This gathering is an auspicious occasion for me. To be able to present on a topic that I feel such passion for, is always a highlight. However, being able to be part of a forum considering the participation and empowerment of women with my only women colleague in the provincial cabinet, builds a strong sense of purpose for me.

There is a saying that women have to perform twice as well to receive half the recognition that men do. Luckily we know that is not very difficult. And it is not in our nature to set ourselves such low standards. Women, as we all know, are the bedrock of society.

Yet, the burden that our society places on women is a heavy one. In particular, lack of housing affects women disproportionately as compared to men.

In the delivering of housing, women have been pivotal. We consider the participation of women as beneficiaries, as financiers and as contractors in housing delivery.

We know that women head more than half the households in the country. Yet, they have not benefited as much as men have from housing subsidies. This situation needs to be rectified. My department is developing a communications strategy that will reach out to women to build awareness of their right to access government subsidies for housing.

Yet, since democratization, women have found it very challenging to translate potential opportunities of the business of housing into practical benefits. In the arena of housing, besides acting as beneficiaries, women can also play a role as financiers and as contractors.

Women as financiers refer to small start-ups where women start lending businesses and can offer finance for low-income housing. This is not a role that is very well known. You do not have to be a bank to offer loans but many innovative and entrepreneurial women have been supported to take on this role and offer small loans to support low-income housing.

The more known aspect of women in construction is where women act as contractors. This includes project management and financial management of housing projects.

In both these roles, as financiers and as contractors, women have experienced a range of challenges which I will consider today.

The first area of challenge is that of access to resources, both financial and technical. In particular, women struggle to access finance due to a lack of ownership of assets. In terms of financing, this often places women in high-risk groups.

To support women as financiers, government put in place the National Housing Finance Corporation (NHFC) and the Rural Housing Loan Fund. To a lesser extent there is Khula, which supports enterprise development. In addition, the National Urban Reconstruction and Housing Agency (NURCHA) provide working capital and bridging finance.

Since its establishment, the NHFC has financed women associations or companies to the value of R175 million. In an overall low income housing market that has seen the expenditure of about R38 billion since 1994, that is a very small amount. More can be done to cultivate women associations and ensure their participation.

In line with this, the NHFC also supports women start up companies by helping them structure their financial arrangements and putting in place infrastructure. NHFC is a national institution and any women with a project or business plan can approach them. Gender is in fact one of their qualifying criteria.

Nurcha is an agency that provides working capital and bridging finance. Last year, Nurcha made R68 million available to women nationally and presently, 10% of their clients are women contractors.

While these agencies exist, many women entrepreneurs, either as financiers or contractors, may not be aware that they can approach these institutions for support in accessing finances and technical support.

The second key challenge women face as contractors, is a lack of skills and experience in areas such as technical and project management, as well as business and financial management.

Now, this seems to be quite obvious and that is why we are here today, but many women have not run construction companies before. When they are in positions where they have to run their own cash flow and balance sheet, women come up short because of a lack of experience and skills.

Often, when a woman contractor gets a contract, she has to outsource the project and financial management aspects. These are very expensive services and the businesswoman ends up with very little profit and unable to sustain a business. There is no need for such situations to continue. Yet, there is currently no national intervention where women are being targeted to equip them with project and financial management skills.

This area needs urgent attention and is an area that my department will support vigorously. This is why I would like to challenge the NHBRC together with national department of housing to target more women-headed construction companies in their capacity building programme.

The organizations that can be challenged to pay more attention to this area include South Africa Women in Housing (SAWiC) and Women for Housing. SAWiC advises women on tenders and have a subscription service to inform them of tenders.

It has a national network of offices and can be contacted through the Development Bank of South Africa. Women for Housing supports skills development as well as linking women to finance. While some of these activities have been concentrated mainly in Gauteng, the challenge is on your to ensure that their activities spread to the Western Cape and that they become visible in the work that they do.

The third major challenge is around the way that low-cost housing projects are structured. Due to our massive housing backlog, most local governments opt for large-scale projects with more than 1000 units. This means that anyone tendering for these projects have to be able to demonstrate the capacity to deliver. Very few women companies can do that. In Mpumalanga, great success has been achieved with structuring projects differently.

We need to challenge our local governments in the Western Cape to break projects into smaller pieces, around 500 units, where realistic opportunities can be created for women participation. Women contractors can then consider working together to get to the capacity levels and scale that are required for such projects.

A challenge that is linked to this is the requirement of performance guarantees. Very few small, emerging businesses can afford tying up capital or paying for such guarantees. Alternative strategies need to be considered where women's participation can be ensured without compromising on performance.

The fourth major challenge is around access to opportunities. This means being aware of tenders and opportunities for support services. Some of the institutional support that is available has been mentioned. However, access is required at a local level where local governments act as developers. Nationally the requirement is that 10% of housing contracts should go to women. At this stage, Gauteng is the only province that has succeeded in this.

The main reason is that the local authorities in Gauteng have been sensitized and are conscious that women can deliver and should be given access. In many other areas, traditional stereotypes still exist and women are generally disregarded in decision-making. Once again, local governments need to be held responsible.

They should be allocating at least 10% of their housing contracts to women contractors in line with the preferential procurement procedures. This should be linked to the performance of municipalities, which in turn determines their allocation.

All of these challenges that I have put on the table are obstacles that can be overcome. Policy and practice can be shaped to deliver the outcomes that we want. The central proposition is how we as women are going to respond to these challenges. In particular, forums like this one are helpful to empower women to enter the debates.

The benefit of networking at events of this nature is immense as women can start to hatch projects and plans that can start to address some of these challenges. While the time will come where women contractors will compete with other women contractors, now may be the time to join efforts to build capacity.

I have highlighted some challenges and some potential channels to address these. I also referred to some of the support institutions that exist. But the challenge lies with you. You need to engage local governments to open the doors and to restructure the projects to manageable sizes. You need to engage the support institutions and get from them what you need to succeed.

Now, I want to end off by encouraging you, the women in construction in the Western Cape, to take an interest and be more involved in the low cost housing industry. It is a sector where you can build your capacity, gain experience and move into other, more sophisticated areas of construction.

The whole field of women as financiers is also not very well developed in our province. Spread the word and build awareness on this and let's link up those budding entrepreneurs to get the support from the relevant institutions and get these businesses going.