In August 2020, His Excellency, President Cyril Ramaphosa, released a statement that the South African Government has made a number of commitments under Gender Equality that will be given effect to through the National Strategic Plan. One of those commitments is to drive women’s economic inclusion through public procurement. He stated that a target of at least 40% of goods and services procured by public entities are to be sourced from women-owned businesses.
In the energy and power sector, we believe that unless women know what entrepreneurial opportunities exists in the sector, they will not be able to
1) opt to participate in the sector,
2) choose an area of focus,
3) align themselves with the relevant actors/ agents in the energy and power ecosystem;
4) access credible market information;
5) organise themselves to participate effectively and sustainably.
An energy revolution is happening in South Africa where new and cheaper technologies, especially in the renewable energy sector, coupled with affordable energy storage, are driving this revolution. Deregulations of the Power/ Energy Sector coupled with unbundling and privatisation of traditional value chains presents opportunities for non-traditional players in the sector.
In our webinar series, we have invited leading stakeholders to share credible information on the energy sector, with an emphasis on unravelling the energy and power value chain and the inherent entrepreneurial opportunities.
Register for the webinars if you are interested to discover entrepreneurial opportunities and possibilities in the energy and power sector.
The webinar series was funded by : Women’s Voice and Leadership (WVL) SA Fund a Programme funded by Global Affairs Canada (GAC) under Canada’s Feminist International Assistance Policy (FIAP), managed by Gender Links (GL) South Africa.
Join us as we enable Women Entrepreneurs to gain a good understanding of the electricity sector in South Africa: Its structure; Stakeholders; Suppliers; Policies and regulations; prevailing technologies; electrifications gaps; and the state of existing electricity grid network infrastructure.
Exploring Financing for Energy Projects, SMMEs and Women Entrepreneurs in Energy and Power
We know that a lack of access to finance is one of the major barriers facing women entrepreneurs across the world – approximately 80% of women-owned businesses with credit needs are either unserved or underserved.
In this session we will explore how women entrepreneurs can access finance for energy projects and their enterprises.
Accelerating women’s participation in the energy and power sector in support of the following sustainable Development goals:
- SDG 5: Gender Equality
- SDG 7: Affordable and clean Energy
- SDG 8: Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all
Women have a significant role to play and have the contextual insight to exploit existing and emerging opportunities in the African Power and Energy Sector.
Access to market and finance will accelerate their participation
We need to accelerate women’ participation in the AfricanPower and Energy Sector – meaningful participation in the value chain of power generation and efficient energy usage.
We cannot eradicate energy poverty in the continent without meaningful economic participation of women.
We need to build tools to:
- Accelerate women entrepreneurs in the Energy sector
- Enable access to market
- Remove barriers for financing
- Promote and secure cross border trading
Eradicating energy poverty on the continent requires a talent pool of innovators, administrators and leaders, and this is not possible without meaningful inclusion of women, youth and people living with disabilities.