The Department of Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities (DWYPD) has developed a Women’s Financial Inclusion Framework (WFIF) aimed at accelerating the participation of women in the mainstream economy.
The framework serves as a guideline for the development of intervention strategies to enhance the economic empowerment and participation of women in South Africa for institutions both within government and the private sector to tailor, monitor and evaluate the following inclusive objectives in all their plans, policies, and programmes viz:
a) Promote an all-inclusive approach to women’s financial inclusion;
b) Facilitate an enabling operating environment for mainstreaming women’s financial inclusion in government and private sector institutions;
c) Promote financial inclusivity through equitable access to ownership and control of all economic activities for women;
d) Lobby the private sector, non-government organisations and international organisations to incorporate the inclusion of women in their policies, programmes, projects and products;
e) Mobilise resources to support campaigns and programmes that promote the inclusion of women in the economy;
f) Coordinate, collect and disseminate information on best practices relating to the inclusion of women across all sectors of our economy;
g) Strengthen the capacity of women in leadership, management, control and entrepreneurship;
h) Share best practices relating to the economic emancipation of women.
Following the approval of the WFIF, the DWYPD was instrumental in founding the Women’s Economic Assembly (WECONA), which is a coordination platform for the public and private sectors, civil society, business associations and women in business.
WECONA is a national programme actioning an enabling procurement environment by activating public and private sector supply value chains toward a coherent and collaborative approach to achieve women’s economic empowerment. This programme also hinges on outcome 5.1 of the National Strategic Plan on Gender Based Violence and Femicide (NSP on GBVF), Pillar 5 – Economic Power which aims to accelerate initiatives that address women’s unequal economic and social position, through enabling access to government and private sector procurement, employment, housing, access to land, financial resources and other income generating initiatives.