Facilitating Women Entrepreneurs: A Challenge for Women’s Organisation
Abstract
There is a long-running debate about the failure of policy in helping women to achieve gender equality. As such, this paper highlights the extent to which gender issues have been considered in planning interventions intended for women. The issue was investigated by exploring the implementation process in providing business support for women entrepreneurs in a women’s organisation in Sabah. This study uses semi-structured interviews and documentary analysis as the data collection techniques. An in-depth interviews with three representatives who lead different departments in the organisation were conducted. The findings demonstrate that women’s organisation in this study face various challenges in maximising its functions in helping women entrepreneurs. The establishment of women’s organisation can be regarded as a good effort in minimising gender issue that women encounter; however, this study shows the presence of power relations issue that has caused the organisation to still fight for resources. Consequently, the women’s organisation in this study suffer from internal structural weaknesses which has led to its inability to recruit adequate human resources and to strengthen its programmes for women. It is therefore recommended that women’s organisations should be able to act as a powerful player in delivering its value to women and not being discriminated against by the issue of power resources.
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