Bridge Bridges:Allowing BoP and BoP- Women Engaged SME Businesses to Survive, Thrive and Triumph

by

Martin Kiyeng | May 6, 2020 | in Women in technology challenge | Tech solutions for communities

State your goals

1.Supporting Women owned SME's by re-imagining  investment

2. Reduce business closure

3.Reduce unemployment  and lay-offs

What problems (particularly in value chain competitiveness and global disruption) are your community’s stakeholders facing due to the Covid-19 pandemic?

Across the African continent, informal work is the main source of employment, accounting for 85.8%. (The figure stands at 40% across the Americas.) And across East Africa, women make up the majority of the share of informal employment in total (92.8 percent), while men aren’t too far behind (74.8 percent), according to the International Labour Organization (ILO). A growing, young population faces a dearth of training and employment opportunities, while at the same time commodities-based industries—such as agriculture, mining, and oil—do little to cultivate high-quality formal employment

In Kenya an estimated an estimate of 40% of small informal businesses have been forced to shut down due to low demand for goods and services, low sales, low income and difficulties in sustaining business cost.In a recent report, prepared by the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection, indicates that all the 133,657 lost jobs so far are in the formal sector and the number excludes employees on unpaid leave and those who have taken pay cuts.About 58.1% of Kenyans in informal employment have been affected.The informal sector accounts for 84% of total employment created by the economy (8 out of every 10 people in employment in Kenya works in the informal sector).

This is not only a local, country , continental but a global challenge

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What minimum viable solution(s) are you proposing to address the challenge(s) in your community?

Unemployment and women’s over-representation in the informal sector heightens their vulnerabilities during crises.The International Labor Organization estimates that 195 million jobs could be eliminated globally due to the pandemic, with a majority in sectors predominated by women. Furthermore, over 740 million women around the world work in the informal sector and as low-wage workers, employment that is vulnerable to elimination due to COVID-19 and which often lacks protections against exploitation and harassment.The current COVID-19 crisis deeply impacts women, men, girls, boys and other genders differently. While men make up the majority of those who have died from the virus, women and girls bear the brunt of disproportionate care burdens,disruptions in income and education, poor access to health and other essential services, greater risk of being dispossessed of land and property, and gender digital and pay gaps.

The response to COVID-19 is essentially a large scale social experiment. The shock is priming people’s behaviour towards more online and digital options. Once the crisis resolves, it is very likely that the habits, cost savings and convenience factors revealed to large swathes of consumers through this crisis will result in permanent behavioural changes.

Given that the digital infrastructure already exists, the COVID-19 outbreak will likely be the catalyst propelling an even faster adoption of activities relying on digital financial services. In the meantime, the intelligent, creative use of digital means offers much in the battle to alleviate the social, economic, and some health consequences of the crisis now and later

Share your story (your narrative)

My story started on a personal perspective where, it started with my mum. Due to social cultural issues she couldn't progress from working in informal work after retiring despite her entrepreneurial prowess.She could access credit she needed an approval from male.As fate would come into to me a years later i found myself working with organisation in offering quality education and care to women owned childcare through social franchising. Coming in of COVID-19 led me to think of how they would survive lock down was introduce and this means they could continue with their work.To this kind of informal considering its essential as it offers opportunity for women to continue with work. They can't access financing since they are women, culture has a toll on them, they do not have collateral. They need to pay rent, they need to pay their workers others they will lay the off.This what lead me to this. More less they need someone to talk to and team of people who have gone through this. More than that they need to be resilient and keep selling and shifting to the 'bussiness unusual'

Please provide any additional relevant information that you would like to share.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shaken nations around the world. It has tested their healthcare infrastructure, battered their financial markets and left whole populations in fear and lockdown. This is a human health crisis first and foremost. The human crisis includes the economic and social consequences of the pandemic, and these secondary implications will be felt for years to come. Its impact has been devastating in Asia, Europe and North America, and its potential impact on the developing world is perhaps even worse, given weaker healthcare systems and infrastructure.

While the most significant impact of the pandemic is human, the immediate consequences of individual quarantine measures and lockdowns are felt through supply chains (ie. reduced operation of factories and logistic networks), and increasingly and more severely through demand channels (ie. individual and business appetite for consumption, and prohibitions on certain services such as travel and hospitality services) globally and locally. What is more, the level of uncertainties in terms of human casualties (COVID-19) and economic damage (COVID-19 and oil prices) is severely reducing trust within and between economic actors. The virus spreads within society, the loss of trust spreads within markets. In both cases, limitation of interaction, in the form of social distancing or reduced economic trade respectively, seems to be the short-term result. As the economic and human toll increases, so does the strain on the financial sector, with the financial sector being central to direction of financial resources to address the crisis and to support recovery. Thus, while the impact is not focused on the financial sector, maintaining the robustness and effectiveness of the financial sector is central to the battle.