Women play an active role in the Southern African economy, particularly at the local community level, but access to tools and information, especially for those working in the informal sector, limits their success. In South Africa, for example, 70.6% of informal businesses are owned and/or controlled by women. (Department of Trade and Industry, 1996). However, women lack the capital, technical and managerial skills, access to credit, markets, raw materials and services necessary to expand and grow.

In spite of these obstacles, every day people working in the development community hear of new successes achieved by women in small business. More and more examples of small-scale economic development projects initiated and run by women are emerging. It is critical for both women's and community development in Southern Africa that tools and resources to assist women in establishing successful business initiatives, particularly those with low literacy and numeracy, be shared more widely.

To meet this need, Women'sNet is proposing a two-phase project to develop information support to women in SMME, with an emphasis on meeting the needs of women with the least access to practical business information and resources. Phase 1 will focus on assessing women's SMME information needs and resources, building relationships with SMME organisations and convening a women's SMME reference group with the goal of assembling a more comprehensive plan for women's SMME information support in Phase 2.

Although dependent on the outcomes of Phase 1, it is expected that Phase 2 will involve the implementation of an information support programme for women in SMME, including: building an online clearinghouse of SMME information, developing information systems for supporting ongoing SMME content flow, training intermediary organisations in using the SMME site and repackaging information, and liaising with SMME organisations and practitioners in Southern African countries to support the development of similar local initiatives. This proposal outlines Phase 1 activities, which will run for six months, from April till September 1998.

Background
Women'sNet is a recently launched programme of outreach, information development, training and support aiming to make the Internet accessible and useful for women in South Africa. In its early planning phase, Women'sNet held a workshop with women's organisations to identify project priorities. Information for women entrepreneurs, particularly those in the informal sector, was stressed as a key need. Women'sNet is now exploring ways to meet this need as part of an overall plan of action for information development. We will use the experience and methodology from the initial Women'sNet web site development, and the Preventing Violence Against Women content initiative to inform our approach to building a South African women's SMME information support programme. (See the Women'sNet website at: http://womensnet.org.za)

Concurrently, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) will host its 40th Anniversary Conference, "African Women and Economic Development: Investing in our Future," on April 28 - May 1, 1998 in Addis-Ababa, Ethiopia. One of conference themes is: "African Women and the Information Age: A New Window of Opportunity". This conference offers an excellent opportunity for Women'sNet to showcase the utility of an online business support centre for women, as well as a chance to network among interested participants to further define content and priorities for the module.

Further, this project fits well within the priorities of IDRC's Acacia Initiative to support African ICT activities, particularly in the area of Applications, Services and Networks.

Objectives
The objectives of Phase 1 of this project, aimed primarily at women with least access to business information, are:

• to convene an active reference group of women's SMME information providers and practitioners for planning information support to women's SMME work
• to determine existing SMME information resources and information gaps for South African women
• to build a model SMME section of the Women'sNet site to showcase at the UNECA "African Women and Economic Development: Investing in our Future" conference at the end of April. Priority will be given to plain-language materials relating to micro-finance that target the needs of women with limited literacy and numeracy.
• to convene a workshop of the SMME reference group (and interested participants from elsewhere in Africa) to plan the SMME information clearinghouse, and provide training in Internet use and website building
• to work with the SMME information support reference group to plan the implementation of a longer-term project for women's SMME information support.

• to work with SMME organisations and practitioners to introduce South African women to how ICTs can be used to develop and enhance small business initiatives, particularly focussing on the needs of home-based businesses, cooperatives and self-employed women
• to start collecting South African business resources for an interactive Internet-based resource centre, with an emphasis on making accessible tools for those women with low literacy and numeracy such as preformatted, easy-to-use planning and operations tools.

Alliance for Micro Enterprise Practitioners
Department of Trade and Industry
- Centre for Small Business Promotion
- BRAIN project
Ntsika Enterprise Promotion Agency
Khula Enterprise Finance
National Small Business Council (NSBC) and Provincial SBCs
Self-Employed Women's Association
SEWU
CSIR
Forum Mulher
SA Online: small business database
IDRC's SMME consultants
USAID's SMME consultants
UNDP's SMME and Women's Projects consultants
Women's Development Banking
SANGONeT
APC Women's Programme in Africa
Universal Services Agency
Women'sNet Advisory Group and Information Strategy Team

Regional Participation
During Phase 1, Women'sNet will endeavour to involve women active in SMME from countries outside South Africa in order to encourage the development of similar information support initiatives on a wider scale. The UNECA conference offers an excellent face-to-face opportunity for Women'sNet to identify additional project participants and information sources.

Reference Group
Critical to the success of this initiative is a reference group drawn from organisations active in supporting women's SMME. From the pool of SMME agencies, Women'sNet will convene a small, active reference group to guide the development of the SMME online clearinghouse, and to plan the longer-term activities of the initiative. These key actors in women-specific SMME work will be invited to sit on the team:

Alliance for Micro Enterprise Practitioners
SEWA
SEWU
Women's Development Banking
UNDP's SMME consultants
Ntsika

The reference group would be expected to commit to do the following:

• proactively seek and feed appropriate information to the SMME site
• share and encourage media and technology skills within their organisations and organisations with which they work to develop capacity to use ICTs for the creation and sharing of information
• participate regularly (weekly) on an SMME Information Strategy mailing list
• attend skills development workshops and ad-hoc meetings of the SMME reference group as needed
• network and make links between their activities and the SMME project and to promote the SMME information support programme.

Within the reference group, it is expected that Women'sNet will work particularly closely with SEWU, who are a membership-based organisation. They can participate as an information provider, and offer an "end-user" constituency that we can test the SMME content clearinghouse with.

Implementation

PHASE 1: April - September 1998
Women'sNet will network with SMME organisations and practitioners in South Africa to identify key information priorities and a process for developing a long-term plan for information support to women in SMME. Where possible, Women'sNet will engage interested people in the field from outside South Africa, in order to begin the development of similar SMME information support initiatives in the rest of Africa.

Networking, Needs and Resource Assessment

• contact SMME intermediary organisations and practitioners in South Africa to identify information resources and needs, and priorities for online SMME information support
• contact small business support providers to determine which types of resources are in highest demand - from government, NGO and private sectors
• convene a women's SMME information support reference group
• attend relevant meetings and visit SMME organisations

• follow up information leads from the Needs and Resource Assessment phase and track down key documents
• do an inventory of available resources: online, on disk, hardcopy
• contact information sources and arrange for data submission
• do a preliminary site plan based on data submissions