is venturing into a 'new' area she needs transport for go to a technology development agency, she needs to grease the pocket of a scientist to enable her take time to listen to her as an interest that is unique, she needs to go with the scientist for technology evaluation, she needs to comeback severally, she needs to do trial productions, she needs marketing management skills, she needs to learn how to 'cooperate' with police at gates, she needs to register her business, she needs to manage her supply chains (read this to mean her produce and that which she buys form others), she needs to integrate all those and more activities and manage herself as a wife and mother etc.
Is it possible to write a financial plan with such funding requirements included? She is the one who coordinates and manages the innovation systems to glean information and use it for business development.
There is no one stop centre for new business start up or even those that comprehensive support. women are engaged in seasonal businesses meaning that if there is fresh maize, she will buy a sigiri and roast maize, if she goes to market to buy maize and finds dessert banana she buys that and may roast them concurrently.
They say women are disorganized but how do you multitask in a systems so diverse and remain organized when you lack basic tools like a car or bicycle? The innovation system is very obtuse, productive resources inaccessible and most often in-appropriate.
So women have personal financial needs, personal business financial needs, and social financial needs, and communal financial needs, cultural financial needs, and corruption financial needs, and environment management financial needs, to mention but a few.
If we are to provide for women's financial needs we should streamline the innovation systems so that it is responsive. we should enhance integration of the traditional innovation system with the modern one.
I had earlier indicated that a women's desk is established in each ministry it should have a budget to be used and controlled by them to perform tele-training or immediate response to information needs. there are many organizational innovations that are not being used to enhance women's businesses. the mobile weekly markets are one such innovation where women sell and get access to information to improve their businesses.
Holding technology exhibitions in such places would go a long way to cut costs for women's processing technology needs. Did you know that process aids and additives are the most important non-price factors preventing growth in food processing businesses that provides variety and ensures food security?
One hundred percent of most process aids and additives are imported and not commonly locally available. Is it any surprise that women produce food products only to lose them in high post harvest rates?
Women of the Arua Cassava Producers Association won a contract to supply fermented cassava flour to people Karamoja through the World Food Programme (WFP), they were supposed to demonstrate safety from aflatoxins (globally controlled toxins). They have to travel with the sample to Kampala (Makerere University) to get their sample tested. This is a systemic financial need that should not go to women but government!
It is a financial need due to lack of choice not lack of knowledge. Women operate at the periphery of innovation and business chains where least information is provided or even accessible. Women have financial needs to coordinate the systems and glean information and use it for their business activities.
Deborah Wendiro
Chairperson - UGAWARD
Soumis par Deborah Wendiro le mer, 05/07/2017 - 23:33 Permalien
I wish to share this article I have written on the subject for information.
Please note that one critical argument I wish to put across is that manufacturing value added will enhance uptake of new technologies and increased participation of women in the global market as partners.
Financing mechanisms
Soumis par Deborah Wendiro le jeu, 13/07/2017 - 15:48 Permalien
One critical conceptual misnomer is the concept of agriculture. What is agriculture? To what extent does a financial need become categorized as agricultural? If a woman is sick she cannot perform 'agricultural chores', is the money needed for treatment categorized as a financial need in agriculture?
I implemented a participatory study to identify traditional innovations that could be enhanced in the global market and found out that many are organizational innovations in ecosystems, food processing, and natural resources conservation, which may not at a glance be categorized as agricultural financial needs. I took up research in these 'business' areas and I have been working with women who need to start businesses to process food (fermentation), and nutraceuticals.
Most financial requirements are actually not to be borne by the women but by the system. A woman who needs to fabricate a piece of equipment should not be the one to travel to buy stainless steel plates, nails, etc and design the equipment, supervise its fabrication and trial run it at her own cost. This money is used to manage a failed system.
We need to have an agro-business development finance where women are networked with R&D agencies and University where MSC students are charged to research and develop technologies codify information and package it for easy use for specific applications.
The trigger for such projects should be the women themselves not the student, R&D institution or university. For one product we could take on students; an agriculture student, a scientist to develop a products like lactic acid from cassava for example, an engineer to fabricate the machine required, a marketing or social scientist to look at the aspects of marketing, and ecologist to look at the issues etc.
The unifying objective should be to ensure that particular business is established and functional. Finances should be available to hold technology clinics where the women (innovator) can get information when she needs at the same place and timely. A technology/business incubation centre would be ideal for this purpose. The question would be how will they pay back?
Similar to the way they payback in cycles, they can be required to pay over a period of time a certain amount of money, and to ensure sustainability they can pay back a fee for a longer time.
Deborah Wendiro
Chairperson -UGAWARD