Gender Considerations in the City of Johannesburg SMME Support Programme

Abstract

The City of Johannesburg is still facing many challenges with regard to promotion of gender equality and institutionalization of women„s rights. These challenges include transformation in Gender relations, poverty, access to basic needs, access to employment and economic empowerment. These challenges have been translated into National priorities with compelling Gender dimensions, which need to be addressed if the CoJ is to advance towards women empowerment and gender equality. This research study was aimed at examining the factors leading to the lack of Gender considerations in City of Johannesburg (CoJ), Department of Economic Development (DED) Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises (SMME) development and support programme. The Research findings revealed that the CoJ still need to undergo a paradigm shift with regard to the way in which resources are allocated, how women are benefiting from poverty alleviation and economic empowerment programmes and keeping regular, accurate and updated Gender-disaggregated statistics. The paper makes the recommendation that Gender consideration should inform policy formulation, programme implementation, monitoring, evaluation and reporting. This is due to the fact that Gender and women empowerment is one of the Government priorities and also one of the Millennium Development Goals. Therefore DED should prioritize Gender issues and include Gender indicators in the Departmental scorecard. Change of mindset amongst DED staff with regard to Gender and Women empowerment, ongoing training on Gender issues and concepts are highly recommended for effective and efficient implementation of Gender sensitive programmes in the Department