Digital skills development of South Asian women entrepreneurs: Opportunities and challenges for Sri Lanka

These are excerpts of an address delivered by the author, recently, at a forum hosted by the UN-ESCAP and Think Tank RIS of 

New Delhi.

Untapped economic potential of women of South Asia

“Digital technology could be a powerful equaliser, helping to close gender gaps by expanding access to financial services, economic opportunities, and education.”- Antonio Guterres, Secretary General of the UN

The region of South Asia is confronted by economic and gender inequality challenges and disparity than most of other regions particularly in the context of women and women-led enterprises. This region, mostly, economically lags behind dismally and abysmally only ahead of Sub-Saharan region since its total combined GDP is only around $ 5.6 trillion. This figure is less than 5% of global GDP, which is around $ 130 trillion and accounts for over 25% of global population with a GDP per capita of less than $ 3,000. In comparison, the global GDP per capita is around $ 15,000 (Global GDP 130 trillion/Population of 8.3 billion), which is over five times of the per capita of the entire South Asia or the eight-member SAARC. In the context of trade, the entire bilateral trade of South Asia is around $ 1.7 trillion, contributing mostly by India, and intra-regional trade, technically, is less than 3%. This figure has not moved since the formation of SAARC as far back as in 1985. This makes the region of South Asia one of the least integrated or connected regions in the world. On an optimistic and sanguine note, this is a region having almost unprecedented and unparalleled natural endowments but not limited to geography, history, human resources and reasonable degree of peace and stability. 

One of the key and seminal solutions with palpable and tangible results would be to unlock the potential of women entrepreneurs (WE) in an increasingly digital economy of the South Asian region. This includes participation of women in Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) with proficiency of digitalisation and entrepreneurial skills and capacity. Lack of participation of women in the workforce, even in developed advanced economies, is still relatively common, thus leading to the gender divide, now known mostly as digital gender divide. According to the Cheri Blair Foundation for Women, if women could match the number of men in employment, to the extent possible, then it would add $ 5 trillion to the global economy (GDP) or 4% or greater than the GDP of Japan or India. Surprisingly the region of South Asia, including Sri Lanka, has performed most estimably with regard to women participation in the sphere of politics than in any other region. This region produced the first ever female Prime Minister in 1960 by Sri Lanka and followed by India in 1974, Pakistan in 1988 and Bangladesh in 1991 respectively.

Gender divide on global basis and contribution of women to Sri Lanka economy 

In comparison to other countries, including advanced economies, Sri Lanka has performed commendably and creditably well with regard to participation of women in the workforce. The first ever CEO of a "Fortune 500" corporation was Katherine Graham of Washington Post in 1963. Even as recently as in year 2000, the “Fortune 500” corporates had only two women CEOs i.e. Hewlett Packard and Avon Products. Until recently, “Fortune 500” had more Johns, Roberts and James as CEOs than women CEOs, thus manifesting and establishing the scale and scope of the gender divide on a global scale. One of the most inspirational experiments was none other than the Grameen Banking model of political leader and Nobel Laureate of Bangladesh, Mohammed Yunus, in 1976. Grameen micro-finance system lends loans and financial assistance to MSMEs and entrepreneurs mostly to women. Surprisingly, 97% of Grameen borrowers were women and over 95% of them honoured and paid back those loans, which were basically unprecedented in any financial and banking eco-system anywhere in the world. Interestingly, this course of action did fulfill the gender lacuna decidedly and elevated the standards of living of the marginalised and under-privileged in Bangladesh. 

It is often being stated that digital inclusion of women could also raise $ 5 trillion to the global GDP. It is of no revelation to anybody that women of Sri Lanka, until recently, used to contribute immensely and immeasurably to the national economy. The three leading foreign exchange earners of Sri Lanka i.e. apparel and garments, foreign migrant remittances and tea, which used to consist of nearly 70% of women contributed approximately 12% of the GDP of Sri Lanka. It is indeed most imperative and indispensable to up-skill or up-scale the abilities and employability of women, mostly by encompassing digital inclusion, which in turn, would boost and aggrandise their income by twice or three times over. This is critically significant for women entrepreneurs (WEs) and women-run MSMEs. 

Bridging the digital divide, thus leading to unlocking of economic prowess 

In the region of South Asia, including Sri Lanka, the digital inclusion of WE could be addressed by improving legal and regulatory frameworks, addressing online gender-based harassment, expanding digital infrastructure and ecosystem, investing in digital skills training and empowering women through digital platforms, amongst others. These skill-sets and knowledge could accumulate and facilitate WE to have access to finances, banking, new markets, upgrade their products and services, trade with countries in the neighbourhood, and even to have Venture Capitalists (VCs) and Private Equities (PEs), with the passage of time. This is the economic and industrial sequence or order to transmute and graduate an MSME, SME, mid-sized company, large corporate, national player, regional player to global corporate behemoth. However, its disquieting and unsettling to note that during the last 100 years, only a handful of global corporates, which have become household names, were founded or co-founded by women world over. Some of them were Estee Lauder in 1946, Mary Kay Cosmetics in 1963, Bumble in 2014, Grab technology service company in 2012, Biocon Ltd., of India in 1978 and Shahnaz Husain Group of India in 1971 respectively.   

It would be apposite and pertinent to pay cognisance to the fact that the largest 7 or 10 corporates in the world, known as “Magnificent-7 or 10’’all of them had incredibly humble beginnings ranging from garages, college dorm and rented rooms to family restaurant booths as MSMEs. These initial seven corporates have an average age of less than 35 years and range from Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet (Google) to NVIDIA with a total market cap of over $ 24 trillion or much larger than the entire GDP of China or 75% of the GDP of the US. For all record purposes, all these Mag-10 global corporates were founded and co-founded only by men and not by the participation of a single woman, which patently demonstrates the gender divide or rather digital gender gulf. “Technology is one of the key drivers of female economic empowerment, but the field that women choose to participate in are still decidedly gendered” - Weili Dai, former President of Marvel Technology and the only female co-founder of a major semiconductor company.

Positive impact on Sri Lanka with digital participation of women as WE

Sri Lanka is one of the very few countries having a dedicated and exclusive Ministry for Digital Economy and if channelled and unleashed its objectives and potential, mostly to embrace WE, the positive economic and commercial impact and rise of GDP per capita could be most overwhelming. It is conservatively estimated that participation of women with digitalisation could accrue around $ 4 billion or 4% of the GDP of Sri Lanka. This economic stratagem could be one of the most efficacious routes to increase the current GDP per capita of 

$ 5,000, along with other concomitant economic attributes and reforms, to cross GDP per capita to $ 10,000 before 2035. As Melinda Gates of Gates Foundation, quote “When you invest in a woman’s digital literacy, you aren’t just empowering an individual - you are unlocking an economic multiplier that lifts entire communities and accelerates global growth” unquote.

It is indispensable that digitalisation, in all spheres and provinces, has to be executed and prosecuted correctly and efficiently as noted pioneer of digitalisation, George Westerman of MIT, quote “If digitalisation is implemented efficiently, it's like a caterpillar morphing or turning to a butterfly. If done wrongly, then all you get is a fast caterpillar, but still a caterpillar” unquote.

(The author is a former career Ambassador, Visiting Professor and Examiner of International Economics and Geopolitics in over 35 universities of repute in the world, Board Member and Corporate Adviser. He earned MBA from San Francisco State/University of California, PhD from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi and is a Senior Fellow and former Speaker/Guest Lecturer at Harvard. He could be reached on [email protected])