Dialogue session calls for protecting women-owned home-based businesses

AMMAN — Calls for regulating women’s home-based businesses took the centre stage at a virtual dialogue session on Monday.

The session, titled “Women Working from Home in Jordan: Challenges for Women’s Entrepreneurship and Employment during COVID-19”, was organised by CARE International in Jordan and the Phenix Centre for Economic Studies.

Women’s economic participation in the workforce in Jordan is the third lowest in the world (14 per cent), according to the Phenix Centre.

Home-based business is a large sector, although there are no studies on the extent of women’s participation in it, according to Head of Women Helping Women Network Rania Sweiti.

“The sector needs regulation, as we need to rethink of the way businesses are organised for women working from home. They need guidance and support and they need to know the benefits of registering their business, because unregistered businesses have not been able to access government support during the pandemic,” Sweiti said.

Sweiti highlighted the importance of creating a “support fund” for women-owned businesses.

According to Sweiti, regulating and organising the sector provides protection for women and their business, especially as the pandemic has majorly affected women and many businesses have been shut down.

She indicated that one of the most significant challenges women entrepreneurs faced during the pandemic was accessing raw materials.

“This sector needs business incubators, which encourages women to register their business. The sector must be studied as an integrated system because we need to encourage people to resort to entrepreneurship and the home-based businesses sector,” Sweiti added.

Sweiti also highlighted obstacles that women face when registering their business. 

“The long process of registration and getting licenses [up to four to five months] discourages women to register their projects, as well as the fear of failure, and lack of awareness,” she said.

Manal Wazani, CEO of Durrat Al Manal for Development and Training, a local NGO, added that the high registration fees are a main reason why women choose not to register their businesses.

“The most important form of empowerment of women entrepreneurs working from home is legal empowerment through business registration, as they also need support and guidance regarding financial matters,” Wazani said.

She indicated that only about 10 per cent of home-based businesses succeed.

“Successful cases are few, therefore, it is necessary to focus on the donors’ role, especially in mentoring and business planning,” she said, stressing that women need financial, administrative and legal empowerment.

Rawan Abu Sal, head of the Economic Empowerment Department at the Ministry of Labour, emphasised the ministry’s role in protecting workers, both women and men, during the pandemic through Defence Order No 6.

Abu Sal encouraged women entrepreneurs and home-based business owners to officially register their business, as unregistered business owners in the informal sectors are outside the protection of the Labour Ministry.

Ghaidaa Al Hadeed, director of the Department of Utilities and Social Programmes at the Greater Amman Municipality (GAM), noted that the GAM aims to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and to empower women economically.

She indicated that the instructions for licensing home-based businesses were approved in 2012, and amendments made in 2020. A total of 71 professions were licensed as home-based professions, she said.

Hadeed also noted that GAM’s website provides a platform for licence applications to simplify and speed up the procedures.

According to Hadeed, GAM divided home-based professions into 4 categories: Intellectual professions (49), handicrafts (10), cooking (6), and home services (6). She noted that the number of home-based business licences stand at 2334, made up of both women and men.

“During the pandemic, GAM provided exemption for home business owners from renewing licences for three years as a kind of facilitation,” Hadeed added.

The Department of Utilities and Social Programmes in GAM, through the Women’s Department, has helped provide social services for women within the Economic Empowerment of Women initiative since 2018. 

However, the number of women who have benefitted from the initiative dropped from 16,000 to 7,035 in 2021 due to the pandemic, Hadeed noted.

“The initiative offers different training programmes to help empower women from different nationalities economically, psychologically, and socially. This plays a huge role in the success of any business,” she added.