Flagship Programme Initiative

Women-owned businesses secure only 5 percent of procurement government contracts. However, if organizations make concerted efforts to procure from women-owned businesses and engage in gender-responsive supply chain and investment practices, and if the capacity of women business owners to access finance and skills development is strengthened, then women will have access to a more equal share of the market. That will enable them to seize new market opportunities, which will increase their sales. Furthermore, it will lead to higher incomes, while expansion of operations will create more jobs.

We launched the Flagship Programme Initiative in 2018 in partnership with UN Women to foster women’s economic empowerment through entrepreneurship and respond to the gap in women’s access to procurement markets by addressing demand and supply-side constraints. The project is being implemented globally, with a special focus on South Africa and the UAE.

Apart from offering the capacity building to women-owned enterprises and women's business associations and technical assistance to the public and private sector, under the Flagship Program Initiative, we have also spearheaded high-level advocacy and dialogue for gender-responsive procurement and women's enterprise development globally. To date, 1,300 people have benefited from online learning globally, while 4,318 women have benefited from digital literacy training in South Africa. Our leading advocacy efforts have also led to the promotion of gender-responsive procurement by the President of South Africa.

In the UAE, under the FPI, we organized the Women Economic Empowerment Global Summit (WEEGS) in Sharjah in December 2017 and 2019 to raise awareness of the challenges faced by women entrepreneurs, strengthen the capacities of women to succeed in running businesses, and provide networking opportunities for women entrepreneurs.