By Precious D Freeman
UN Women Liberia is conducting a two-day gender responsive workshop for women of Liberia, which comes in an effort to enhance their involvement in procurement processes.
The initiative kick-started early Tuesday, May 9, 2023, at Blue Crest University College in Congo Town, Liberia, with the presence of a huge number of women who are set to become educated in public procurement.
UN Women Country Representative, Comfort Lamprey, while in a remark at the beginning of the workshop, termed it as an important opportunity to support the women’s empowerment agenda by facilitating access by women-owned businesses to information, technology and tools that will position them well to bid for public procurement contracts in future. It draws on existing data on women’s access to public procurement, and the potential this sector presents, for growth.
“According to the 2015 Global Women Entrepreneur Leaders Scorecard, public procurement accounts for more than 30 to 40% of GDP in developing countries and 10 to 15% of the GDP in developed countries18. However, globally, only an estimated 1% of public-procurement contracts are awarded to women-owned businesses,” she said.
Consequently, she acknowledged that governments are increasingly using public procurement as a tool to promote socio-economic objectives, including increased entrepreneurial activity by women-owned businesses.
Madam Lamprey noted that UN Women is very keen to make the most of the demonstrable good will on the part of the Liberian government, to promote preferential procurement measures- and additionally work with government and private sector, to strengthen existing services and support, to ensure that women-led businesses are supported to achieve high and impactful growth.
She further articulated that UN Women has a track record of working on gender responsive procurement, which is aligned to global policy discourse on the promotion of gender equality and women’s empowerment.
“As far back as 1995, the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (BPFA) underlined the need to support women’s economic empowerment through entrepreneurship”.
She continued, “The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) framework in target 8.3 commits UN member states to: ‘promoting development-oriented policies that support productive activities, decent job creation, entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation, and encourage the formalization and growth of micro, small and medium enterprises, including through access to financial services.”
Women-owned/led businesses are a growing share of all enterprises in many African countries.
Public procurement represents an attractive market for women entrepreneurs since it accounts for 15 to 30 per cent of GDP globally3.
In addition, procurement can sometimes consume as much as 50 per cent of GNP in some countries.
Public procurement, therefore, creates market opportunities that have long been recognized as an engine for growth for small and medium enterprises.
“Yet women-owned small and medium enterprises (WSME) are severely underrepresented as suppliers, In West Africa, women remain under-represented as entrepreneurs accessing public procurement opportunities,” UN Women Country Representative, Comfort Lamprey stated.
She further explain that “Women interprenial face significant structural barriers, which limit their growth and development.
Women tend to have limited knowledge on existing procurement processes/policies and available support, and have limited access to finance and capital.
Common barriers that women encounter to access public procurement include: corruption, bribery, favoritism/nepotism in the government structures, including in the form of sexual harassment and gender-based violence”.
Additionally, she said, “Inconsistent implementation and different interpretation of preferential procurement policies by various institutions of the government is another challenge, as is the oftentimes limited access to information faced by women-owned businesses. Additionally, long delays in payment from government procuring entities also discourage small-sized women-owned businesses to bid”.
The Liberian Context Results from a recent survey conducted by UN Women, UNOPS and PPCC, of 61 women-owned businesses, showed that: 30% of the respondents do not know where to find the tenders, 23% cited financial constraints as a hindrance.
Another 20% do not know how to submit bids using the E-tendering platforms; and 27% either fail to meet the technical requirements or lack the experience required.
According to the UN Women Boss, these findings point to the need to invest significantly to prepare and support women-owned businesses to access public procurement opportunities.
“I would like to thank you all for your commitment to this process and I would like to thank you all for your commitment to this process and I encourage all participants to seize the opportunity provided through this training to acquire the knowledge, skills and tools required to overcome these barriers so as to bid successfully for public procurement contracts in future. An important step is also to register on the government and United Nations platforms in order to have easy access to procurement opportunities,” she added.
In a special statement, Gender Ministry proxy at the occasion, described it as one that is key to enhancing women capacities through entrepreneurship.
Among the significance of the initiative to women, he termed it as one that has the propensity to heighten women economic dependence sustaining women economic empowerment, as it is cardinal to the ministry.
He admonished the women to make maximum use of the training, and further assured the ministry’s commitment.
In a remark, Aaron Seh, a representative from WFP, said with the usual mindset of WFP only being involved with food, said the institution presents huge business opportunities, which often affects women in Liberia.
As disclosed by him, between April and May, the WFP had spent, $USD231, 000 on locally produced food from small farmers who taste mostly women.
He alluded that this is also among several other activities they do with women to include the provision of products.
According to him, the workshop is intended to enable women to be prepared for opportunities that are in the UN system. “We want to do business with you, the ball is now in your court so make use of this opportunity
