Survive or Thrive: Women entrepreneurs in a post-war region
The Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) has been advocating for growth in its economy through the development of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). Special focus has been made on the Northern and Eastern Provinces since the end of the war with post-war recovery and regional growth expectations. There has been a push for the development of poultry and cattle rearing, production of food products and traditional arts and crafts among others as entrepreneurial activities propelled through state and international aid schemes. A study conducted by the Centre for Poverty Analysis (CEPA) in the Eastern Province focusing on female entrepreneurship greatly challenges the Government’s discourse on enterprising women.
File picture of a ILO-supported papaw plantation in the North. The writer says that most of the micro enterprises in the East are by women struggling to maintain their families.
Much has been done on the ground by the GoSL to promote women’s entrepreneurship. The National Enterprise Development Authority (NEDA) in particular recognises that women are successful in operating their own business. In order to support such enterprising women, NEDA is implementing a women entrepreneurship development programme at a regional level in all districts in order to assist women to finance and expand their businesses. Other policy documents also highlight the importance of female entrepreneurship. This has been raised in different policy documents such as the ‘National Policy Framework for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) Development’ prepared by the Ministry of Industry and Commerce in (2016) and the most recent, the ‘Enterprise Sri Lanka Programme’ prepared by the Department of Development Finance (2018). The ‘Reconciliation Action Plan’ (2017) and the ‘National Action Plan on Women Headed Households 2017-2019’ focuses on promotion of SMEs in the directly war affected areas and people.
There is the unstated assumption in Sri Lanka that every woman engaged in business is working toward skills development and to achieve a higher level of profit. This, in fact, is true only for a small percentage of female entrepreneurs. Many women in the war-affected region who are broadly identified as ‘entrepreneurs’ by the state as well as the community, are more focused on meeting the basic needs of their families and not necessarily in creating a business venture that would generate profit and improve their social status. They also prefer working from their home environment in order to balance care needs of their families.
While there are certainly women from the directly war-affected areas who fit the frame of entrepreneurship and plan to ‘thrive’, there are many others who engage in ‘entrepreneurial’ activities to ‘survive’, either for lack of choice or as a supplementary income source for the household. The study conducted shows how women work hard daily to earn a rough income of about Rs. 15,000 – Rs. 20,000 per month which is used to support their families and not expand their business as instructed. Some of these women cling to the past, with the hope that their missing family members will come back, or that they will be able to live in the lands of their parents. This leaves no desire to develop their skills and increase their profit. Rather they view the entrepreneurial activity as something temporary they engage in, until they are able to regain their past and move onto something better. For instance, as 67-year old Muriel points out:
“I grind rice flour, roast it, package it and sell it to retail shops in my village. Receiving the milling machine on a half-subsidy through the Department of Agriculture was an important turning point in my business life. It is because of this that I was able to up my own mill and increase my earnings… yet I refuse to leave this place and go to the town where I was born in case my daughter comes back. If she comes back, she will come here. This is her home. I can’t leave for better opportunities because I need to wait for my daughter to come back.”
As her reasons illustrate, the government’s efforts seems to completely overlook the fact that many women in these war- affected areas, who generally are the recipients of the workshops on skills development and entrepreneurship are not engaged for purposes of business but rather, survival. Almost a decade since the end of the war, there should be a need to understand how and why women engage in ‘entrepreneurship’ by the state and donors alike.
The provision of the basic necessities as well as training programmes to aid women into starting their own business activities is important. However, it must be noted that not all women fall within this discourse of being ‘enabled’ and ‘empowered’ entrepreneurial women who can actively contribute towards the development of the regional/national economy. There must be a better understanding of the post-war contexts and why women engage in entrepreneurship. Unless these aspects are well-understood, grouping all women who engage in any kind of micro-enterprise as an entrepreneur may not generate the necessary outcomes that the government anticipates.