1- The ENABLE program should ‘enable’ equality, empowerment and employment, entrepreneurship and (social) education (particularly looking through the lens of women living in rural, peri-urban areas)

2- Equality: afford equal opportunities for women. Women (young and old) are traditionally regarded as the care givers in the home. They may not be regarded as the ‘official’ bread winners. They provide for food on the table and strive to ensure education for their children including taking care of health needs. And yet, cultural norms and policies are skewed against their equal access to education, assets, exposure and opportunities to develop their small cottage industry or market stall into a viable value chain market.

•  ENABLE should ensure that young women across the divide- urban, peri-urban and remotely rural areas – are considered. Quota systems need to reflect the national demographic and favour women
•  Relatedly, in the business space, women should be supported to participate in determining their own support requirements in policy dialogue, promote job equality and inclusion in skills enhancement programmes

3- Empowerment: Even when they are afforded opportunities, the quota system continues to exclude some. Empowerment should provide all-rounded capacity building support to help build women as champions of their own development.

•   This requires tailored approaches that build skills and capacities within the local context are provided, to help integrate women into decent employment and enterprise development

4- Entrepreneurship:

• Creating an enabling environment for enhancing access to labour saving and value addition technologies is essential for women in entrepreneurship. Labour saving technologies (LST) are critical for women due to the fact that they are the ones involved in multitasked roles in agricultural activities and at family level. High food losses from farms to the plate necessitate a great need for development of value addition & food processing technologies. Skills trainings are also an integral part of this.
• Women should be supported to gain access to finance, which include easing conditions for granting loans; as well as easing barriers to entry into traditionally male-dominated sectors, into services such as transportation etc. Women are excluded due to cultural practise (e.g. on land ownership) and some unfavourable policies, thereby ‘boxing’ them into traditional spaces which are already saturated and excluding them from access to credit/finances. Women run businesses are known to have better customer service delivery.

5- Employment: Whilst women are provided opportunities for employment, efforts are often token with women continuing to be excluded from opportunities for promotion.

• Monitoring and evaluation of the ENABLE could track how those women that are employed are given opportunities for growth in their place of employment and therefore have equal opportunity for promotion as their male counterparts.

6- Education:

• Low levels of education and lack of access to information and training limit women and girls to exercise their rights and exploit their capabilities. Think of a girl child who gets impregnated and stops schooling, for example. It seems that is the end of the road for such girls if nobody comes their way to help. Such cases are very common in Africa.
  • ENABLE can help pick up such girls and give them access to further education or skills trainings that will help to build them up economically. They can start some businesses and when the businesses grow, they can create employment for others.
• Overall- it is important to recognise that fast tracking women’s empowerment requires social education of communities to address deeply held social perspectives about what women can and cannot do.   
  • ENABLE could accompany its delivery with a strong communication strategy that addresses the above to ensure women benefit sustainably and communities are transformed.